Monthly Archives ⇒ March 2010

Day 6 – Approved for first affiliate network

· Brandon Hann

I am now a member of Elite Clicks Media (ECM) and after looking over the programs they have to offer, I think it’s going to be interesting to learn about everything and put something into gear. I’ll be updating this post tomorrow with all the details because this weekend was moving kind of slow and I didn’t get a chance to review much of anything.

Once I do, I’ll have a full report here with what I think of everything and what some of my plans are for getting my feet wet. Hopefully by this point, you have already looked at my top five affiliate networks and have either signed up for a couple and/or are already approved.

I’m already thinking about some of my ad campaigns and once I get them into place, you’ll see a detailed report with stats and other information. Stay tuned for daily updates Monday through Friday.

Top Affiliate Network Companies

· Brandon Hann

In in effort to organize the massive amount of information in regards to affiliate marketing, I’ve compiled a list of the top affiliate programs. I have used some of them, others are simply recommended from industry pros.

AzoogleAds (AZN Networks)


This company is universally recognized as the top company of its kind. Jonathan Volk is quoted as saying:

AzoogleAds is my personal favorite affiliate network and the one I’ve made a LOT of money on. I’ve been quite open about them being my favorite affiliate network for years and they remain my favorite.

Signup today!

Elite Clicks Media (ECM)


If you plan to market your products and services via social media networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and more, this site provides offers that are top convertors for those audiences. Jonathan Volk says this:

Besides having a lot of really great offers, the professionals behind Elite Clicks Media is a great team of guys that are set on helping their publishers go to the next level. For example, just recently, ECM held a free webinar on CPV/PPV Marketing. More importantly, they have even more webinars lined up to help their publishers learn! This, to me, shows how they are not just like any other old network.

Signup today!

QwikMedia


QwikMedia specializes in pay per click traffic, media buying and lead generations. They are recommended if you plan to focus on these elements. Jonathan Volk had some nice words about them:

Many of the offers are exclusive offers (meaning you can’t get them at another network) that are doing really well right now in niches like dating, insurance, and more.

Sign up today!

Tatto Media


This is an all around company that provides great offers that work in any marketing plan. They also provide some of the best mobile phone offers. Here’s what Jonathan Volk has said:

The other great thing about Tatto is that many of the offers are their own exclusive offers that they have made and optimized themselves. They have some of the best mobile offers. Mobile offers do really well on social traffic and media buys. If you plan to focus on either of those methods, you should check out Tatto!

Sign up today!

Neverblue


Neverblue provides tons of high converting offers and it’s easy to get started. If you’re focus is to market across social networking sites, Neverblue provides many offers specific to this niche. Jonathan Volk had this to say:

In fact within just a few weeks of running on NeverblueAds, I was able to get a campaign going that was making upwards of $400 revenue per day!

Sign up today!

Day 4 – Azoogleads Update

· Brandon Hann

I just got off the phone with them in regards to my pending application and of the three results it could have been, it is pending. They actually call it “working”, which essentially means I wasn’t denied or approved, but it’s sitting in limbo until I can work with some other networks first.

The girl I spoke to was very nice and she said that I should go get some experience with another marketing firm and come back to get my application approved.

According to Azoogleads as of this very minute, they are only accepting applicants with previous network affiliation experience. This translates into you having worked with or are currently working with another affiliate network. This leads me to believe that they are trying to weed out the saturation in their network and to be quite honest, I like that. It shows me that they are interested in keeping their members working in a competitive market that’s not drowned out by people that don’t know what they’re doing or people that sit there and don’t put much effort into their marketing business.

So what’s next? I plan to sign up for Elite Clicks Media which happens to be the number two recommended affiliate network by Jonathan Volk. If needs be, I’ll keep moving down the list until I can find a company willing to take a chance on me.

If you’re following along with me during all this, you may or may not have the same outcome as I did, so I strongly recommend that you:

  • Still apply for Azoogleads first and see how your phone verification process goes.
  • Apply for another affiliate marketing company while you’re waiting in case Azoogleads doesn’t accept you at this time. I created a list of the top affiliate marketing programs as defined by top marketers.
  • Don’t get discouraged!! It’s easy at this point to start feeling like you’re not up to the challenge, but don’t let it get you down.

I’ll start a new post for ECM as soon as I get the application out.

Suicidal Dreams

· Brandon Hann

No, this isn’t a post about me having suicidal dreams or anyone for that matter. I’m quoting the Silverchair song “Suicidal Dreams”. There’s two lines in there that really made me think about the latest string of suicides we’ve had in the entertainment world with fashion designer Andrew McQueen, actor Andrew Koenig and Marie Osmond’s son, Michael Blosil.

I used to think that depression was a result of something drastic that happened in your life such as the loss of a close loved one, the premature ending of a dream career, drug use gone bad or just general unhappiness about life. One could also make the claim that most people fall into depression because of financial troubles or just being lonely.

And then, every so often you hear a story about someone who you think had it all. Someone that had tons of friends, lots of money and everything else that most people aspire to have. Your first response is usually along the lines of “what do they have to be depressed about?”

Well, sometimes the answer(s) to that question are not so clear. The doctors tell us depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain and although it can be triggered by and greatly enhanced by traumatic events in your life, for the most part, it’s either there or it’s not. So to fix it, we generally take a antidepressant which is supposed to correct the imbalance and bring us back to “life”.

However, doctors are now saying that these drugs don’t work as well as people are led to believe (upwards of 60% of treated patients say they don’t feel a difference). They say that with the exception of extreme cases, these drugs don’t do anything at all. In fact, most doctors openly admit that they’re not really sure how they’re supposed to work anyway!

This would completely explain why, in a country where 10% of antidepressant takers are people above the age of 6, we don’t have any significant reduction in the amount of depression cases. It’s also important to note that most doctors don’t even directly link depression to suicide. Essentially anyone who has thought about taking their own life is usually faced with that idea after seemingly exhausting all possible ways of living. These people can’t control/handle their lives and/or their looking for an easy escape.

Who’s to judge? But, how can we help? Or can we help?

The lines in the song I mentioned earlier are: “Help me, comfort me. Stop me from feeling what I’m feeling now.”

It’s sad to see people at the end of their rope. I only knew of one person who killed himself and the story was that he did it over a girl. He hanged himself in the closet. Then you have your string of famous celebrity suicides who just couldn’t take life anymore: Kurt Cobain, Hunter S. Thompson, Cliff Baxter (vice-chairman of Enron), Ray Combs (host of the Family Feud) and of course Adolf Hitler, but he had another reason.

Day 3 – Awaiting approval

· Brandon Hann

While I’m waiting, I’ve been reading and reading and reading as much as I can about all the money-making programs and so forth. I’ve also been adding links and running around the Internet responding to other people’s blog posts, publicizing my blog and just trying to spread the word.

More updates to follow at the end of the day.

A blind movie critic?

· Brandon Hann

I was listening to Kevin and Bean on KROQ (Los Angeles 106.7) this morning and they were talking to the world’s only blind movie critic. At first, I thought it was a weird joke they were playing, but it wasn’t. This guy really exists and he takes his job seriously.

His website is http://blindsidereviews.com/ and he really critiques movies!

I think this is facinating and it’s great to see someone out there who can actually still give something back to the world despite his disability.

It might also make for an interesting twist on the reviews themselves given that the only ‘seeing’ he can do is with his ears. That’s puts a whole new challenge back in the hands of movie makers out there: bring back the feeling in movies.

I vote to stop with all these visual enhancements and special effects and focus more on story develpment and characters.

I wish all the best to the blind movie critic and hope his career blossoms.

Day 1 – Signed up for first affiliate program

· Brandon Hann

March 2nd, 2010

This is technically not day 1 for the blog, but this is the first day that I started my project and it was a big day! I think at one point, I had about 15 tabs opened in Chrome!!

I want to start by saying of all the sites I’ve looked at in regards to free information to making money online, JohnChow.com seems to be the most honest. This is not to say that others are crooks, but John Chow appears to be in this industry for the freedom of it and not just the money plus he’s willing to help out anyone who needs it.

I’ll start listing the other sites that have been helping me out in this as soon as I get my links directory up. As I get further into this project, these daily reports will no doubt get more detailed, so stay tuned and follow me on Twitter or Facebook and the RSS feeds.

What I did today

I signed up for AzoogleAds today and expect my application to be approved (or not) within a couple of days. From what I gather, they seem to be the best affiliate network to start with. Previously, people were touting their referral payout system as being great, but I learned today that they have changed their payout from being a lifetime system to being only valid for 6 months.

I also made minor changes to the site including two subscribe links in the top right to allow visitors a choice between viewing RSS feeds in a reader or getting them by email. I then worked on some various SEO techniques on some of the older posts I had made.

The last thing I did today was setup an email newsletter account with Aweber. Newsletters is not all they do. This service is a monthly charge of $19.99 for the basic service, which is all I needed to begin with. Check out their website to see more details on what this service done, but basically it allows visitors to sign up on the site so you can send them newsletters, updates, free downloads, etc–email marketing.

Although I haven’t edited it completely, I did add a basic form on the sidebar for users to sign up for the newsletter. I plan to move this form up and make it fit in better.

That’s it for now.

How to create original content

· Brandon Hann

You’ve heard it before and most likely you didn’t hear it from me first–have original content on your blog! Why is this so important? First of all, if you’re trying to create a blog that just copies postings and other material from other blogs and websites, you can stop right now. People are smart and search engines are smarter.

Posting original content is the only surefire way to get people to your site and to stay. The ultimate goal here is to create a returning user base. One reason for this is that these “fans” will begin to promote your site based on the fact that they like your site. Other sites will link to you because of your quality. Search engines will rank you better. The list goes on.

Now, obviously when I say original, I don’t necessarily mean something that nobody has ever talked about. You can discuss things that are all over the Internet, but the idea is to do it in your own, unique way. And do it often. Blog frequency is another topic we’ll be discussing later.

For now, the question is what do you write about? In order to be successful at this, you’re going to want to pick a topic that actually means something to you as this will create passion in your words and people respond better to content when it’s passionate. Don’t try and blog about a whole bunch of different things all at once (unless everything’s connected somehow). Just remember that whatever the topic is, there are plenty of people out there that are just as obsessed with it as you are, so don’t get discouraged–just because your friends don’t visit your blog it doesn’t mean nobody will.

It’s hard to write a how to guide on a topic that doesn’t have any set standards or rules, but here goes!

In a nutshell:

  1. Choose your topic – find a topic that really interests you as well as something that can be discussed. You wouldn’t want to have a blog about one particular movie because that movie will eventually go away and it won’t be relevant anymore. Do a blog about all movies, or one genre of movies.
  2. Do some research – start searching around the Internet and see what people are saying about your topic. Remember these sites for later because they will come in handy when we get into promoting your blog.
  3. Look for ways to improve – Once you start seeing your topic of choice popping up around the Internet, start looking for ways to improve the already available information. This will start to separate your blog from the rest.
  4. Fill in the holes – you might even start noticing that certain areas of interest are not being covered in other blogs. This is your chance to open a new door!
  5. Write from the heart. You do not want to pass up this step. Do not write just for search engine rankings or Google clicks. Don’t even write just for traffic. You can achieve all these things in time, but before you start promoting your blog, you’re going to need the content.

As for the writing itself, I found a really cool blog that has created a list of 12 essential blogwriting tips. I reviewed each one and they are phenomenal. I have tried to sum up everything on that site above, but to get the full effect, you’ll want to check it out.

Welcome – Read me first

· Brandon Hann

I know this post comes a little late considering I’ve already updated the site and have started posting my stuff, but I thought I’d create this welcome page for those of you who are new to the site and want to see what the future holds for it as well as how to get connected and stay connected.

This site was designed to be a personal blog for me, but over time, I get more and more requests to help people with building websites, finding/providing hosting for those sites and essentially just get people online. For anyone who knows about web design, marketing, promotion and maintenance, you understand how big of a job even the smallest of projects can be!

Some people don’t understand how it all works and comes together, so it’s hard for them to realize (and accept) the costs associated with such work. I’ll admit that even myself never understood how companies can charge thousands of dollars for search engine optimization when all the tools are right in front of you and they’re free! Well, after trying these tools out myself, I realized you’re not paying for the knowledge, you’re paying for the service.

And that’s what it comes down to–the service. So here’s what I’ve decided to do with my site.

I am going to focus primarily on helping others get online with their own ideas and business ventures for free! That’s right. You will learn everything from the basics to the more advanced. I will cover all aspects of creating your website, monetizing it, promoting it and most of all, maintaining it.

This site will be updated daily with relavent information that I have hand-written myself. Periodically, I will publish free ebooks that will consolidate content from the site into an organized fashion. I will attempt to provide bits of news articles that pertain to the subject matter and I will be active in responding to emails, comments and more.

All for free.

Why free you ask? Well, there’s reason to try and sell information that can already be gotten for free online, so what I want to do is give it all away. In turn, all I ask is that you help me promote the site! All you have to do is post links to my site wherever you feel they would fit in, send your Facebook friends over to my site, follow me on Twitter, sign up for my RSS feeds (what’s RSS? I’ll tell you here!) and/or join the mailing list.

The site is small right now, but is growing! I hope you enjoy what I have to offer!

Thanks,

Brandon
www.ledfrog.com

Trademarking and copyrighting

· Brandon Hann

Let’s clear this up first. A copyright is an implied right to one’s creative work no matter was field it’s in (music, literary, art, etc.). A trademark is an implied and/or expressed right to one’s mark of trade (business name, logo, domain name, etc.)

How are they different?

A copyright is immediately “issued” once a work has been completed. There’s nothing special you need to do to get a copyright. It’s already done. In fact, this page and for that matter, this whole site is copyrighted to me, since I wrote every single word in it. You could go a step further and registered copyrighted work(s) with your local government, but this usually costs money and is nothing more than just a hard copy publication of your creation.

In today’s world, even posting online can warrant you a copyright and as long as you can prove you’re the originator, you’ll be fine. Now if you’re writing songs, I’d go get it published. You wouldn’t want your music to be copied by someone else after posting it on the Internet.

Trademarks are implied when they are first used and there’s no law stating that you have to register it with the federal government, but it does have more value if you do. Take for example my name and logo. Right now you only see a TM icon. This is my implication to the world that the name “ledfrog” and the logo I created are the marks of this website and represent my online venture. In time, I will have this registered and the TM will change to a ® symbol.

What this will do for me is prove that I have taken the necessary steps to ensure my name and logo belong to me and cannot be used by anyone else without my permission.

How are they relavent to my website/blog?

This all depends on how you look at it. First of all, as mentioned above, anything you write on your blog is already your copyrighted property (including images that you created). You don’t have to travel down the trademark road unless you want to further secure your case against any would be thieves.

If you’re building an online image or brand, I strongly advise you to explore your options about getting your brand trademarked if you’re serious about it. I’ve compiled a list of how this will help you below.

How do I get trademarked?

The first thing you want to do is declare your trademark by marking your logo, images and name(s) with TM symbols and/or copyright notices. And remember the date you start this because this will be your “First date of use” for your application.

The next step is to decide what product class(es) your trademark will cover and take note that each class you choose costs $275 to register. For example, when Coca-Cola registered their name for their soft drinks and the glass bottles they put them in, that was two registrations (mainly because their bottles were specially shaped).

At this point, you should head on over to the United States Patent and Trademark Office website and review as much information as you can about the process before submitting the lengthly application. I am no lawyer and if you’re concerned about any of the information I’ve given you and/or the application process, I advise you to seek one out.

There are many places online that will walk you through the setup and they are much more qualified than I am.

Pros and Cons

I have created a basic list of pros and cons for you to peruse, but by no means is this list exhaustive.

Pros Cons
  • Greater legal protection in court against trademark infringment
  • National recognition and usually international recognition
  • More professional image
  • Ability to license your brand’s usage to others
  • Protection of your company’s assets
  • Not cheap–costs $275 per class of goods
  • Process can take about 6 months and there are no guarantees of successful registration
  • No refunds if the registration does not go through
  • No automatic renewals or reminders–you must monitor your trademark manually

As you can see, there are more positive reasons to trademark your company’s assets. Above and beyond all, you’ll own a valuable stake in your own company and/or image. By the way, you can own a trademark personally or as a company.

Now you just need to figure out if you’re going to register a corporation or not!