If you’re a full time affiliate marketer there’s a very good chance that you probably don’t use internet explorer anymore. There’s a number of reasons most people switch, but the most common, is the lack of plugin functionality & 3rd party integration.

Firefox has really embraced these types of applications & allows you to integrate them seamlessly into your regular workflow, helping you to do tasks or use functions that the original developers didn’t hardcode.

I use quite a number of Firefox Extensions that really make a huge difference to my workflow & productivity, but the aim of this post to be the definitive list of Firefox Plugins for Affiliate Marketers:

Foxmarks

When you have multiple computers & workstations it can become painful to always keep your bookmarks in sync, especially when you’ve got hundreds of websites. Foxmarks will store all of your firefox bookmarks externally & then keep them updated & in sync no matter where you go (provided you have the extension installed on the computer). This means that the bookmarks on all of my computers always match, a massive time saver for me.

Greasemonkey

Greasemonkey is an extension for Firefox that allows you to write or download scripts that change how web pages behave or look. There’s literally thousands of user written scripts that do all sorts of things from Downloading Youtube Videos to removing the annoying parts of Myspace (I thought it was all annoying though? ) or showing you the Link Data in Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Google Global

This extension allows you to view the Google Search Results from different locations around the world, right down to regions, cities & postcodes. Extremely useful if you’re running PPC campaigns outside your Geo Location & also if you want to see what your international competitors are doing.

SEO for Firefox

I’ve talked about how much I like this plugin before but if you’re planning on quickly analysing a particular keyword or niche or any other search results then this plugin is gold. It allows you to quickly see the inbound links to a domain or page, get an idea idea if the page has pagerank & also plenty of other features.

Search Status

Get an quick snapshot of Page Rank & Alexa Rank when viewing a particular page. Good for quickly analysing the popularity of a particular website/page.

Web Developer Extension

This is a very useful extension that allows you to manipulate many of the design related features within a page. You can disable Java, CSS, Referrers & Meta Redirects; Clear Cookies & disable Cookies; Resize pages & elements & also manipulate forms. Very very useful.

User Agent Switcher

Switch between user agents within firefox to see how web pages react. Useful for getting into areas that only allow Googlebot (naughty naughty) & a few other things.

Live HTTP Headers

Display the HTTP Headers from a website in Real Time. This can be used for debugging, to see what cookies are being set & to check for redirects.

Roboform

I use roboform to fill in forms & also fill in signup details for new websites. Saves quite a considerable amount of time if you set it up correctly.

Screengrab

All webmasters need to take screenshots once in a while. I particularly love this extension because you can grab an entire page as a screenshot.

Gspace

Gspace is a great extension that turns your 2GB of space in Gmail into your very own file storage area. Really useful for keeping backups & also transferring files between locations quickly & securely.

Gmail Manager

Manage multiple Gmail accounts from one extension. This extension is particularly useful if you’ve migrated completely to gmail, outlined in one of my previous posts.

XML Password Exporter

If you like to manage all your passwords via Keepass then this tool will allow you to export all your Firefox passwords to xml or csv format which you can then use to import into Keepass. Nifty. Now all we need is an extension for Firefox that integrates with KeePass (hint hint).

Autocopy

Just like in Linux this extension allows you to select any text & have it copied automatically to the clipboard.

Ref Spoof

Fake your referrer easily. This is pretty good if you want to catch someone out who’s cloaking or test/hack other referrer related things.

If you use any other plugins that you feel enhance your productivity or help you with affiliate marketing then let me know about them in the comments & help grow this list.

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Email is one of those things that has the ability to really zap away much of the precious ‘work’ time that you have during the day. If you’re a compulsive ‘email checker’ then perhaps this tutorial isn’t for you, but if you have to manage a large number of email accounts & addresses all at once then this tutorial will save you so much time & hassle that you’ll never, ever look back.

Since I have a load of different websites with their own mailboxes it’s safe to say that I have a lot of ‘accounts’ in my Thunderbird that send & receive mail from each of the sites. Recently this method was becoming very cumbersome, I was getting increased amounts of spam & I was really finding it difficult to check mail on the go (via squirrelmail).

This called for action, I realised that somehow I:

• wanted to consolidate all of my mail into one account, but still be able to utilise all the addresses
• be able to read all my mail from the web from one login
• eliminate the insane amount of spam I was receiving
• still be able to download all my mail via pop to thunderbird

I’ve long used Gmail for my personal email, but never anything website related. But it just so happens that all of the things I’m looking for it handles, not only that but Gmail has perhaps the best spam filter going, you you can say goodbye to spam email forever.

So here’s what we’re going to do:

• Forward all existing email addresses to Gmail
• Download all the mail from our Existing Inboxes
• Delete all of our existing Email Accounts from Thunderbird
• Set up Thunderbird to Download all mail from Gmail POP
• Set up Outgoing mail in Thunderbird
• Set up Outgoing Email Addresses in Gmail
• Set up Rules in Gmail
• Set up Rules in Thunderbird

By following these steps we’ll now be able to read mail sent to any of our accounts on the web via gmail, reply to any emails from the address it was sent to, download all of the email via pop to our own email client at home (whilst still keeping a copy on gmail) & filter out all the nasty spam in the process.

Step by Step how it’s done:

Forward Existing Email Addresses to Gmail

If you use Cpanel you can do this via the email settings, or if you use squirrelmail the option is there too:

Just set your current address to forward to your new (or existing) gmail address:

You’ll need to do this for all of the email accounts that you use. If you don’t use Cpanel, please refer to your Web Hosting Email admin panel for this feature.

Download Mail from Existing Inboxes

You’ll want to catch all the mail that was sent to your inboxes before you initiated the forwarding. Simply download your mail from your mail client as normal.

I use thunderbird for my POP mail client, but it all depends on personal preference, you may prefer Outlook or Eudora.

Delete Existing Email Accounts from Thunderbird

Since we’ll be downloading all of our mail through Gmail you’ll not need those other POP accounts. You can do this in the account settings area of thunderbird:

Setup Thunderbird to Download all Mail from Gmail via POP

In doing so we can not only read all of our mail online via Gmail but we can also download a hard copy to our Email Client. Log into Gmail & click on setting in the top right hand corner of the screen, next click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP Tab.

Ignore the sections about forwarding & IMAP, instead you can choose to either enable POP for all mail you’ve ever received or just for mail from this point onwards. You can also choose whether to keep a copy in Gmail or not. Choose the setting that suits your needs.

Now we need to set up thunderbird with the Gmail settings.

Incoming Mail

Add a new account in Thunderbird with the following credentials:

1. Your Name
2. Your Gmail Email Address
3. Choose POP
4. Incoming server is pop.googlemail.com
5. Incoming username is your Google Email Address
6. When done select Port Settings
7. Port 995
8. Under Security Settings choose SSL

Outgoing Mail

To send outgoing mail through your gmail in Thunderbird use the following settings:

1. Server Name: smtp.googlemail.com
2. Port: 25
3. Username: Your Google Email Address
4. Use Secure Connection: Choose TLS

Set up Outgoing Mail Addresses in Gmail

One of the unique features in Gmail is that you can respond to all mail from your own personal email addresses. Since we’ve already forwarded our addresses this part will be a cinch.

Goto settings in Gmail again & click on Accounts. Click on add another email address & add all of your personal email addresses. Gmail will send a mail to those addresses to verify you own them. Since they’ve all been forwarded you’ll get the verification emails to your Gmail Account. Verify them all then choose whether you want to always reply from the email address that a mail as been sent to, or you default Gmail Address.

Set up Filters in Gmail & Rules in Thunderbird

You can now set up your rules & filter to organise your mail as you see fit. Naturally you may not want to organise your mail like I do but here some tips:

Gmail

1. Create Labels to file mail by Website in Gmail
2. Use filters to delete unwanted mail & report spam/mail you don’t want as you see it
3. Auto Archive mail that you get frequently (i.e. signup emails etc)

Thunderbird

1. Create Folders to file mail by website
2. Use Sub Folders to categorise mail even further
3. Use the filters to delete unwanted mail (this shouldn’t happen though since you’ve set this up in Gmail already)

Now you can sit back, whether it’s at home on or on move & never worry about spam again.

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I get emails from time to time asking about how should someone that works from home structure their day & also what are the best ways to keep focused whilst working from home (we all know how easy it is to just play xbox live all day).

So I’ve put together this guide on what I think is important to help you work from home efficiently & also get the most out of the experience, naturally everyone will be different but I’d also love to hear if you do anything different to increase your productivity or make the whole experience better.

Get up Early & get to Bed Early

Getting into a proper routine can be difficult, especially when working from home. You’ve got no boss to impress but yourself, you don’t have to be anywhere at a specific time, you don’t have anyone telling you what to do. This is generally the first mistake that people make, it’s easy to get up at 1pm then work through to 10pm that night or even 3am the next morning. However your body won’t thank you for it in the long run.

Mornings are the most productive part of our day, so use them to get your most important tasks out of the way.

Get up & go to bed at the same time as if you were going to work, if you stick to this you’ll find that you get more done & you won’t have to work as late.

Get Regular Exercise

Working from home can make us lazy, there’s no real need to leave the house anymore…right? Well, Since you’re waking up at the same time you normally would for your day job; you now have more time to be productive instead of sitting on the train or in peak time traffic for an hour. Use this time in the morning to hit the gym or go for a walk, maybe go out & get some breakfast & unwind.

Don’t forget to Eat

When we lead busy lives it can often get in the way of day to day tasks. Don’t forget to feed yourself. Eating 5 Small meals a day will help keep your metabolism up (especially if you exercise in the morning).

• 8am – Breakfast
• 11am – Fruit Snack
• 1pm – Lunch
• 4pm – Savoury Snack
• 6pm – Dinner

Following this routine will ensure that you don’t get hungry throughout the day, it’ll also keep your energy levels up.

Get Showered & Dressed Every Day

Whilst it’s a luxury to sit around in your Pajamas & do work every day it’s not something that is commonly associated with being productive & active. Have a shower & get dressed after breakfast then you’ll feel ready to face the day instead of wanting to get back into bed after an hour of work.

Separate Work from the rest of the House

Having an office or a space that you can work in is imperative, doing all your work whilst sitting on the sofa won’t get you very far. An office helps to keep Distractions to a minimum & also when you walk into your office at the start of the day you feel like “you’re at work.”

Have a Start & Finish Time for Work

Try to treat working from home like a normal job, work starts at 9am & finishes at 5.30pm (if you need to work later later you can). This way you’ll try to get everything you need to get done by the time work is over. If the day is “unlimited” then we tend to waste time reading blogs & forums.

Schedule your Day

Building on the previous point you can schedule your day & write it up on the wall:

• 7am – Wake up
• 7.20am – Exercise/Gym
• 8.20am – Breakfast
• 8.40am – Shower & Get Ready
• 9am – Answer & Read Emails
• 9.30am – Read Blogs, Forums & Catch up on Stats
• 10am – Work on your Bread & Butter Projects (the ones that ARE making you money)
• 1pm – Lunch
• 1.30pm – Test new ideas & tweak campaigns on test campaigns
• 3pm – Work on Link Building & Promotion techniques for Affiliate Sites
• 5pm – Research offers & potential programs for following day
• 5.15pm – Update spreadsheets with yesterdays stats & profits
• 5.30pm – Finish – Free for all work on whatever you want

Ensure you have Good Communications

You want to have a decent DSL Connection, Phone Line (or Skype), the ability to send & receive fax. You’ll also want to have a decent instant messaging program (like trillian) that lets you log into multiple networks at once.

Be Organised

Organisation is key to making this work.

Record what you spend & earn in Spreadsheets, keep your finances organised (i.e. open a business bank account). Spend money during the month on your credit cards (to earn your points), then pay it off at the end of the month.

Set up all your tabs & folders in Firefox. I use the ‘Open in all Tabs’ feature to instantly check all my stats. Or for example say you run a Credit Card Comparison website & need to update the rates, simply have a folder with all the credit card product pages in it & open them all at once with one click.

Also check this previous post on increasing productivity.

Build a Team

There’s no bigger bottleneck in your whole operation than yourself. If something is working for you then get some friends on board, outsource tasks or form partnerships with other affiliates.

Get a Pet

Sometimes working from home can be lonely. There’s no-one to go out to lunch with or (if you’re in australia) all of the people you normally talk to are asleep. I got a cat & it’s one of the best things I’ve ever bought, it’s there when you wake up in the morning, it’s sits beside you as you work & it seems to remove that feeling that “you’re alone in the house.” Now there’s an idea for a business, the ‘Affiliate marketers Pet Shop – Making you feel wanted since 2008.’

Have Fun

Don’t overdo it, working from home is fun. It’s even more fun when you’re making more money than your old job, don’t let it get in the way of your personal relaxing time & time with your family. You know what they say:

A happy wife = a happy life

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I hope you’ve all been busy creating your Ebay Affiliate Websites because I’m currently working on a Subscription based Promotional Tool to help you get Indexed & Rank faster. More details will be revealed soon so keep checking

This quick tutorial is on Keyword Flipping.

What is Keyword Flipping?

Keyword Flipping is perfect for Affiliate Marketers & also people running Multiple PPC campaigns at once. It allows you to set up Campaigns quicker, analyse your results quicker then make the necessary optmisation tweaks to increase your CTR once you know what’s already working. This technique saves you time, lots of time.

Overview

As the Affiliate Marketing space becomes more & more saturated it’s important to test as many different offers (with multiple variables) as we can. Naturally it can be a time consuming process setting up very very targeted PPC campaigns without first knowing which keywords are going to perform best for us in the long run. Keyword Flipping basically allows you to test lots of targeted keywords at once then pick the initial performers out & create a more targeted adgroup. Thus further increasing the CTR & reducing the cost we pay per click.

Theory

It’s important to understand the Adwords Bidding Formula to really see why having a higher CTR & keeping things targeted is important:

Ad Score = CTR x Max Bid

Therefore if my overall CTR is 10% & I’m bidding 1 Dollar then my Ad Score is 10. However, if someone else has a CTR of 20% & they’re bidding $0.75 then their Ad Score is 15 therefore outranking my ad (even though they’re bidding less).

This is why people generally bid higher to start, get a decent CTR & tweak adcopy then reduce the bid whilst monitoring position & CTR to get more value per click.

Our aim is to get the highest possible CTR on the ads that are working for us. This allows us to attain this best possible return on our advertising spend. We could make very targeted adgroups & ads for each individual keyword but this takes up time & less time means we can test less offers.

How it Works

When you’re setting up a brand new campaign for a specific offer try to theme your keywords & put them in groups. Let say for example that we’re talking about Web Hosting. You might choose the following keywords:

• Cheap Web Hosting
• Affordable Web Hosting
• Discount Web Hosting
• Low Cost Web Hosting
• Web Hosting Coupons
• Cheapest Web Hosting
• Lowest Priced Web Hosting
• Cheap Web Hosts

In this group these keywords are themed by price. They all relate to one another fairly well so I can get away with either using Google’s Dynamic Keyword Insertion or Just creating some generic Low Cost Adcopy for them, then I’ll bid to position 4 or Above.

I’ll normally let the ads then run for around 24-48 hours. Once that period has elapsed I’ll go back to the group & check the stats. You will soon be able to see which ads are getting a good number of impressions & clicks. It’s also important to track the conversions on a keyword level, otherwise you won’t know which keywords are converting.

Flipping the keyword now involves grabbing the best performers & creating their own highly targeted adgroup (those that are converting & getting a decent amount of impressions). Say for example that Cheap Web Hosting had the highest CTR of about 8% & converted at 4%. We can then create a new adgroup called “Cheap Web Hosting” that contains that keyword only. We now create a much more targeted ad, such as:

You can see how we use the keyword in the Adcopy 3 times now. As people search for the keyword it highlights the text, thus highlighting their attention to the ad:

Doing this can sometimes double or triple your CTR which means you can hold a much higher position at a fraction of the price. This means that if we still convert at 4% on the keyword we can pull in the same amount of traffic at half the price thus doubling our ROI.

Conclusion

Keyword Flipping is a quick & easy way to find out & isolate your highest performing & highest traffic keywords then refine them further without wasting time optimising keywords that won’t perform.

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When you’re working on projects alone, the smallest of tasks can end up exhausting all of your resources & decreasing your productivity.

I like to put a dollar figure on what I think my time is worth. For example, I think that a full days work for me is worth $400, BUT then I spend the whole day trying to figure out why my wordpress template doesn’t look right I have effectively wasted a lot of valuable time.

So why not outsource this work? If you’ve theoretically just lost $400 for getting no work done & you can hire someone to do the job cheaper then why wouldn’t you?

Well firstly, Outsourcing can be a daunting task. Especially if you’ve not commissioned anyone to work for you before. So how do you go about it?

This all depends on the type of project you are working on, the expectations & the timelines. You can get a good feel for these metrics by looking at projects other people have submitted on Elance or Get a Freelancer. The advantage of doing work with companies like these are that generally it’s free to post your project & you only pay when it’s done. You can also track the progress.

What I’ve found however is that if you are consistently working on projects that demand design, coding & development then eventually you’ll need a dedicated person for that job. When that time comes how do you go about finding the first person?

Finding the right person is never going to be an easy task. Just look at all the companies you’ve ever worked for, was the team ever perfect? Probably not.

When it gets to the point that you need to hire out of necessity rather than choice then chances are you’ll also be willing to accept a much lower quality applicant than normal.

The following series of posts will try to look at outsourcing from a few different perspectives & varying project sizes.

1. Your Friends

Project Size: Small to Medium
Pros: Friends will work for food or shelter :p
Cons: If the shit hits the fan you can put stress on your friendships, you also tend to give you friends much more leeway & less slack than if they were an employee. Work also can drag out much longer if the project isn’t planned.

Friends are always one of the easiest ways to start getting help for projects. Just have a look at how Nate Whitehill & his crew work. This setup works well for these guys because they’re all business partners all working towards a common goal rather than one guy working but all his friends working for him.

That’s a decision you have to make when getting friends on board.

2. India & Malaysia

Project Size: Small to Large
Pros: Very Cheap Labour, Hard Workers, Will do all your menial tasks.
Cons: Timezones can be an Issue, So can Communication. These guys need tobe managed & expectations need to be set.

Outsourcing beyond your friends is probably your next step. If you’re on a limited budget then chances are you’ll look towards India or the Philippines. It is possible to hire a programmer or designer with years of experience for around $300 US/month. So theoretically you could have a small team working for what you’d pay 1 programmer at home.

You’ve got two choices here. If you just want to outsource your project then check out the two project sites I mentioned earlier in the post (Elance or Get a Freelancer). If you want to hire a small team then you’ll need to write up individual job descriptions of exactly what you’re looking for. When you get applications, you’ll want to screen each inidivdual then see their portfolio:

1. Have they worked in a team before?
2. What websites have they worked on?
3. Examples of coding work
4. Examples of design work
5. References

Checking references is vitally important, treat them like your background check. Rely on these heavily if you’re hiring people with lots of experience. You may also be able to hire students part time or graduates who are all self taught but still know their stuff.

Communication is vital when you’ve got a remote team working for you. I’d recommend getting skype set up so you can communicate instantly. I’d also recommend using a task management system like Basecamp to track progress & keep tabs on what’s happening on a daily basis.

Quick Tip: If you get a good group of guys/girls working for you don’t forget to reward them with a bonus if they really excel in a project.

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World

• Chinese New Year – (see here for dates)
• Valentines Day – Feb 14th
• St Patricks Day – March 17th
• Easter Weekend – (see here for dates)
• April Fools Day – April 1st
• May Day – 1st May
• Halloween – October 31st
• Christmas Day – December 25th

USA

• Independance Day – 4th July
• Mothers Day – Second Sunday in May
• Fathers Day – Third Sunday in June
• Parents day – Fourth Sunday in July
• Grandparents Day – Sunday After Labour Day
• Thanksgiving Day – Fourth Thursday in November

UK

• Orangemen’s Day – 12th July
• Mothers Day – 3 Weeks before Easter Sunday
• Fathers Day – Third Sunday in June

Australia

• Australia Day – 26th January
• Anzac Day – 25th April
• Mothers Day – Second Sunday in May
• Queens Birthday – Second Monday in June
• Fathers Day – First Sunday of September
• Melbourne Cup Day – First Tuesday in November

You’ll probably be wondering why on earth some of these dates are useful. What I would recommend doing is printing this list out then writing down a list of things you think you could sell for each occassion.

I’ll give you a hint. Flowers normally work well

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I have to admit, whilst in some areas I’m pretty organised there’s other that I’m not. I’ve been doing a lot of researching & fine tuning lately to streamline as much of my work as possible. There’s lots & lots of things you can do to organise your Affiliate Marketing Campaigns & also your day in general.

The aim of this series of posts is to pass on some of the tricks I’ve learned. So without further ado here’s the first.

As an Affiliate, the single biggest thing that frustrates me & clutters up my desktop, is leaving notes everywhere. Whether it’s in notepad, word or excel, saving webpages of interest or just jotting down random things.

That is until someone pointed me towards Evernote. This awesome free program allows you to keep all your notes in one space, categorised & also in order of date. A godsend for any Affiliate Marketer.

Above is a quick example of how you can set up the Category system.

The interface allows for unendless notes under each category or sub category. You can scroll through & read all the notes you’ve made on a certain date or use the smartsearch feature to find particular keywords quickly.

Moving to evernote made a huge difference to my productivity, here’s some of the stuff I use it for:

Todo Lists: I write down all the stuff I need to do or stuff I can think of, this helps me structure my day in a way that is more productive.

Website Lists: I like to make lists of websites, evernote is really handy for this. For example I’ll always try to organise Social Media networks by niche.

Ideas Pad: I get random ideas all the time, I have a section that allowsme to jot things down. I can come back to them at any time without having to search around for the random txt file I’d usually keep ideas in.

Source Code: This option allows me to copy parts of templates, html or php easily & store them for future use.

Universal Clipping: This is quite cool, the clipping plugin fires straight into Word, Excel & Firefox. It allows you to instantly transfer a particular page into evernote to store for future reference. Awesome for storing pages to read later when you don’t have a net connection.

Note Flagging: I use this feature to flag the notes of high importance that I really need to get back to asap.

Blog Posts: And last but not least I created the idea for this blog post right in Evernote, then just copied & pasted it into the WordPress editor.

There you have it, be gone with all the notepad, pdf & word file cluttering your desktop. The program runs nicely in your system tray & sits quietly out of the way until you need it.

Get onto this simple, easy to use program & start getting organised

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1. Checking Affiliate Stats
2. Adjusting Bids in Adwords Campaigns
3. Moderating Posts on your Forum
4. Accepting orders from your Ecommerce Website
5. Downloading log files once a month from your server
6. Leaving Ebay Feedback for all users

There are plenty of ways that you can automate your day to make things tick along much smoother & leave you with more time to spend on the stuff that matters.

But the main problem is that most of us don’t either have the coding knowledge to write a custom script to do this for us or have the contacts with coders to have them do it for us.

That’s where Imacros comes in.

A macro in computer science is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence (often a sequence of characters) should be mapped to an output sequence (also often a sequence of characters) according to a defined procedure.

With this plugin, any task that you can do within the Firefox interface you can have Imacros record it & automate it for you. This includes:

1. Filling forms & passwords
2. Web Automation
3. Automating Downloads
4. Information Scraping into .csv files

For example when I want to check affiliate stats I have a macro that will go in, open all the websites up in seperate tabs on the exact page with the stats.

You could even take this further & use the extraction tool to take the data from your affiliate stats & save it in .csv format.

For some example on how to automate with Imacros here’s some tutorials:

1. Browser Automation Tutorial
2. Form Filling Tutorial
3. Image Recognition Tutorial
4. Web Scripting Tutorial

Another good application for doing this is AutoHotKey which will also help you automate almost anything, except this time you trigger it via your keyboard.

I’m also keen to hear what practial uses any of you guys have implemented with either of these plugins.

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For the new readers, the goals for Earners Blog were as follows:

1. Rank #1 in Google for earn money online (Current Rank #22)
2. Reach at least 300 Feed Subscribers
3. Average 1000 Unique Visitors per day
4. Remove all Ads & Sign up Direct Advertisers
5. Get my readers more Involved
6. Innovate other Webmasters

Here’s how things are shaping up:

1. Rank #1 in Google for earn money online (Current Rank #5)
2. Reach at least 300 Feed Subscribers (Current Subscribers 948)
3. Average 1000 Unique Visitors per day (Averaging about 700 Currently)
4. Remove all Ads & Sign up Direct Advertisers (Had enquiries but still looking for Direct Advertisers)
5. Get my readers more Involved
6. Innovate other Webmasters (I hope so :p)

I think I’ve almost completed all of them, maybe I should have been a bit more optimistic at the start of the year but I guess I can’t complain. Soooo I guess I’d like to up the stakes a bit now:

1. Rank #1 in Google for earn money online & affiliate marketing blog (Current Rank #5 & #15)
2. Reach at least 1,500 Feed Subscribers (Current Subscribers 948)
3. Average 1,500 Unique Visitors per day (Averaging about 700 Currently)
4. Remove all Ads & Sign up Direct Advertisers
5. Expand Earners Blog into an Affiliate Marketing Resource aswell as just the Blog
6. Review Ad Networks & allow readers to leave comments on them

So thanks to everyone that’s been linking to me with the anchor text earn money online, I’ll crack the #1 spot yet & thanks to everyone that’s been reading & commenting over these past 6 month. You rock.

Oh & before I forget, how are your goals going?

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One of the biggest problems I face whilst blogging is trying to stay productive. Whilst holding down a pretty intense day job then working on Affiliate Marketing & my other ventures in the evening I can still just manage to get the content out & keep it very profitable.

So here’s a few tips to keep things running smoothly:

I know that I’d not be nearly as productive if I wasn’t working full time. It means that I have a much smaller window in the evenings to get what I need done & I just do it. This doesn’t work for everyone but I’ve found this to be very effective for me rather than to spend all day working on my projects.

I tend to (as much as I can) blog in advance. This means sitting down & writing 5 or more posts then using the WordPress timestamp feature to sequence them out over a week or two. This gives readers the perception that I’m updating continually when I’m actually working on something else.

I use WordPress Drafts to put down ideas for posts. I’ve got HEAPS of draft posts sitting there that I’ve not finished. Quite often when I’m lacking in ideas I’ll finish off or combine a few of these ideas to create a new post. If you think of an idea always write it down, you never know when it’ll tie in with something you’re writing about.

Outsource your menial tasks. If something is profitable for you then this is a really good way to keep it ticking over without wasting your own resources on it. There’s load of good ways to outsource blogging & coding:

• Post on Craigslist or Digitalpoint asking for writers or coders.
• Look further afield to India & Malaysia for really dirt cheap outsourcing (think $300 / month for a full time employee)
• Ask your readers to “contribute” content to your projects. If it’s good then strike up an arrangement with them to post regularly.

Spend time targeting & building relationships with bloggers in your niche. Not doing this is unproductive imo. Often this can result in joint ventures, backlinks from authority sites & even knowledge sharing.

Have a good feed reader. Netvibes is awesome for this. It allows you to stay on top of what’s happening within a particular industry or niche all within one page. I swear by this feed reader.

Always research new keywords & themes to expand your websites into. With sites you will usually reach a peak in the amount of traffic you can capitalise upon. When you reach this point you should always think about breaking into new keyword markets & focus more of your energy on this, instead of the older keyword focus that you’ve monopolised already.

Don’t spend time looking at your stats all day, this does nothing. Have a set time to check your stats once per day then forget about them (I do this at 10am every day), this includes checking adsense etc. Spend your time building & working, not contemplating.

Don’t leave your email client on Auto Update, just close it. If you’re getting emails every 5 minutes the natural thing is to reply right away. Simply set a time each day to check & reply (or not reply) to all your emails. Also use Filtering to send all your emails to the appropiate folders rather than spending time sorting through them.

Use multiple profiles or even Dual Boot your machine. One platform for work & a platform for play. This way you’re not distracted by things like friends on msn, pointless rss feeds & other clutter when you’re working.

Get two monitors. Blogging & research is much easier when you can split tasks across two monitors. This saves time switching between the wrong windows & also increases multitasking productivity.

Write posts first then format them later on. Don’t waste time making sure everything looks nice & neat until you’ve got the work done.

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The two biggest setbacks for anyone who wants to get into affiliate marketing are:

1. Not enough time to pursue ideas quickly enough
2. Not enough capital behind you to start new sites or ppc campaigns

One of the other major setbacks is deciding whether to stay in your full time job or not.

I personally am a huge believer in a career that I know will be a solid backup to any affiliate marketing that I do & I also love my job, however it has the disadvantages of point 1. Not being able to spend as much time as I’d like on campaigns or ideas.

There’s always outsourcing but more on that another time.

So, how do you make that transition from working Full Time into Affiliate Marketing full time?

Ebay

I know it sounds stupid but trust me, Ebay was what initally got me into Affiliate Marketing & it still accounts for a good proportion of my online income.

I’ll give you a few reasons as to why marketing on ebay is good:

Automation: You can automate almost every aspect of selling on ebay once you have a product.

Audience: You have a huge audience, don’t have to worry about SEO or Marketing. It kindof falls into the old “Build it & they will come” scenario.

Education: I’ve found that most ebay users & buyers are much less educated than your average Google User so you can sell products that only focus on high level details rather than the nitty gritty stuff.

These three factors alone make ebay the absolute perfect way to market any product you’ve created yourself online.

I’ll quickly give you an overview of what I do to create & market an item on ebay:

1. Create an informational product in PDF format. Make it as professional looking as I can (spelling, layout & logos). Provide a lot of useful & actionable information, actionable is important if you want to make affiliate sales from within the book.
2. Lock the PDF file so that people can’t copy & paste the information.
3. Slightly sprinkle the PDF with cloaked affiliate links, these convert pretty well from ebay sales believe it or not.
4. Include an opt-in list inside the ebook so that I get them on my mailing list, chances are if they’ve bought the book they’ll buy more from you later. You can use Aweber for this ($19.95/month).
5. Create a selling page for the item that will entice the user to buy the product (you’ll need to know basic html for this). This should include things like proof of concept, does the product work? Testimonials & even include screenshots of your feedback if it’s all positive. There are tonnes of ebay tricks you can use to get more exposure & get more views however I’ll leave them for another post
6. Create about 10 listings of the product across a few different categories with varying copy & pricing to split test how it performs. You can easily sell a great book for $20 if the selling page is done right.
7. Set up Outlook Express or Thunderbird to automatically deliver the ebook to the buyer once the paypal payment notification comes through.
8. When you send them through the ebook also let them know about other products you’ve got listed, also hit them with the link for the mailing list again.
9. Once you figure out from testing which copy & categories work best load everything into Turbo Lister & automate the process, you will also need to split test various finishing times for the auctions. I quite like my auctions to finish on Monday morning on Sunday Evening.
10. If you have a good product & selling page you can easily be shifting 5-10+ copies of it per day automatically & making a nice monthly cheque off any residual affiliate commissions.
11. Then market a product to the list Bi-Weekly or whenever you find something that you think will interest them. If you’re selling heaps of products at a low price it’s quite easy to use Ebay to build up a quick marketable opt in list.

That’s pretty much it. Each of those steps can be drilled down a bit & streamlined once you get your first product sorted.

Doing this properly you could be pulling in around $2,000+ a month per item.

Once you’ve got the stability & residual income every month you will then have the ability to fire your boss & start working on your other ventures online. It’s all about building your portfolio & diversifying your income streams.

Too many people try to make all their cash from Adsense instead of looking at the bigger picture & really breaking into as many markets as you can.

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So here’s a quick tip that I’ve started using lately to make sure I keep my blog content as fresh as possible.

Instead of spending a few hours every night making posts, why not sit down & dedicate a set number of hours at the start of the week & write the posts in advance? This can be good especially if you’ve got lots of ideas floating around but don’t want to blog them all at once.

WordPress has a nifty built in feature that allows you to schedule posts in the future. You’ll notice it on the right hand menu whilst writing a post. The timestamp feature:

The Timestamp tab allows you to schedule posts in the future, or even in the past if you like! The advantages of something like this to a blogger is invaluable. You could simply write all your posts at the beginning of the week & schedule them throughout the week to post themselves. You could also schedule posts whilst you’re away on holidays.

How’s it done?

If you hit the edit timestamp tab then put in the time you’d like the post to be published you can schedule it for whenever you like. The trick is to not hit save on the post but to actually publish it like you normally would. Otherwise it’ll not publish it at the right time.

So now you’ll be able to free up more of your time for research, playing video games or spending valuable time down the pub with your mates

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Sage is a feed reader that integrates into the sidebar in Firefox, whenever you add the feeds you can organise them in whatever categories you choose.

So for example, I have categories for all the SEO Blogs, Finance, Technology etc

You can click update & it will check all the feeds in the list for you, if there’s any new posts the feed will turn black. You can then view the feed in a small window & get a brief overview of the last 10-20 posts.

Sage is so tight, simple & streamlined it makes reading Feeds easy. It allows me to keep up to date with 100+ Blogs in less than an hour. I can be selective about the posts I want to read & also instantly add new blogs that I come across. I feel it helps me keep a much broader view of what’s going on, it also has greatly helped me with information to blog with. You know the old phrase:

A Blogger is only as good as their feed reader

Anyway, if you’re not using Sage yet. Get it, plain & simple. It’ll make your life a breeze.

Install Sage 1.3.9 | Visit the Sage Website

Recommened Reading:

• WordPress Plugins

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