The navigation stripe located at the top most part of the page on a Blogspot blog features several links including: Follow, Share, Report Abuse, and Next Blog. I'm a frequent user of the "Next Blog" button. This is how I discover blog authors and their content that happens to be outside my normal searching behavior on Google. More often than not, I find information and blogs written about families, friends, recipes, fashion, and much more. There are a lot of digital photographs and digital videos embedded with various blog entries, and the blog content tends to be more personal and intimate in nature. It would appear that most blog authors using the Blogspot service tend not to monetize their blog, and that's tantamount to leaving money on the table folks!
I understand that the primary purpose a Blogspot blog serves is to communicate information to particular individuals. Parents showcase their children to other family members and friends, artists showcase their photographs to potential clients, and writers showcase their latest works. But since most blog authors set up their blog in such a manner as to allow the rest of the world to peer in, activity on personal blogs is not limited to a specific set of people. Take a moment and see what I mean: experiment with the Next Blog button. (And if you stumble across Prosperent Affiliate Marketing or Observations in a Strange Land, drop me a line.)
Most blogs I discover on Blogspot are not monetizing their content. I do not know for sure if such a choice is the result of a conscious effort or of simply not knowing how the process of making money from Blogspot works. In either case, both situations leave money on the table. I'm sure that if you saw $10 laying on the ground during a walk in the park that you would make an effort to capture it. You would then purchase something like a cold drink and it would taste all the better because it was free. The same reason applies to monetizing a Blogspot blog: you would get paid to do what you're doing already: publishing content.
And while Adsense is a popular tool for monetizing a Blogspot blog, there is another program available: Prosperent. With the Prosperent program, you get paid when people buy a merchant's item through advertising banners and links embedded with your Blogspot blog's content. And the best thing here is that you can make purchases through your own affiliate links, so it's like always having the perfect coupon with your favorite item on sale. After your purchase and assuming that you did not do a product return, Prosperent will deposit a percentage of the final sale amount to your account. Let's take a concrete example and suppose that you operate a Blogspot blog about cooking and you feature recipes on it. On your blog are photographs and tutorials that detail how to create various culinary feats. Prosperent would see this information on your Blogspot blog and would display products for sale that are related to your content. Therefore, everyone would see banner advertisements about cooking magazines, cookbooks, useful kitchen tools and appliances, and the list goes on and on. The point here is that people who read your cooking blog are more likely than not to be interested in purchasing cooking supplies -- perhaps the same cooking supplies that you use!
However, if you don't feature ads on your Blogspot blog, then there is no way that money can be made from them. If you need addition help with the Prosperent Affiliate Program, then there is a forum where questions can be asked and where information and tutorials can be read. Following the above link will lead you to the Prosperent website where, upon joining, you will have access to create "Performance Ads" which can be custom tailored to various sizes and color schemes to merge with the design of your paticular Blogspot blog.
There's nothing to lose, and Prosperent encourages that your family and friends make purchases through the banners you will be featuring on your blog. And once you see how easy it is to make money online, you'll wonder why it took you so long to put a few high class advertisements on your Blogspot blog.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Keyword bidding: How to succeed with Prosperent in 8 Steps
In a recent post titled "Amazon hates their affiliates," I made the case that Amazon was and is doing everything within its authority to bypass paying their affiliates in order that customers visit the Amazon parent site directly. In summary of that article, Amazon affiliates were engaging in the practice of keyword bidding in order to send traffic directly from the search engine result page to Amazon's site. The affiliate would attach their Amazon ID to the referral link and would earn a commission from the sale. This strategy was brilliant because the Amazon affiliate links would appear only in relation to the relevancy of the search engine query and result. Therefore, a customer was more likely to investigate Amazon's products after a search engine query about a particular "product review" for example.
This practice was so popular and profitable for affiliates that Amazon put the brakes on it. This profit saving measure was good for Amazon's bottom line and it was bad for the affiliates, upon whom Amazon owes its house hold name recognition after years of their online marketing efforts in exchange for commissions. But in this particular blog post, I am not debating the merits of Amazon's practice; rather, my goal is to illuminate this practice for its obvious and profitable applicability to the Prosperent Affiliate Program.
Enjoy your membership with Prosperent.
This practice was so popular and profitable for affiliates that Amazon put the brakes on it. This profit saving measure was good for Amazon's bottom line and it was bad for the affiliates, upon whom Amazon owes its house hold name recognition after years of their online marketing efforts in exchange for commissions. But in this particular blog post, I am not debating the merits of Amazon's practice; rather, my goal is to illuminate this practice for its obvious and profitable applicability to the Prosperent Affiliate Program.
- After you are a member of Prosperent, you'll need to create your first Performance Ad in the Prosperent dashboard. A performance ad is a piece of javascript code that can be placed on a website, such as a free blog from Blogger. If you have questions on how to create a performance ad (once called TCPA Ads), consult the following video:
- Now that you have created your first javascript piece of code, it is time to integrate that with your website. If you're using blogger, here is a useful video that shows how to create a new section on your blog that will contain the code:
- At this point in time, it is assumed that you (a.) have a website, and can (b.) add the Prosperent javascript to your website. Also assumed at this point is that you are able to SEE your Prosperent Ads. If you cannot, please re-read the previous steps and figure out what went wrong. It is also possible that you have an ad-blocker that disables javascript from showing up in the first place. You might need to disable that, or at least allow your domain to pass through the ad-filter in order to complete the next steps.
- Now comes the fun part. You're going to decide which products you want to market through search engine keyword bidding. A popular item (in August 2011) is Halloween costumes. Actually, as Halloween approaches, the sale of Halloween costumes will increase. So, create a post in your blogger account relating to Halloween costumes.
- You should now be able to see Prosperent Ads that feature Halloween costumes.
- Hover your mouse over the link to the Halloween costume, and copy the URL of the ad to your clipboard. If you're using the Firefox browser, hover your mouse over the product of interest, and right click your mouse and "Copy Link Location" . This link location will be where you will be directing traffic from your search engine ad creation page.
- If you need help creating ads on Google or on Bing, it is recommended that you see YouTube videos. Watch tutorial videos until you feel comfortable creating an ad campaign on Google or Bing!
- Target keywords that are specific and relevant to the product you identified on Prosperent. Also, be sure to link to the product URL that was copied to your clipboard, i.e., the specific link found earlier.
Enjoy your membership with Prosperent.
Tips for successful blog commenting
There's a specific etiquette that guides the world of blog commenting. When the rules are followed, comment approval rates increase; when the rules are discarded, blog comments sail to the spam folder. It all comes down to a simple rule: demonstrate consideration through comments. While consideration appears to be a simple rule to follow, many comments are disapproved because of their lack of it.
Good comments add value to the original article and enhance the ensuing discussion found in the comments section. Terrible comments are short and are filled with links to other sites and not much else. Blog owners, for the most part, are fulfilling some need to receive attention from the general public for their intellectual effort; the comments that get approved are more likely to cater to the blog author's need for attention in a positive manner.
Good comments demonstrate intelligence: this means that good comments make use of proper capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and word choice. Good comments relate to the topic at hand, and contribute more original content to the blog author's original article. While asking questions in the comments is a decent practice, better questions tend to have a couple of sentences prefacing the question's purpose or intent. In this manner, blog comments still contribute information while seeking clarification. Imagine if all blog comments were nothing more than questions -- this would put an additional burden on the blog author to respond and write beyond the original scope of the entry. For a blog author to answer the question, the question itself must be framed in such a way as to enhance the entry's value in the first place.
Blog commenting is a practice used to advertise the knowledge and intellect of the commentator. Poor blog comments reflect on the blog commentator, similar to how blog entries reflect on the content author. By taking the time to formulate blog comments that add to the general blog's original content, comments are more likely to be approved. Comments that are short and without much purpose other than to advertise other websites are insulting and do nothing to stroke the ego of the writer.
A little consideration goes a long way.
con·sid·er·a·tion [kuhThere are several ways to demonstrate consideration to the blog author, all of which are communicated in the comment's word choice. Good comments show consideration when the comment cites something specific in the blog entry and builds upon it, and the comment demonstrates that the blog entry was read and understood. In addition, good comments usually span over two or more sentences and refrain from simple words or phrases such as "Good article," "I agree," "Thanks for the information," etc.n-sid-uh-rey-shuh
noun
- the act of considering; careful thought; meditation; deliberation: I will give your project full consideration.
- something that is or is to be kept in mind in making a decision, evaluating facts, etc.: Age was an important consideration in the decision.
- thoughtful or sympathetic regard or respect; thoughtfulness for others: They showed no consideration for his feelings.
- a thought or reflection; an opinion based upon reflection.
- a recompense or payment, as for work done; compensation.
Good comments add value to the original article and enhance the ensuing discussion found in the comments section. Terrible comments are short and are filled with links to other sites and not much else. Blog owners, for the most part, are fulfilling some need to receive attention from the general public for their intellectual effort; the comments that get approved are more likely to cater to the blog author's need for attention in a positive manner.
Good comments demonstrate intelligence: this means that good comments make use of proper capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and word choice. Good comments relate to the topic at hand, and contribute more original content to the blog author's original article. While asking questions in the comments is a decent practice, better questions tend to have a couple of sentences prefacing the question's purpose or intent. In this manner, blog comments still contribute information while seeking clarification. Imagine if all blog comments were nothing more than questions -- this would put an additional burden on the blog author to respond and write beyond the original scope of the entry. For a blog author to answer the question, the question itself must be framed in such a way as to enhance the entry's value in the first place.
Blog commenting is a practice used to advertise the knowledge and intellect of the commentator. Poor blog comments reflect on the blog commentator, similar to how blog entries reflect on the content author. By taking the time to formulate blog comments that add to the general blog's original content, comments are more likely to be approved. Comments that are short and without much purpose other than to advertise other websites are insulting and do nothing to stroke the ego of the writer.
A little consideration goes a long way.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Make Money Online Idea #3: Blogging
In order to understand what Google considers a successful site about making money, I performed a search for the key phrase "make money" . Out of 439,000,000 results or content pages related to this topic, the number one result was a blog titled "101 Ways to Make Money."
After Money Making Idea 1: Make Money Taking Paid Online Surveys – Free Membership and Money Making Idea 2: How To Make Money On EBay, Money Making Idea 3: How To Make Money Blogging appears to rank as the third most important method of money making online. The content author gets right to the point and suggests that blogging online is an excellent way of making additional revenue after achieving an "impressive and loyal readership." In other words, the author suggests that revenue follows in proportion with the number of people who are attracted to the content in the first place; the more people who visit in order to read, the more people who are available to click on advertisements, to join affiliate programs, and to make purchases.
Also interesting about this particular article about blogging is that its first comment occurs on October 26, 2009 at 1:10 pm, and that its overall domain ranks #1 in Google for the above mentioned key phrase on today's date: August 23, 2011. Either it took just under two years to achieve this result, or this result has been obtained and sustained for quite some time now.
Design color
After writing a little bit about the importance of being in complete control of your blog, and after writing a little information about web hosting and domain purchasing, the article author mentions that it is important to find a blog design template that complements the content. In my opinion, a blog's design should (a.) be easy to read, (b.) not cause eye strain, (c.) be laid out logically, and (d.) use colors that one already recognizes. As an example, for the longest time Google themselves used a certain color scheme. Google colored their links blue (#0000FF), the URL of the links green (#008000), and the text message of the link as black (#000000). We can assume that after much research and development that Google chose their scheme to maximize clicks. Therefore, it would seem logical to pattern the design of one's own personal blog after that which a multi-billion dollar corporation considers more conducive to human click behavior.
Content selection
"Something you are passionate about," the author argues, is what should determine the content of your blog. I have written about this elsewhere, but to review, content should be unique, insightful, and should reflect the perceptional-experiential world of the content author. If you're a minister, writing about religion would be a good choice; if you're a parent, perhaps sharing successful parenting techniques would be a good start. If you're a person who likes to think about the deeper meaning of things, then perhaps sharing and describing with the world your unique point of view would be a good fit. Controversial topics inspire debate and argument, so it's best not to wear your emotions on your shoulder if you want to discuss sensitive topics.
Raising social awareness
Monetizing
The author concludes by mentioning that ads can be placed on the blog, and that a successful blog can be sold for 10x its monthly ad revenue. When it comes to selection, I would recommend a blend of Amazon, Adsense, and Prosperent advertisements. Each alone stands to meet decent coin, but when used together, more opportunities are presented to each blog visitor. Remember that money is a function of traffic, and traffic is a function of good content.
Commentary: The dream of every webmaster is to have his or her site rank as the first result on Google's search engine result page. The reason is simple: the site that ranks #1 will receive the most Internet traffic. Of note is that Google ranks Internet sites as a function of their secret sauce algorithm; those sites that Google considers to be "most relevant" will rank higher. So... see what your competitors are doing and do it better.Content readership
After Money Making Idea 1: Make Money Taking Paid Online Surveys – Free Membership and Money Making Idea 2: How To Make Money On EBay, Money Making Idea 3: How To Make Money Blogging appears to rank as the third most important method of money making online. The content author gets right to the point and suggests that blogging online is an excellent way of making additional revenue after achieving an "impressive and loyal readership." In other words, the author suggests that revenue follows in proportion with the number of people who are attracted to the content in the first place; the more people who visit in order to read, the more people who are available to click on advertisements, to join affiliate programs, and to make purchases.
Also interesting about this particular article about blogging is that its first comment occurs on October 26, 2009 at 1:10 pm, and that its overall domain ranks #1 in Google for the above mentioned key phrase on today's date: August 23, 2011. Either it took just under two years to achieve this result, or this result has been obtained and sustained for quite some time now.
Design color
After writing a little bit about the importance of being in complete control of your blog, and after writing a little information about web hosting and domain purchasing, the article author mentions that it is important to find a blog design template that complements the content. In my opinion, a blog's design should (a.) be easy to read, (b.) not cause eye strain, (c.) be laid out logically, and (d.) use colors that one already recognizes. As an example, for the longest time Google themselves used a certain color scheme. Google colored their links blue (#0000FF), the URL of the links green (#008000), and the text message of the link as black (#000000). We can assume that after much research and development that Google chose their scheme to maximize clicks. Therefore, it would seem logical to pattern the design of one's own personal blog after that which a multi-billion dollar corporation considers more conducive to human click behavior.
Content selection
"Something you are passionate about," the author argues, is what should determine the content of your blog. I have written about this elsewhere, but to review, content should be unique, insightful, and should reflect the perceptional-experiential world of the content author. If you're a minister, writing about religion would be a good choice; if you're a parent, perhaps sharing successful parenting techniques would be a good start. If you're a person who likes to think about the deeper meaning of things, then perhaps sharing and describing with the world your unique point of view would be a good fit. Controversial topics inspire debate and argument, so it's best not to wear your emotions on your shoulder if you want to discuss sensitive topics.
Raising social awareness
"One great way to do this is to submit it to as many of the social bookmarking sites as possible. You can also join social networking sites and build a profile which contains a link to your blog. Other no cost ways to generate traffic include writing free articles for article directories with a link to your blog at the end, and creating signatures at the end of any posts you make to internet forums, and also in all the emails you send out. When you really start thinking about it, you don’t actually need to spend anything to generate plenty of traffic."I would add that it is important to advertise your blog's RSS feed. Many individuals read from within aggregate programs and will not visit your blog personally. Also, there are some directories and other websites who accept RSS feeds alone. The best method is to syndicate your content through Feedburner.
Monetizing
The author concludes by mentioning that ads can be placed on the blog, and that a successful blog can be sold for 10x its monthly ad revenue. When it comes to selection, I would recommend a blend of Amazon, Adsense, and Prosperent advertisements. Each alone stands to meet decent coin, but when used together, more opportunities are presented to each blog visitor. Remember that money is a function of traffic, and traffic is a function of good content.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Help with Ads on Blogspot
"Either content follows advertising or advertising follows content." What this phrase means is that either the art of blogging will occur for the sake of fulfilling the art, or it will occur for the sake of securing profit -- why not both at the same time?
I scoff at those who claim to create content for the sole sake of content creation; content creation occurs for a purpose and/or reason that guides the art of creation in the first place. Earning advertising revenue seems to be the grand design of content creation and its publication on the internet. Money, in other words, is the primary motivator for the creation of content. However, this is not to say that content created under these circumstances must be sub-level or meaningless. Quite the contrary, money and internet traffic encourage content writers to produce better and better articles.
Blogspot provides the cheapest, best, and easiest platform to showcase such content to the world. Blogspot is a free blogging service provided through Google, and it is indeed possible to feature advertisements from Google's Adsense, advertisements from the Amazon Associates Program, and ads from the Prosperent Affiliate Network on Blogspot. The question is: when should those ads be shown? Should content creation determine ad selection or should the potential money earned from ads determine the particular kind of content that is made?
The answer is both. In other words, content creation should be an easy act for the one who is writing the article. The article should relate to personal experience in some manner, or it should be a reflection of certain ideas held in the mind of the author. Ideas can range from broad categories such as Home Business to specific niche categories such as which freezers obtain the perfect amount of ice slush in canned soda. Advertisements are then placed around or blended in with this content with the hope that some users will be interested in the ads or products displayed, and will click the ad or make the product purchase.
Now, some content niches offer higher commissions than others. The amount of revenue that one can earn from clicks on ads about pink and blue bunniess living in Antartica is less than the amount of revenue that one can earn blog entries about finances or celebrity news. If one has ideas about content relating to finances or celebrity news, then the advertisements will necessarily reflect the content and will yield a much higher payout.
Ads on Blogspot are designed to be a part of a larger templating system. In other words, the blog writer or content publisher has control over the placement, color design, and affiliate network of the available ads within their chosen template. Because the templating system is independent from content creation on Blogspot, that is, ad placement occurs within a design structured framework that is independent from and revolves around content creation, it makes more sense to focus on content creation first. "Content is King" is the mantra here. Content pulls in the traffic from the search engines; content is what users are looking for -- people want to read good content. Once this content is published and the end-user is on the content publisher's site, then this is where design becomes important.
I scoff at those who claim to create content for the sole sake of content creation; content creation occurs for a purpose and/or reason that guides the art of creation in the first place. Earning advertising revenue seems to be the grand design of content creation and its publication on the internet. Money, in other words, is the primary motivator for the creation of content. However, this is not to say that content created under these circumstances must be sub-level or meaningless. Quite the contrary, money and internet traffic encourage content writers to produce better and better articles.
Blogspot provides the cheapest, best, and easiest platform to showcase such content to the world. Blogspot is a free blogging service provided through Google, and it is indeed possible to feature advertisements from Google's Adsense, advertisements from the Amazon Associates Program, and ads from the Prosperent Affiliate Network on Blogspot. The question is: when should those ads be shown? Should content creation determine ad selection or should the potential money earned from ads determine the particular kind of content that is made?
The answer is both. In other words, content creation should be an easy act for the one who is writing the article. The article should relate to personal experience in some manner, or it should be a reflection of certain ideas held in the mind of the author. Ideas can range from broad categories such as Home Business to specific niche categories such as which freezers obtain the perfect amount of ice slush in canned soda. Advertisements are then placed around or blended in with this content with the hope that some users will be interested in the ads or products displayed, and will click the ad or make the product purchase.
Now, some content niches offer higher commissions than others. The amount of revenue that one can earn from clicks on ads about pink and blue bunniess living in Antartica is less than the amount of revenue that one can earn blog entries about finances or celebrity news. If one has ideas about content relating to finances or celebrity news, then the advertisements will necessarily reflect the content and will yield a much higher payout.
Ads on Blogspot are designed to be a part of a larger templating system. In other words, the blog writer or content publisher has control over the placement, color design, and affiliate network of the available ads within their chosen template. Because the templating system is independent from content creation on Blogspot, that is, ad placement occurs within a design structured framework that is independent from and revolves around content creation, it makes more sense to focus on content creation first. "Content is King" is the mantra here. Content pulls in the traffic from the search engines; content is what users are looking for -- people want to read good content. Once this content is published and the end-user is on the content publisher's site, then this is where design becomes important.
Home Business Ideas in 2012
Regardless of the state of the economy, anyone and everyone with an internet connection and an account with Google can begin making money online. Given the right set of circumstances, making money online can come at little to no financial expense on the part of the entrepreneur.
The search engines have a voracious and an unsatiable appetite for unique and useful content. This content has the potential to be monetized, that is, publishing unique content on the internet can translate into real revenue. The process from publication to payment does not happen immediately, however, given persistence, creativity, and habitual dedication to the creation of content, financial rewards will follow.
The first step in the process of making money online with your home based business is securing a computer with an internet connection. Those not having the money to purchase their own computer or their own internet connection can find access to computers at their local library free of charge. In addition, there are several locations who offer free WiFi access to the internet as part of their overall customer experience. Think of that person pecking away on their laptop on a Friday night at the local Starbucks Coffee House.
The second step in the process of making money online is to remember to write about topics that are most familiar. For example, those in the fire protection business during the day have unique experiences and insights in their particular field that is not common. Writing articles, how-to's, and creative criticism pieces relating to the fire proteciton field would seem most accessible to this particular individual. In essence, content creation happens most easily when the writer puts into words their own personal experiences, insights, thoughts, criticisms, and helpful advice pertaining to their area of experise. If you're a firefighter, consider writing pieces about fire fighting; if you're a student in high school, consider writing pieces about the triumphs and failures of the high school social hierarchy; if you're a college student who possess a degree in underwater basket weaving, then produce content relating to underwater basket weaving: which material is the best and why, how does water effect the weaving process, and are there long term health benefits from engaging in this extra curricular activity?
The third step in the process of making money online is to secure a means of communication the unique content with the world at large. Consider setting up an account with Blogspot. You can interface your Google account with Blogspot and can display Google' Adsense alongside your unique and insightful content. There are no out of pocket costs associated with creating an account at Blogspot -- that's right ... creating a blogging account is free. And there are no out of pocket costs associated with joining an affiliate program such as Amazon or Prosperent.
In essence:
The search engines have a voracious and an unsatiable appetite for unique and useful content. This content has the potential to be monetized, that is, publishing unique content on the internet can translate into real revenue. The process from publication to payment does not happen immediately, however, given persistence, creativity, and habitual dedication to the creation of content, financial rewards will follow.
The first step in the process of making money online with your home based business is securing a computer with an internet connection. Those not having the money to purchase their own computer or their own internet connection can find access to computers at their local library free of charge. In addition, there are several locations who offer free WiFi access to the internet as part of their overall customer experience. Think of that person pecking away on their laptop on a Friday night at the local Starbucks Coffee House.
The second step in the process of making money online is to remember to write about topics that are most familiar. For example, those in the fire protection business during the day have unique experiences and insights in their particular field that is not common. Writing articles, how-to's, and creative criticism pieces relating to the fire proteciton field would seem most accessible to this particular individual. In essence, content creation happens most easily when the writer puts into words their own personal experiences, insights, thoughts, criticisms, and helpful advice pertaining to their area of experise. If you're a firefighter, consider writing pieces about fire fighting; if you're a student in high school, consider writing pieces about the triumphs and failures of the high school social hierarchy; if you're a college student who possess a degree in underwater basket weaving, then produce content relating to underwater basket weaving: which material is the best and why, how does water effect the weaving process, and are there long term health benefits from engaging in this extra curricular activity?
The third step in the process of making money online is to secure a means of communication the unique content with the world at large. Consider setting up an account with Blogspot. You can interface your Google account with Blogspot and can display Google' Adsense alongside your unique and insightful content. There are no out of pocket costs associated with creating an account at Blogspot -- that's right ... creating a blogging account is free. And there are no out of pocket costs associated with joining an affiliate program such as Amazon or Prosperent.
In essence:
- Create a free blog at Blogspot.
- Apply to the Google Adsense Program after a few initial posts.
- Apply to the Amazon Affiliate Program after a few initial posts.
- Apply to the Prosperent Affiliate Program.
- Create unique content.
- Showcase advertisements from Google, Amazon, and Prosperent on your free blog.
Affiliates aren't making as much as they could
Some estimates place online retail sales during the holiday season at tens of billions of dollars. This means that a lot of people who normally do not use the internet will begin doing so in order to find the best deals and the most bang for their buck. Affiliates can earn from the upcoming shopping spree if they have in place the mechanisms to help shoppers connect with the products that they seek.
In the world of affiliate marketing, securing relationships with product merchants is the key to success. The more merchant relationships that an affiliate can secure, the more products that can be shown ... and the more products that can be shown, the more commissions that can be made from the sale of those products. However, those just beginning in the world of affilaite marketing are at a disadvantage; the sheer novelty of their domains and the lack of historical product sales disqualifies them from earning top-tier commission rates.
Enter Prosperent. Prosperent takes the hassle of out forming relationships with individual merchants for their affiliates. When one becomes a Prosperent affiliate, one takes advantage of the existing partnerships that Prosperent has with various online merchants and advertising firms such as Share-a-sale, Linkshare, and Commission Junction. One would spend a lot of time, energy, and effort in attempting to form partnerships with all of the merchants within each of these repsective advertising frameworks on their own. In addtion, merchants come and go from each of these marketing firms all of the time, transforming their product datafeeds from being active and relevant to being inactive and non-operational. In other words, an individual publisher would be spending a lot of their personal time and resources simply maintaining, updating, and revising their merchant partnerships.
Prosperent makes affiliate life easier and simplier. As I mentioned earlier, Prosperent already has formed various partnerships with various online merchants and advertising firms. To be a member of the Prosperent Network is to leverage Prosperent's market share in your favor. Prosperent updates their product catalog accordingly as merchants join and leave advertising firms, freeing up affiliate resources to focus on the marketing of items in the Prosperent catalog. If a merchant lowers their affiliate commission rate below a certain threshold of profitability, Prosperent automatically discontinues featuring that particular merchant's goods and will feature higher commission similar items from that merchant's competitor instead.
Prosperent was developed by affiliates for affiliates, and it is in Prosperent's interest to develop tools that continue to increase profitability from reputable merchants. Prosperent affiliates provide shoppers with access to the product that they are looking for while at the same time earning commission from their efforts when a product is sold. Shoppers get what they want. Affiliates get what they want. Prosperent gets what they want. In the end, to be on Prosperent's team is to be on the winning team indeed.
Mr. Answers is a member of the Prosperent Affiliate Network and publishes to his blog titled "Blogspot-Ads". His interest is in raising awareness of the Prosperent Network and in finding new and novel ways of earning money online. In addition, he is a curious individual and an independent thinker who attempts to understand the nature of the world around him. He promotes critical thinking skills, independent thought, and calm discussion about important issues in the affiliate marketing world and beyond.
In the world of affiliate marketing, securing relationships with product merchants is the key to success. The more merchant relationships that an affiliate can secure, the more products that can be shown ... and the more products that can be shown, the more commissions that can be made from the sale of those products. However, those just beginning in the world of affilaite marketing are at a disadvantage; the sheer novelty of their domains and the lack of historical product sales disqualifies them from earning top-tier commission rates.
Enter Prosperent. Prosperent takes the hassle of out forming relationships with individual merchants for their affiliates. When one becomes a Prosperent affiliate, one takes advantage of the existing partnerships that Prosperent has with various online merchants and advertising firms such as Share-a-sale, Linkshare, and Commission Junction. One would spend a lot of time, energy, and effort in attempting to form partnerships with all of the merchants within each of these repsective advertising frameworks on their own. In addtion, merchants come and go from each of these marketing firms all of the time, transforming their product datafeeds from being active and relevant to being inactive and non-operational. In other words, an individual publisher would be spending a lot of their personal time and resources simply maintaining, updating, and revising their merchant partnerships.
Prosperent makes affiliate life easier and simplier. As I mentioned earlier, Prosperent already has formed various partnerships with various online merchants and advertising firms. To be a member of the Prosperent Network is to leverage Prosperent's market share in your favor. Prosperent updates their product catalog accordingly as merchants join and leave advertising firms, freeing up affiliate resources to focus on the marketing of items in the Prosperent catalog. If a merchant lowers their affiliate commission rate below a certain threshold of profitability, Prosperent automatically discontinues featuring that particular merchant's goods and will feature higher commission similar items from that merchant's competitor instead.
Prosperent was developed by affiliates for affiliates, and it is in Prosperent's interest to develop tools that continue to increase profitability from reputable merchants. Prosperent affiliates provide shoppers with access to the product that they are looking for while at the same time earning commission from their efforts when a product is sold. Shoppers get what they want. Affiliates get what they want. Prosperent gets what they want. In the end, to be on Prosperent's team is to be on the winning team indeed.
Mr. Answers is a member of the Prosperent Affiliate Network and publishes to his blog titled "Blogspot-Ads". His interest is in raising awareness of the Prosperent Network and in finding new and novel ways of earning money online. In addition, he is a curious individual and an independent thinker who attempts to understand the nature of the world around him. He promotes critical thinking skills, independent thought, and calm discussion about important issues in the affiliate marketing world and beyond.
Adwords & Adsense: Google's Hypocrisy
While Google is, at the present time, the world's largest internet search engine, there are certain practices that call me to question how it earns revenue. The crux of the argument is in the tension between how Google advertises itself as a family-oriented business to Adsense publishers while at the same time accepting money from sexually explicit websites.
Bloggers and other website operators showcase Google's Adsense advertisements in an effort to earn clicks for money. When an advertiser desires to promote their website, they would make use of Google's Adwords. In other words, advertisers use Adwords and publishers use Adsense, and it is possible to be a user of both platforms simultaneously. Indeed, Blogging for Money has grown into a popular activity that has the potential to generate residual income from home.
Adsense Explained
How Adsense operates, in a nutshell, is that the web operator places a small piece of Javascript code alongside or embedded with their original page's content, and Google (after scanning the content page) displays advertisements related to the content in question. The publisher can design the ad to blend in with their page's design, or they can design their ad to stick out from the overall design of the page. Both display methods have their advocates and opponents.
When someone visits the website in question, Google shows them relevant ads with the hope that the user will click on the ad and visit the site promoting the ad. When the user clicks on the ad, Google pays an unknown pecentage of the advertising cost to the web site publisher of the ad.
Adwords Explained
Adwords is the platform that advertisers use to associate their particular advertisement with particular search engine keywords or keyphrases. It costs advertisers a certain dollar amount, on a per-click basis, to associate their advertisement with a particular word. For example, searching Google for information about "dogs" will reveal advertisements about "dogs" because the advertisers pay a certain dollar amount to have their particular ad about "dogs" associated with search engine queries relating to "dogs." Certainly, it is possible that an advertiser will show their ad about "cats" when users search for "dogs," but this works out to a disadvantage in the end because while the click through rate might be high, the conversation rate will be low. The conversation rate is determined by the behaviors the user performs on the ad destination site.
The Hypocrisy
The tension between adsense publishers and adwords advertisers rests in the domain of what Google considers to be "family friendly." Indeed it is part of Google's Terms of Service that advertisements on a publisher's website appear within "family-safe" content. In other words, Google will terminate a publisher from receiving payment when the publisher places adsense ads on a content page relating to "adult toys".
Google doesn't deny advertisers from creating "adult toys" ads in the first place.
Do you see the tension here? Google terminates adsense publishers for showcasing ads within "adult toys" content while at the same time accepting money from the advertisers of "adult toys" content through adwords. What this means is one thing: Google, the company who believes themselves to be "family-oriented" hoards all the advertising money from the adult toy industry
Example
Perform a Google search for "Adult Toys," and you'll see plenty of Google Ads. However, if you are a publisher, that is, if you operate a website that sells "Adult Toys" and you feature adsense on pages that contain adult toys, you'll receive a warning email, suspension email, or a termination email from Google for being in violation of their "family-oriented" policies.
The author of this article is part of the Prosperent Network, which makes a catalog containing over 50 million items available to their affiliate partners.
Bloggers and other website operators showcase Google's Adsense advertisements in an effort to earn clicks for money. When an advertiser desires to promote their website, they would make use of Google's Adwords. In other words, advertisers use Adwords and publishers use Adsense, and it is possible to be a user of both platforms simultaneously. Indeed, Blogging for Money has grown into a popular activity that has the potential to generate residual income from home.
Adsense Explained
How Adsense operates, in a nutshell, is that the web operator places a small piece of Javascript code alongside or embedded with their original page's content, and Google (after scanning the content page) displays advertisements related to the content in question. The publisher can design the ad to blend in with their page's design, or they can design their ad to stick out from the overall design of the page. Both display methods have their advocates and opponents.
When someone visits the website in question, Google shows them relevant ads with the hope that the user will click on the ad and visit the site promoting the ad. When the user clicks on the ad, Google pays an unknown pecentage of the advertising cost to the web site publisher of the ad.
Adwords Explained
Adwords is the platform that advertisers use to associate their particular advertisement with particular search engine keywords or keyphrases. It costs advertisers a certain dollar amount, on a per-click basis, to associate their advertisement with a particular word. For example, searching Google for information about "dogs" will reveal advertisements about "dogs" because the advertisers pay a certain dollar amount to have their particular ad about "dogs" associated with search engine queries relating to "dogs." Certainly, it is possible that an advertiser will show their ad about "cats" when users search for "dogs," but this works out to a disadvantage in the end because while the click through rate might be high, the conversation rate will be low. The conversation rate is determined by the behaviors the user performs on the ad destination site.
The Hypocrisy
The tension between adsense publishers and adwords advertisers rests in the domain of what Google considers to be "family friendly." Indeed it is part of Google's Terms of Service that advertisements on a publisher's website appear within "family-safe" content. In other words, Google will terminate a publisher from receiving payment when the publisher places adsense ads on a content page relating to "adult toys".
Google doesn't deny advertisers from creating "adult toys" ads in the first place.
Do you see the tension here? Google terminates adsense publishers for showcasing ads within "adult toys" content while at the same time accepting money from the advertisers of "adult toys" content through adwords. What this means is one thing: Google, the company who believes themselves to be "family-oriented" hoards all the advertising money from the adult toy industry
Example
Perform a Google search for "Adult Toys," and you'll see plenty of Google Ads. However, if you are a publisher, that is, if you operate a website that sells "Adult Toys" and you feature adsense on pages that contain adult toys, you'll receive a warning email, suspension email, or a termination email from Google for being in violation of their "family-oriented" policies.
The author of this article is part of the Prosperent Network, which makes a catalog containing over 50 million items available to their affiliate partners.
The Prosperent Affiliate Network
The Prosperent Affiliate Network was founded in 2009 with the intent of providing content publishers the tools needed to connect internet shoppers with internet merchants. Prosperent manages professional business relationships with hundreds of online merchants found on the Commission Junction, the Share-a-Sale, and the Linkshare marketing networks. In addition Prosperent features several partnerships with companies such as Zappos.com, 6pm.com, Overstock.com, QVC, and Kohl's to name a few. Because Prosperent has access to the product catalogs from each of their merchants, there are well over 50 million individual items available to content publishers. What this means for affiliates is that there is a better chance of matching niche products with niche content.
Access to Prosperent's massive catalog occurs through javascript banner ads and/pr through an API programming interface. Both are made available on the Prosperent Affiliate dashboard after signing up, and both can be customized to blend in with site content. Javascript banners and links units are available in a variety of size formats including: 500x250, 728x90, 550x120, 550x90, 468x180, 468x60, 120x600, 160x600, 336x280, 300x250, and 300x300 for banners. Link unit sizes include: 728x18, 468x18, 200x90, and 180x90. Each banner and link unit can be customized further in that elements of the banner and the link units can be configured to be either visible or invisible. The product image, product title, product description, product price, and the "buy now" button can be modified to taste.
Javascript banner ads make an excellent compliment to or a replacement of Amazon's banners, and because most free blogging sites allow the use of javascript code, it is possible to show blog readers products relevant to the on page content. This translates into higher conversion rates and increased income for content publishers. This also means that content publishers have another tool that allows them to monetize their blog. And when content publishers use free blogging platforms, such as Blogger, it becomes possible to turn a "regular" hobby into a "profitable" one. Addition information about blending Prosperent with the Blogger platform can be found on the Prosperent Affiliate Blog.
Access to Prosperent's catalog also occurs through an API interface. Programmers can design applications that use Prosperent's API to return relevant product matches for user-driven search queries. Because Prosperent's master catalog is composed of each merchant's catalog, writing code for a product comparison site has never been easier. Prosperent has already done all of the heavy lifting. This not only means a reduction in server load and latency, it also means that each product search occurs against the product catalog from each individual merchant within Prosperent's network simultaneously. This makes it simple to price compare between merchants without having jumble between numerous APIs.
In conclusion, Prosperent's 50 million+ item catalog has content publishers clamoring. Whether a content publisher be a blogger or a programmer, Prosperent has something for anyone interested in making money online.
Access to Prosperent's massive catalog occurs through javascript banner ads and/pr through an API programming interface. Both are made available on the Prosperent Affiliate dashboard after signing up, and both can be customized to blend in with site content. Javascript banners and links units are available in a variety of size formats including: 500x250, 728x90, 550x120, 550x90, 468x180, 468x60, 120x600, 160x600, 336x280, 300x250, and 300x300 for banners. Link unit sizes include: 728x18, 468x18, 200x90, and 180x90. Each banner and link unit can be customized further in that elements of the banner and the link units can be configured to be either visible or invisible. The product image, product title, product description, product price, and the "buy now" button can be modified to taste.
Javascript banner ads make an excellent compliment to or a replacement of Amazon's banners, and because most free blogging sites allow the use of javascript code, it is possible to show blog readers products relevant to the on page content. This translates into higher conversion rates and increased income for content publishers. This also means that content publishers have another tool that allows them to monetize their blog. And when content publishers use free blogging platforms, such as Blogger, it becomes possible to turn a "regular" hobby into a "profitable" one. Addition information about blending Prosperent with the Blogger platform can be found on the Prosperent Affiliate Blog.
Access to Prosperent's catalog also occurs through an API interface. Programmers can design applications that use Prosperent's API to return relevant product matches for user-driven search queries. Because Prosperent's master catalog is composed of each merchant's catalog, writing code for a product comparison site has never been easier. Prosperent has already done all of the heavy lifting. This not only means a reduction in server load and latency, it also means that each product search occurs against the product catalog from each individual merchant within Prosperent's network simultaneously. This makes it simple to price compare between merchants without having jumble between numerous APIs.
In conclusion, Prosperent's 50 million+ item catalog has content publishers clamoring. Whether a content publisher be a blogger or a programmer, Prosperent has something for anyone interested in making money online.
Amazon hates their affiliates
Once upon a time, Amazon embraced their affiliates as partners and rewarded them with generous access to their server's resources. As Amazon's popularity increased over time, they began to distance themselves from their once cherished affiliates.
Allow me to begin this article with a disclaimer. Before writing this article, I searched Google in an attempt to find archived documentaion in order to support the claims found in this article. Unfortunately, I could not find such a site that kept an accessible document archive of Amazon's policies and policy changes regarding their affiliate program over the years. The closest match for what I needed was found on the Amazon's Document Archives site, however, older documents were not accessible because the information they contain are no longer applicable at the present time.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994 and the site went online in 1995. At that time, Amazon did not have the household name brand recognition that it enjoys today. Amazon, more then than now, relied on their network of affiliates to promote their products online. Their practice is and was to credit their affiliates with a certain percentage of the final sale amount as a way of rewarding the particular affilate for their advertising efforts. When an affiliate sold more items, Amazon rewarded them with a higher percentage cut which resulted in a higher overall paid commission. In this manner, Amazon's advertising budget was depleted only when their affiliates would make a sale. It was up to the affiliate to create a web site, pay for hosting, and drive traffic to Amazon.
However, Amazon's affiliate model also placed them at odds with their affiliates. As consumers would discover Amazon's existence on the internet, there would be less and less of a need for consumers to arrive at Amazon's site through an affiliate link. Consumers could just visit Amazon directly and make their purchases. And when consumers would arrive on Amazon's site directly, there would be no need nor requirement for Amazon to credit their affiliate with a percentage of the final sale amount. In this manner, Amazon began to see that their advertising budget through affilaite commissions would be stretched further and further.
This model of having consumers visit Amazon's site without prior passage through an affiliate link is part of their overall business strategy. Affiliates appear to be a "necessary evil" in Amazon's eyes. As evidence of this, I offer one of Amazon's policy changes regarding search engine advertising: "After careful review of how we are investing our advertising resources, we have made the decision to no longer pay advertising fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, or www.endless.com through keyword bidding and other paid search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines. As of May 1, 2009, these paid search Associates will not be paid advertising fees."
Affiliates use to earn thousands of dollars from Amazon through the implementation of the practice of search keyword bidding. For those of you who do not know what this is, allow me to explain the concept quickly. Keyword bidding allows advertisements to appear alongside the search engine results. For example, if you do a Google search for a product, sometimes you will notice that there will be advertisements along the right hand side of the results page. Keyword bidding would allow affiliates to place Amazon products relating to the search phrase or search word in that area. Consumers, who were obviously interested in such a product (because they as consumers would trigger the advertisement with certain keywords), would see the link advertisement and were more likely than not to click that advertisement. Since that link advertisement was placed there by an Amazon affiliate, the affiliate was using ads alongside the search engine results to drive traffic back to Amazon and earn commissions.
Amazon, who was more interested in denying commissions to affiliates who were using this method than being grateful for the increased traffic and sales, decided to halt payments for those using this practice. Indeed, this decision on Amazon's part seems to follow Amazon's increasing presence in Google's search results. At the present time, Google has indexed over 311 million pages from Amazon.com, and indeed products from Amazon appear in many search engine requests. Should Google decide to eliminate Amazon from the search engine results, I believe that Amazon's Affiliate Program would undergo a rebirth.
Allow me to begin this article with a disclaimer. Before writing this article, I searched Google in an attempt to find archived documentaion in order to support the claims found in this article. Unfortunately, I could not find such a site that kept an accessible document archive of Amazon's policies and policy changes regarding their affiliate program over the years. The closest match for what I needed was found on the Amazon's Document Archives site, however, older documents were not accessible because the information they contain are no longer applicable at the present time.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994 and the site went online in 1995. At that time, Amazon did not have the household name brand recognition that it enjoys today. Amazon, more then than now, relied on their network of affiliates to promote their products online. Their practice is and was to credit their affiliates with a certain percentage of the final sale amount as a way of rewarding the particular affilate for their advertising efforts. When an affiliate sold more items, Amazon rewarded them with a higher percentage cut which resulted in a higher overall paid commission. In this manner, Amazon's advertising budget was depleted only when their affiliates would make a sale. It was up to the affiliate to create a web site, pay for hosting, and drive traffic to Amazon.
However, Amazon's affiliate model also placed them at odds with their affiliates. As consumers would discover Amazon's existence on the internet, there would be less and less of a need for consumers to arrive at Amazon's site through an affiliate link. Consumers could just visit Amazon directly and make their purchases. And when consumers would arrive on Amazon's site directly, there would be no need nor requirement for Amazon to credit their affiliate with a percentage of the final sale amount. In this manner, Amazon began to see that their advertising budget through affilaite commissions would be stretched further and further.
This model of having consumers visit Amazon's site without prior passage through an affiliate link is part of their overall business strategy. Affiliates appear to be a "necessary evil" in Amazon's eyes. As evidence of this, I offer one of Amazon's policy changes regarding search engine advertising: "After careful review of how we are investing our advertising resources, we have made the decision to no longer pay advertising fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, or www.endless.com through keyword bidding and other paid search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines. As of May 1, 2009, these paid search Associates will not be paid advertising fees."
Affiliates use to earn thousands of dollars from Amazon through the implementation of the practice of search keyword bidding. For those of you who do not know what this is, allow me to explain the concept quickly. Keyword bidding allows advertisements to appear alongside the search engine results. For example, if you do a Google search for a product, sometimes you will notice that there will be advertisements along the right hand side of the results page. Keyword bidding would allow affiliates to place Amazon products relating to the search phrase or search word in that area. Consumers, who were obviously interested in such a product (because they as consumers would trigger the advertisement with certain keywords), would see the link advertisement and were more likely than not to click that advertisement. Since that link advertisement was placed there by an Amazon affiliate, the affiliate was using ads alongside the search engine results to drive traffic back to Amazon and earn commissions.
Amazon, who was more interested in denying commissions to affiliates who were using this method than being grateful for the increased traffic and sales, decided to halt payments for those using this practice. Indeed, this decision on Amazon's part seems to follow Amazon's increasing presence in Google's search results. At the present time, Google has indexed over 311 million pages from Amazon.com, and indeed products from Amazon appear in many search engine requests. Should Google decide to eliminate Amazon from the search engine results, I believe that Amazon's Affiliate Program would undergo a rebirth.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Interview with Prosperent Brian
You can download and listen to the audio interview with Prosperent Brian. The topic of this interview is an introduction to the Prosperent program itself; and during the course of the interview, it is revealed that "shoes" are a popular online selling item.
It should also be noted that the shopping cookie offered from Prosperent lasts a lot longer than the shopping cookie offered from Amazon. Whereas Amazon's cookie lasts for 24 hours, Prosperent's cookie lasts for several days and/or weeks. During the price comparison shopping process, a customer is likely to visit several online store before committing to a final purchasing decision. In addition, the price comparison process can take several days to complete -- the reason varies from customer to customer.
Prosperent makes available several avenues of online income earning. The first and easiest is the implementation of javascript advertising; with a small piece of javascript code, products will be pulled from Prosperent's product catalog of over 50,000,000 items and will be shown. In fact, this is how I'm using Prosperent with Blogspot. Since Prosperent is Free to join and since Blogspot is free to use, all the money I make online through this avenue is always a profit. There's no hosting to pay for; there's no domain to renew.
The second avenue of making money online is through Prosperent's API interface. It just so happens that I wrote a script that takes advantage of this API interface, and I provided links to a Nike Shopping Site and to an Adidas Shopping Site earlier in this post.
At this point, you might be wondering if Prosperent really works. The short answer is: yes. Payment is sent on a monthly basis to your Paypal account or to your Payoneer account.
Link to MP3 interviewIn an effort to demonstrate how easy it is to deploy the phP-Rosperent PHP script as a shopping comparison site, I have created a few niche sub-domains: for the Nike brand and for the Adidas brand. The search results on these domains are not constricted to these brands alone; it doesn't make sense to lock out certain products or brands from appearing on a shopping comparison site. However, these brand names form the root of certain seed words that will allow search engines to index site content. These seed words serve as the starting point for search engine indexing. The script itself constructs and manipulates on-page links in order that search engines "deep-spider" the site. In other words, we begin the search engine spidering process with these brands as seed words.
It should also be noted that the shopping cookie offered from Prosperent lasts a lot longer than the shopping cookie offered from Amazon. Whereas Amazon's cookie lasts for 24 hours, Prosperent's cookie lasts for several days and/or weeks. During the price comparison shopping process, a customer is likely to visit several online store before committing to a final purchasing decision. In addition, the price comparison process can take several days to complete -- the reason varies from customer to customer.
Prosperent makes available several avenues of online income earning. The first and easiest is the implementation of javascript advertising; with a small piece of javascript code, products will be pulled from Prosperent's product catalog of over 50,000,000 items and will be shown. In fact, this is how I'm using Prosperent with Blogspot. Since Prosperent is Free to join and since Blogspot is free to use, all the money I make online through this avenue is always a profit. There's no hosting to pay for; there's no domain to renew.
The second avenue of making money online is through Prosperent's API interface. It just so happens that I wrote a script that takes advantage of this API interface, and I provided links to a Nike Shopping Site and to an Adidas Shopping Site earlier in this post.
At this point, you might be wondering if Prosperent really works. The short answer is: yes. Payment is sent on a monthly basis to your Paypal account or to your Payoneer account.
Were you a California Amazon Affiliate?
Amazon no longer pays commissions to their affiliates living in California. Yup.
If you live in California and were once an Amazon affiliate, then I recommend examining Prosperent as a viable alternative. And if you're living in another state and are a current Amazon affiliate, then using Prosperent ads in addition to Amazon ads will provide a competitive shopping experience for potential consumers.
According to Amazon's Terms of Service for Affiliates, living in one of the following states is grounds to be dismissed from the program:
If you live in California and were once an Amazon affiliate, then I recommend examining Prosperent as a viable alternative. And if you're living in another state and are a current Amazon affiliate, then using Prosperent ads in addition to Amazon ads will provide a competitive shopping experience for potential consumers.
According to Amazon's Terms of Service for Affiliates, living in one of the following states is grounds to be dismissed from the program:
In addition, if at any time following your enrollment in the Program you become a resident of Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, or Connecticut, you will become ineligible to participate in the Program, and this Operating Agreement will automatically terminate, on the date you establish residency in that state.
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