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Before we start searching for keywords, we prefer to have a goal in mind and that means that we want to already have the product or service we are going to promote selected. We have been down the path of general market research to uncover a niche (pronounced neesh) and in our opinion it takes way too long and is way too complicated.

Instead we prefer to find a product or service that is already selling or at least starting to sell and then we figure out who is buying it and what words they are using to buy it. Once we know that, then we can figure out how to make a better offer. This does not mean we actually build a competing product (which is a possibility down the road) but instead we figure out a unique selling position (USP) that makes our offer better then the rest so people buy through us. But before we get into that, we need to find a product.

Finding the Right affiliate Product

There are different ways this can be done and just today we were asked by a friend of ours, Sheena Brown, how do you find good products to sell. We asked her why and she mentioned that she came across a really cool gaming product, called the Razer gaming keyboard, that has an affiliate program and she was considering selling it.

Our response to her was… “that’s the first step.. look for products that you yourself would buy.”

This is extremely important because this shows through in your marketing efforts. People tend to be able to smell cow dung from a mile away and you may be able to fool a few people some of the time but you cant fool all the people all the time, so if you try promoting a product that you yourself would have no interest in buying, this often will show in your message.

OK, thats great if you already know a product you want to promote but what if you don’t… where would you find these type of products or services?

In our opinion the easiest place to start is with the main affiliate networks such as ClickBank, Commission Junction, Link Share and so on. These networks take a lot of the hard work out of the process because they act as the middle man between the sellers and affiliates. They manage the tracking, finances and all that good stuff and make it very easy to search through and find products to sell.

List of Top Affiliate Networks…

• ClickBank
• Commission Junction
• LinkShare
• Regnow
• Shareasale
• Performics

The other option is, if you know the product you want to sell then you can see what stores have affiliate programs available. To do that simply type in the keyword or product name and include “Affiliate Program” in the search such as…

razer keyboard “affiliate program”

Click Here to Enlarge

Or, if you know the site that sells the product and you cant see if they have an affilaite program, simply search using the google site filter such as…

site:www.thedomain.com affiliate

Click Here to Enlarge

This however does not really solve the problem of helping you find the right product to choose and the reason is, if you don’t already have something in mind then where in the world do you even start?

So, we need to back up a little… and for those of you that already think you know what you want to promote, don’t worry about it. We will get back to you momentarily.

So Where to Start?

If you are just starting out and do not already have a certain market you are involved in, this can actually be a stressful time for you. We can get so riled up over this that we actually give ourselves anxiety. Some of us just grab the first thing that crosses or path or we see some guru promoting and decide that is where to start, only to fail because the competition is so fierce. Others over analyze each product to the point where no product could ever satisfy them.

The best place to be here is in the middle, you want to look for products that are being promoted… but not by every person under the sun and you also need to understand that there is no perfect product out there but you want a product that is not a piece of junk.

The very best place to start for anyone just beginning is with ClickBank. Yes, we know you have probably heard this before and maybe even tried to promote ClickBank products before, but trust us… if you do it right, ClickBank can be a goldmine. The reason we like ClickBank the best for starting out is once you are registered, you can then promote absolutely any product in their database. Unlike other programs, where you still have to apply for certain products and unless you already have a presence online, your chances of getting approved are pretty small.

The downside to ClickBank is it is 100% digital products (ebooks, software, videos and so on) and there is a lot of crap products in there. On the bright side however, there are also many solid products also.

Finding The Right Product

If you do not already have a ClickBank account, sign up for one now at ClickBank, the process is extremely easy.

Once you have signed up, to find products simply go to the ClickBank marketplace at http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm

Once there, the first step is to pick a market that you have somewhat of an interest in or perhaps you already have a site on. Don’t get too hung up on this however, if you really are not interested in anything or have no real care in the world as to what market to start in then just pick a the first category to start with and work your way down.

It is nice to start with a market you are knowledgeable with but this is also a cause for analysis paralysis because we try to find the perfect fit. Over analysis is the enemy.. remember that!

Lets for example just pick a random market… we will start with the the first category “Business to Business” and the first subcategory “Education”. Keep the settings with “Sortby” at Popularity and the “results per page” to 20.

Click Here to Enlarge

Now ClickBank will list for you in order of popularity, the most popular products in their database but they also give you some other fantastic information. What we personally like to do is scroll down the page and look at the titles but we also look at the “$sale” number that ClickBank provides. This is the estimated revenue you can expect to make per sale from that product after refunds, chargebacks and clickbank fees are taken into account.

This number is very important because you want to make sure that the product you are promoting makes at the very least $15 per sale. This is the absolute lowest we will go and the reason is, we want to spend our energy where the money is, so why spend time researching and promoting something that makes you $5 compared to the same effort that can make you $25.

So we scroll down the list and a few products stick out to us right away. The first is the “Instant Forex Profit System“, this pays out over $40 per sale, which is excellent.

The next number we look at is the “%refd”, this tells me the amount of sales that are made by affiliates. In my opinion the higher the number the better here because if no affilaites were making any of the sales there would be a cause for concern. This particular product as over 90% of the sales coming from affiliates.. which is a good thing.

Now we look at the gravity. This is basically a representation of the amont of affiliates promoting this product. Now it is not a direct 1 to 1 relationship, clickbank takes things like time since last sale and more into account for the calculation but personally we like it when this number is not too high because it tells us there are not a lot of competitors to fight against. There is no magic number here because there are so many variables that you have to take into account. For example, if the product is brand new then this number would be very low… personally we like between 10 and 50 but we have promoted products lower then that and higher then that.. but that is the average we look for.

So for this product the $sale is good, the %ref is good and the gravity is not too high… this is looking like a potentially good product. Now is the time to check out the sales page itself. To do that, click on the “create hoplink” in the directory.

Next, enter your ClickBank ID and click create. Now copy the URL they provide and paste it into your browser. This is important because you want to see exactly how the page appears to the end user and you also want to test the links on the page. The first things we look for are…

1. A nice clear headline: We want people to get their attention grabbed right away and be sure that it is compelling.
2. Clean design and nice graphics: Is the page professional looking or like a mid 90s college student page.
3. Social proof (testimonials, screenshots): Prove to me the solution works.
4. Up to date (no old copyright date or 3 year old screen shots): You will be amazed how many people click off a site just because of an outdated copyright date.
5. Clear call to action: Do they do a good job of showing the visitor how to buy the product.

Once we have looked at these elements we then will click on the buy now link to ensure that our affiliate ID is correctly used. Simply click on the “Buy Now” and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and make sure you see [affiliate = YourAffiliateID]

One thing to watch for as well is an opt in form. These can be very beneficial to you but make sure you opt in and see what the message is they send you. Some people can be real scumbags and will actually put a different affiliate link in the email message so when you click on it, it overwrites your cookie with theirs and you lose the sale. Make sure they link directly to the page and your affiliate ID still shows up on the bottom of the order form.

IMPORTANT THOUGHT –> Should you buy the product before you promote it? In our opinion, Yes, but not yet. Until we are sure this is the right product and the keywords look good, there is no sense in buying it. This is not a mandatory step for everything you promote but it is wise, as you can then do videos about the product and really explain in details the advantages to the end user. You can also contact the vendor after all your research is done and ask for a review copy… most will be more then happy to oblige if they see you are serious.

We personally feel that too much time is spent on over analyzing products. If the initial data looks good and the sales page looks good then chances are you can make a couple bucks from that product.

What about non ClickBank products? … how do we decide if we should move forward with those?

Not all, in fact very few, affiliate programs give you details like ClickBank does. The biggest thing we look at for non Clickbank products is the % commission we can make. If we cant make $15 per sale at the bare minimum, then we don’t bother. Also, we check out the sales page, the same as we do with ClickBank. So with the initial example of the Razer keyboard, we would look at the commission rate and the price of the product. If we could make at least $15 per sale, then we would consider looking more into it. If not, then we move on.

Time to Contradict Ourselves –> We would not always not move forward with something if it is less then $15 but we would already have to have a related site set up that we could just write up a promotion for. But for full blown market research, it must be $15 or more per sale made.

Once we have the product or service that we want to move forward with, the secret is now to find out how others are making money with it…. so it is time to start digging for keywords!

>> Remember to sign up for our RSS Feed to stay up to date on the next lesson we post!<<

What is your feedback on this lesson…other then the fact that this is freaking long!

Keyword Lesson Series:

1. Lesson 1 - Keyword Research: What are you Basing it On?
2. Lesson 2 - Keyword Research: the Cart before the Cow
3. Lesson 3 - Keyword research: What for may we ask?
4. Lesson 4 - Keyword Research: Show me the Money… Words that is…
5. Lesson 5 - Keyword Research: Diamonds in the Rough
6. Lesson 6 - Keyword Research: Start Up the Diamond Digger
7. Lesson 7 - Keyword Research: Shiny Diamonds Everywhere

24 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post

The WINNER of the “Top Hosting Center” XBOX360 / GTA4 is Erica DeWolf, owner of http://ericadewolf.wordpress.com/

Congratulations Erica and we have forwarded your information to THC and will be needing details from you as to where to ship it.

Oh and Erica… we expect a nice big picture of you with your xbox when you get it

Additional Random Thoughts By Cow…

Ok so the contest is over and with all the hype over the new GTA4, it made us moo over a few things this last 24hours.

Think back to the end of 2005 when Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was on the verge of being released.

Do we all honestly remember the hype that came along with it? Microsoft’s ‘Great White Hope’. Okay but here’s the funny thing about what Microsoft did when the Xbox 360 was first going to hit the market. The hype around this console was utterly crazy. The day of its launch, people lined up outside of stores for hours just to be able to dash through (If they could), maybe try to stampede over some people, push them over a counter to be able to grasp that holy cow of consoles. The Xbox 360.

However if you take some time to think about Microsoft and what exactly they did with the Xbox 360, maybe we should all just give them a nice pat on the back (not really but there is something to learn from the evil empire).

Since we can remember, there has been a Console war of Xbox VS PlayStation. It’s been a large debate from gamers for years and generally it breaks down to just which console they believe is better.

See Microsoft knows about this debate, as does Sony and they took advantage of it. When the original Xbox was released, Microsoft came out with Halo: Combat Evolved. Now the only way you probably won’t know about this game is if you’ve been living under a rock in the pasture for the last, oh we don’t know…7 years.

Microsoft released Halo: Combat Evolved on November 15th 2001. Want to know their great marketing plan behind this? Unlike other games that are released for multi platforms, Halo was only released for the Xbox.

Now this worked out GREAT for Microsoft, due to the fact that Halo was dubbed “Game of the Year”. So all of the gamers who are hell bent on just owning a PlayStation; well now if they want to get their hoofs on one of the best killer app’s game’s around…

They had to fork out the mooney for the Xbox.

Another great marketing strategy from Microsoft was with the release of the game Halo 3. For gamers to be able to play Halo 3 they have to be able to purchase the new Xbox 360. Now many of us know that Halo is available for our home PC’s as well, however, Halo 2 and Halo 3… (When it becomes available for the home PC…don’t get your panties in a twist. There has been no word about a release date just yet… so you need an XBox for now to play them) …are available for…. are you ready for this…

Vista only!

So now’s the time that we should give Microsoft a pat on the back (or kick in the ass if you really want to); they know how to market their biggest features. By simply using one game and one game only. The largest selling video game in gaming history. They just ensured that gamers are spending anywhere from $99-$310 on a copy of Windows Vista or paying anywhere from $300-$500 for a version of the Xbox 360.

Not too shabby, right?

Check these Console stats out:

• Nintendo Wii – As of March 31st 2008 – Unit’s Sold World Wide – 24.25 million
• Microsoft Xbox 360 – As of April 25th 2008 – Unit’s Sold World Wide – 19 million
• Sony PlayStation 3 – As of April 21st 2008 – Unit’s Sold World Wide – 13 million

Are we seeing the hype that is coming from this?

So do we all agree? Think about how much mooney each of those consoles cost, and that’s not even including the biggest selling games of the year.

That’s a whole lot of Mooney!

Look at Grand Theft Auto IV. The newest game in the Grand Theft Auto series which was launched on April 30th 2008. Before this game even hit the shelves, people we’re already saying that it could bump Halo 3 out of top stop for selling the most copies during it’s first week (not likely). Stores we’re being opened at midnight on Monday night to allow gamers in and purchase what they had in stock. Gamers all around the world we’re taking days off school and work just to be able to play the game. The Movie Iron Man is worried that the hype of this game will hurt its opening weekend (look like a cool movie too).

Games and Consoles get amazing marketing hype before they even reach the shelves. We often see cool trailers for games or the console, it’s all over the media and we’re sure it doesn’t help that they have their own expo each and every year.

Do you know it? ‘Electronic Entertainment Expo’, well actually now it’s known just as E3. Everybody who’s anybody in the video game industry is at this expo each and every year showing the gaming world the hottest new items that are up and coming in the market.

So the question is this?

What are we doing wrong and how can we bring this sort of hype into our world?

If we can break into this tactic and achieve the type of hype that new consoles or video games can bring to the market…do you know what would happen?

We’d all be filthy stinking rich!

Here’s the thing however, sure hype like this can be great for sales. Being able to purchase a Nintendo Wii is becoming almost impossible due to the lack of consoles in stores and when they do come in, they only ship limited numbers.

Xbox 360’s and PlayStation 3’s are in stores and can often be found, but not everybody is going to be able to spend around $300-$600 on a console.

Speaking of PlayStation 3, does anybody remember when the console was first released?

Do we remember the news during the first week or so?

Check this out:

Can you say INSANE!!!

20 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post

We got an email from someone that wanted us to take a look at some cool widgets that bloggers can use to enhance their blogs. JS-Kit has tons of handy, easy (just add a line of code in your site, that’s it!) to integrate scripts that can help your blog grow and attract new readers, something which will be welcomed by most of us. We’re just going to list up a couple of their most interesting stuff here, so you can decide if you’d like to grab one of them, for free.

1) Ratings - A lot of bloggers use Lester Chan’s plugin to show the 5 little stars at the end of a blog post, where readers can tell you how valuable they thought your post was. We took it out and have replaced it with JS-Kit’s script, which essentialy does the same thing, but it feeds the data to the navigator widget in the sidebar. This way the most popular posts (by ratings) can be seen by your visitors, most likely providing them with interesting stuff.

2) Score - This is pretty cool, it allows you to create your own localized Digg system within your posts. Every time someone “diggs” or “thumbs up” on of the posts they like, these will all show up in the navigator widget again, like ratings, but this time under the TOP or HOT tab. A simple yet effective way to make sure your blog’s top content keeps alive and highly visible for new visitors.

3) Reviews - This one could easily replace a blogs comment section because essentially it does the same thing, but it combines the power of ratings too. Besides that, it looks like there’s some sort of threaded comments built-in to the scripts. God knows, it’s so much easier to follow a discussion in your comments with some visual guidance.

4) Polls - A simple but powerful tool to add polls to your site and keep track of the results via your navigator widget. We never had any polls on our blog, but its obviously great to use to find out what interests your readers and what doesn’t. ThisWith this data you can make sure you keep pumping out interesting stuff (perhaps we should start a poll )

5) Navigator - Yes, the navigator. It doesn’t just look sharp in your sidebar, its essential to get your new visitors to explore and discover the hidden gems on your blog. Here is a short list with the benefits of the Navigator widget:

• decreases bounce rates, increases pageviews and simplifies content management
• incredibly easy to deploy (think minutes)
• viral distribution of content through “Grab It”
• unmatched run-time performance and full data backup
• seamless integration with your site using preconfigured design skins
• cross-browser compatibility

JS-Kit looks very promising, as they have recently been backed by a few large investors, raising $1.2 million to further develop themselves. We’re sure there are many more super widgets to come from these guys in the near future.

11 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post

Its been a while since we had a cool contest and we do apologize for this. We know how much you guys like to win free stuff, so today we’re happy to announce we’ve got 2 great prizes up for grabs, generously sponsored by the code hackers at CSSRockstars. Basically what they do is take your design and turn it into something usable for the Net. We’re talking your very own WordPress theme, a Drupal or Joomla skin, perhaps a Pligg skin. If you have the design but you have no idea to turn it working code, this contest is right for you. If you don’t have a design, you can always hot of the boys from Weborithm to grab a spiffy blog design. And even if you don’t have something that needs to get coded, there’s always tons of people looking for a coder on the webmaster forums. We’re sure you’ll find someone that’s willing to buy that prize from you!

What does the service include?

An order for static coding includes cutting up the design, optimizing the images for size and presentation, coding the design into (x)HTML/CSS. Rollover, drop down menus and basic Javascript are all included in the price. An order for CMS or blog coding includes the above plus the final template or skin for the selected CMS.

So, here are the details for this little competition:

• You can either write a small blurb about this contest (circa 200 words) on your blog. It could be about why you’d like to win this prize, or just something that mentions the contest. (e.g. JohnCow and CSSRockstars are giving away $500 worth of coding to anyone that just mentions them on their blog.

OR

• You could just add us and CSSRockstars to your blogroll. Please use “Making money online” and “CSS Coding” as anchor text if you choose this option.

That’s basically it. Oh, one more thing; We will pick 2 random winners on the 14th of March, which is in just 10 days, and announce them ONLY in our RSS feed. If you’ve won and don’t claim your prize that day, we will pick another winner. So make sure you sign up for our feed.

11 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post

Most of us here are bloggers. Many of us write for multiple blogs, which is a great way to explore a number of niches. But where do you store your blogs? No, not online, offline?

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have a folder deeply buried on your hard disk called “blogs” or “sites” or whatever “blogs” or “sites” is in your directory. What mine contains is a copy of wordpress that the site is currently running (very important, as you if you switch servers you save time from finding the version of wordpress that’s compatible with your database), and the blog’s theme.

Each of my blogs has this, but there’s one more folder - plugins. This contains a copy of the essential plugins I use for my blog. Why do I do that? Well, three reasons stand out:

Saves Time: Instead of constantly directory hopping, I simply upload the wp-plugins folder to the wp-content subfolder on my server.

Handles Legacy Plugins: Suppose a site with the plugin you want on goes down? I’ve still got a backup, and - more importantly - I know exactly where it is.

Familiarisation - Before, I had 3 different plugins on 3 different blogs that did the same thing. Now, on any new blogs I create, I will only have one.

So, if you want to speed up the process of making a blog, spending more time blogging and promoting, why not create your own Plugin Depot on your hard drive? It’ll make your life a lot easier.

Of course, in an ideal world, all your blogs will use the same plugin depot online, but I’ll leave wordpress plugin writers to come up with a nifty way of doing that ;).

This post is written by Rhys Wynne - a five year blogger who knows the joys associated with multiple blogs. He writes at The Gospel According To Rhys, and has recently launched My Brand New Brand - a tool to help affiliate marketers find brandable domain names.

17 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post