The majority of sites that I operate work off of the WordPress blogging script.  I have been unable to find a comparable website backend that stream lines my affiliate marketing.  Everything is made easier in Word Press due to it's huge inventory of plugins, which allow for simple tasks like adding Amazon products to posts or full on automated scraping of articles and products.

Below are the Word Press affiliate plugins I can't live without. (Affiliate links are used, thanks for your support.)

phpBay Pro ($79.00) - My online life has changed since finding this handy little affiliate plugin.  Basically the WP plugin adds items from eBay onto your blog and can be customized to fit your sites style.  Items can be inserted in a shop type manner or as a few items listed at the bottom of a post.  This plugin has great support directly from it's creator Wade and is under constant improvement and updates to follow the changes within eBay.  phpBay Pro works with the eBay Partner Network and with Pepper Jam Network.

See phpBay Pro in action - Used Hybrid Cars

Amazon Auto Poster ($29.99) - I've only started using this WP plugin about a month back and it's already paid for itself.  As you can tell by it's name, this plugin scrapes product listings at Amazon.com and then creats blogposts automatically.  The items are scraped per your keyword choices, starting point, and category.  The posts generated can then be scheduled up to 9 days out or published immediately.

See Amazon Auto Poster in action - Flip MinoHD Camcorder

Article Auto Poster Premium ($29.99) - Again, I just started using this plugin about a month ago and it's already provided me with additional traffic, sales, and profits.  Just like the plugin name says, it scrapes ArticlesBase.com for the keyword you choose and generates blog posts off the articles found.  Each keyword creates it's own job to publish a post based off of that keyword as often as you want.  This is a great method of generating long tail keyword search traffic and keep your blog updated when you cannot be bothered with writing content.

See Article Auto Poster Premium in action - 10 People To Surround Your Band With

AD Rotator (FREE) - This free Word Press plugin makes ad management on your blog a no brainer.  You create a catalog of advertisements, which are then grouped by php code that you place within posts or on your theme files.  This will automatically rotate the ads you placed within the group.  Weights can be adjusted and there is no limit to the amount of ads that you use.  Great way to keep ads fresh on your site through multiple page views and try different affiliate products.

Closing Statement

I use a lot of different plugins with my Word Press blogs, but these are the ones that I can't live without and provide me the most commissions.  No, the majority of them are not free, but very quickly they can be paid for with just a little traffic.  Pair these WP plugins with a browser plugin like Affiliate Espionage and you'll see your weekly earnings rise.  It still takes hard work, but thanks to plugins our work as marketers can be streamlined.

Like any digital product your mileage may vary.  However, the items listed here I use on a daily basis and can vouche for their usefullness.  For more affiliate news and information please read my affiliate blog on Blogspot, where on my latest post I describe what makes a BAD landing page.

Update 7/2/09 - The Amazon Auto Poster and Article Auto Poster are now known as WP Robot.  I'm still on the fence on my opinion of the new wordpress affiliate tool.  First reactions is that there is only an option to schedule and not 'Publish Now', which makes it difficult to edit these posts before going live.  We'll see.

I'm guilty of having too many irons in the fire and this summer is no exception.  Although having this problem doesn't allow for any single project to be exceptionalin quality, it does allow some testing to see which sites will potentially be money makers.  That's why I continue to partially develop and build at a slow pace on many projects and then once they start earning money adjust my focus.

Tunerhybrids.com - Automotive forum dedicated to hybrid enthusiasts looking to modify their cars.

Why I Think It Will Work

Every type of car has an enthusiast that ones to customize and push the limits of the vehicle.  I thoroughly believe that they hybrid market is no exception and because of this I'm lookign to cash in early.  This forum will hopefully serve as a place for hybrid enthusiasts to meet up, discuss, and learn new ways to customize their hybrid cars.

suGuesstion.com - Humor site with failblog type pictures of search suggestions from popular search engines.

Why I Think It Will Work

Why do any humor sites make it, especially those like FailBlog.org and Icanhazcheeseburger?  It's a specific niche that can easily be updated daily, it will be a stop on the internet, not a destination.  With proper integration of social bookmarking scripts this can be another meme phenomenon.(maybe that's asking a bit much)

EvansvilleBlog.com - Local blog that focuses on what I'm doing in my home town.

Why I Think It Will Work

Currently there is very limited competition amongst the Evansville Indiana market for an online presence.  This seemed like a great opportunity, considering this is a city of more than 300,000.  Time will tell if I can keep it updated frequently enough to start drawing regular visitors and local advertising dollars.

Buy-HD.com - Testing blog for automated affiliate scripts focused on any product that claims high definition.

Why I Think It Will Work

So far so good, considering the majority of the content is scraped from article websites.  Furthermore it focuses on an affiliate program that requires a lot of volume to really make some money, Amazon.com.  I'm hoping that generated content mixed with my own articles will help bring in some of the residual search engine traffic, since I'm not too concerned with Google at the moment.

Dead Man Blogging - My actual affiliate 'guru' blog, with tips on marketing online.

Why I Think It Will Work

I'm not an expert on everything online, but what I do learn I like to share with others.  If nothing else this blogspot blog is a launching point for me to work on my writing skills.  So far traffic has been increasing on a weekly basis, we will see where it takes me.

By now everyone has heard of AdBlock Plus, a small tool that effectively disables advertisements from loading within a web browser.  Slowly but surely this FireFox addon has managed to garner over 5% of the FireFox user base and growing.  While this may seem like a small percentage, it's important to know who is being affected most.

In the past few months I have tracked a loss in total affiliate and Adsense revenue.  There are a number of reasons for this and obviously Adblock Plus is not the primary reason, but it still hurts.  I work very hard to create every website I own and therefore should be compensated for people using them.  When I'm fighting spammers, cookie thieves, bots, etc, why should I have to worry about legit visitors cheating me?

Apparently I'm not the only one that feels this way and Wladimir Palant has addressed the issue on the Adblock Plus blog.  Essentially, for the first time that I've noticed, Adblock Plus is suggesting an easy method for plugin users to opt-in to displaying ads on a website.  However, what he is proposing takes into consideration only a small portion of websites with repeat traffic, which relatively speaking is a small portion of the internet and affiliate websphere.

Adblock Plus will then check the browsing history to see whether the user frequents this site (this could be specified for example as “visited the site on three days of the last week”) and then display a notification like the following (unless a notification for this site was already shown recently):

The majority of visitors to my websites are one time visitors, probably less than 5% return.  This is in regards to my affiliate sites and not my personal blog.   It's not because I have a bad website, a spammy website, it's because the user finds what they want and complete a sale.  Or, the visitor searches on a specific question and then finds their answer.  So, what Adblock Plus is proposing will not benefit me in the slightest and only caters to the largest of affiliate and news sites.

This post is just a child of a frustration with the direction the internet is taking.  It's an entitlement complex by users and a handful of programmers that think they should control whats being shown and published on the web.  The issue is growing, becoming it's own beast, and slowly starting to resemble Net Neutrality issues.  After all, if Adblock Plus can effectively and accurately block ads, sure it's on the radar of those that want to block other content.  Filter or not, Adblock Plus has no place on the internet in it's current form.

New Clickbank Logo

Not only did Clickbank roll out an all new color scheme and layout, but they also launched a new tool that will help protect your affiliate links from prying eyes.  It's a free tool which masks the promotion name and your affiliate link within a Clickbank hop.

HopLink Shield is a free tool that encrypts the affiliate and vendor nicknames in HopLinks.

Setting up an encoded hoplink is as easy as entering the Vendor Nickname and your Affiliate Nickname.  Then press a button and BAM fresh encoded hoplink.  Also, if you confused yourself in the process and have some encoded links floating around and can't remember what they are for they also have a decoder.  Which brings up another question, why encode a link if there is an open way to decode them?

Seems like a small oversight and if they were this dedicated to privacy seems like they wouldn't publish the decoder as well.  Or as a recommendation, at least only be able to decode once logged in, allowing only your own hops to be decoded.  Oh well, it's a start.

Source: Clickbank Blog

Looks like the eBay Publisher Network is again issuing mass bannings for it's affiliates.  This, like their previous BAN happy endeavors are targeting those who claim innocense on a mass scale.  These bans are targeting those who were tied to another account that was previously banned.  But again, users are claiming no affiliation with pass accounts that were banned through CJ, PJN, or on EPN.

Here is the message received by a number of EPN affiliates:

"we found that your account is related to a previous banned account"

There is already a thread started at DP about the mass bannings.  Furthermore there is a thread on the official EPN boards where little to no information is being shared from EPN.  Will checks in with his copy'n paste response that basically helps nobody.  Sad state of affairs, looks like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Another eye opener to make sure all your eggs are not in one basket.  I fell victim to the EPN Bans awhile back and have since then been trying to develop other affiliate income streams.  It's difficult, because I've been using Build A Niche Store to help build sites, obviously targeting eBay.  It's a long process, costly one, but it will be worth it to diversify, because it doesn't look like anyone is safe with EPN.

Not really a problem, just wanted to get as many P's in there as humanyly possible.  It's more of a frustration and inconvenience than anything and one that has me rethinking my payment option through the Pepperjam Affiliate Network.  It's the 3% that PayPal keeps off of the top, as a convenience charge, whatever.  According to PayPal it's the cost of doing business.

However, right now, interest rates have fell through the floor so these fees are eating into my PayPal money pile.  I don't need the money immediately and technically I'm not saving anytime by having a deposit via PayPal instead of an active check sent in the mail.  As soon as my bi weekly earnings are deposited into my Paypal account I immediately transfer them to my checking, which takes a nother 3 days anyways.

I think I'll start keeping my 3% and have Pepper Jam start sending me a check in the snail mail.  $30 to $50 savings per month is still savings, right?

I know I promised my results of using Chikita 3 days after my first impression post, but I've been struggling on my approach.  See, there is one side of me that is extremely disappointed and some what frustrated, but another side that sees how Chitika can work and does fill the niche that Chitika is aiming for.  So, as a disclaimer, let me stress the following.

"Chitika is not a replacement for Google Adsense, nor is Chitika trying to compete with Google Adsense."

After listening to Chitika's sales pitch I would have thought that I would be receiving comparable CPC's on my automotive blog.  However, that was not the case and averaging out it looks to be less than half.  Taking it a step further, after the auditing process it potentially could be lowered again, which is where the frustration comes from.

In all of my sites I try to monetize in a way that does not affect readership.  I view my sites more often than anyone, so I attempt to make them as void of Ads and marketing as possible.  So, Chitika just doesn't seem to be fitting in with my own business model.  I have trouble justifying ad placement when it earns me less than half of the cost of a stamp per click.  Higher CPC's may be found in different niches, I'm only comparing Adsense CPC's in the automotive category to that from Chitika.

Chitika Shines

The CTR is of course much higher than Adsense, which is to be expected since they use the tried and true 'image-next-to-ad' technique.  Google banned this method over a year ago because it created less than optimal traffic for the advertisers.  Essentially, you are tricking visitors into clicking on a link, nothing more, nothing less.

A higher CTR would be super awesome, if only it paid out decent.  Where it stands right now, I would need 5-6 times the amount of clicks just to equal one click from my Adsense Ads.  So why even bother taking up valuable real estate on my site and just annoying my visitors?

I'm struggling with the answer to that last question.  Be damned if I'm going to sacrifice my Adsense earnings.  That's why Chitika focuses on alerting Publishers that Chitika can be used alongside Adsense ads.  It doesn't make sense for me, because I'm getting clicks, why would I want to sacrifice half my clicks for a lower paying ad?  I wouldn't.

Chitika Customer Service

I had the opportunity to talk with Ryan Travis, Director of Client Services at Chitika.  My initial phone call was a service issue, dealing with accurate impressions, but all was working well(I'll save info for another post).  Ryan and I ended up talking about optimization, where Chitika see's itself in the marketplace, and where they hope to go.  Ryan was quick to respond to emails, a pleasure to talk with, and part of the reason why I will continue to use Chitika at some level.

Who Should Use Chitika

The only people who should be using Chitika are those who receive a lot of traffic from search engines.  Of those people, the only ones who should be using Chitika are those who can't get Google Adsense to convert.  Chitika Premium ads are only shown to search engine traffic, so those of you getting traffic from other sites need not apply.  And as mentioned above, don't risk losing higher paying Adsense traffic to get a few more clicks on your Chitika ads.

Conclusion

I will continue to use Chitika in hopes they will increase their Automotive inventory of ads and eventually increase CPC's.  Ryan feels that the online marketing industry as a hole is trending toward higher search traffic CPC's, rather than content related marketing like Adsense for content.  I hope he's right and I wish Chitika luck in their niche.  We need options in the market place as both a publisher and advertiser.

In the not to distant future I will be publishing some more results from my Chitika ads.  The Chitika 'auditing' process could prove to be a deal breaker, but I will reserve judgement.

Well, it's been just around 24 hours since I began testing the Chitika Premium Ads on my automotive site.  Currently, my automotive blog is receiving around 3,200 page views per day, with the majority of traffic coming from Google search.  This should spell a winning combination, considering how Chitika Premium works.  Let's look at my first impression, downsides first, then lets look at what's coming UP.

Initial Downside

Slow reports, which require at least till 10:00 AM the next morning before clicks are computed.  New users must also wait up to 3 days before earning are reported, so other than clicks and impressions, no other figures are provided.  When compared to Google Adsense, this is a huge short coming, but not something that will send me packing.

The reports, even once they are updating every 24 hours, require a audit.  This means that you will not be paid your reported earnings, rather a audit, based on quality of traffic, that usually amounts to a 10% drop in what is indicated.  I've never had this with other PPC programs, only on CPA traffic, so this is throwing me for a loop.

Last downside is the review process to start even using Chitika ads.  They require a detailed application, which is reviewed by a human and can take up to 3 days to be completed.  Thankfully, my review took less than 4 hours, I'm wondering if that's the norm.  But again, only in CPA programs have I ever had to set through a review process, when I'm ready to start using a new program, let me start on my terms!  Nothing to scare me off just yet though.

Initial Upside

So easy to generate code and the wizard is self explanatory for customizing size, colors, and ad-variations.  I was very pleased to hear that Chitika could be used next to Adsense, so without sacrificing too much web real estate to try a new program, I can test placements.  Which also brings up the fact of having an alternate ad shown, even on another network, when there is no search term found or unqualified traffic views the page.  I'm using a Google Adsense block of the same size, so earning comparisons should be spot on.

Great referral program!  That's right, Chitika has a great referal program that will pay you 10% of whatever your referral earns for up to 15 months.  This is what you earn per publisher, but make up to $25 for every $100 spent for referring an Advertiser.  Easy to see why so many guru's have the Chitika banners plastered all over their posts, coupled with long winded multiple part review posts. (hmmmm)

In 3 days I will happily give a report of my published earnings.  I'm hoping to at least compliment my Adsense placements without subtracting from their current earnings.  Right now I'm making some pretty impressive bank from tried and true Adsense, I will be a tough nut to crack.

I've been reflecting lately on some of my success and most importantly my failures.  I truly believe that a person can learn from their failures and online marketing is no exception.  In this post I hope to bring to light some of my failed websites, why they failed, and what I've learned from my own experiences in the pursuit of the mighty online dollar.

ObsceneCaffeine.com

This was my first website dedicated to MySpace and was a MySpace resource site.  I was an early adopter for the MSRS script, that had a lot of promises, plenty of automation, and a programmer that was willing to offer support.  I learned my first lesson in buying online scripts with this endeavor, which 'was don't believe the hype'.

The website gained marginal traffic, in the neighborhood of 100 uniques per day and had a pretty good distribution of theme uses.  The problem was that monetiziation was virtually eliminated once Google took a stand and no longer allowed small images directly next to Adsense ads.  Essentially the entire website was created in the hopes that unsuspecting visitors would be clicking on ads, thinking they were being taken to other parts of the official ObsceneCaffeine website.

To add insult to injury, there was no development with the script.  Essentially less than 5 months after the script was released it was abandoned by it's original developer.  The support forum provided was ho hum, but for all intent and purposes...it was dead.  The overpriced script was now worthless and the website, unable to properly monetize, was worthless on the market.

What I learned from this experience was don't buy into hype and early adoption is not always a good thing.

Styckr.com

This website was created in the hopes I could create a free image host and monetize with ads like Adbrite, hopefully bringing in plenty of views.  I used a free image hosting script that worked, was supported, and was extremely user friendly.  However, modifying the script proved difficult and monetizing even more of a challenge.

All to often users would hot link images and attempts to force page loads was met with decreased traffic.  There is far too much competition in this arena for me to compete successfully, which coupled with my coding limitations proved fatal.  As I mentioned, it was successful shortly after launch, which crippled my server.  I couldn't justify leaving up a minimal money earner that constantly threatened the stability of the rest of my sites.

What I learned was that free was great, but the general public would take advantage of it at every opportunity.  Furthermore, the majority of those looking to host free images are looking to upload porn (which is it's own problem legally) and drive traffic that is less than premium.

TheTounge.org

This was the very first domain I ever purchased, complete with misspelled words. lol.  I was naive and intended to create a thriving gadget/tech community on the backend of a Joomla script.  Because creating content was a burden at the time, I figured why not cut 'n paste press releases.  As well all know, but I had yet to learn, Google hates duplicate content.  TheTounge.org was struck down repeatedly for duplicate content before I wised up and shut'er down.

Joomla was also, at the time, constantly updated and any brief period it wasn't updated it was hacked.  This was extremely frustrating and an eye opener.  Not everyone wants to see you succeed and some will even go out of their way to cause heartache that stretches far beyond the typical forum troll.

What I learned from this website was general SEO common sense.  Thanks to TheTounge.org I learned what it took to stay in the Google good graces.

Z-Blackfox.info

This website was originally purchased as an expired domain with high PR.  Little did I know that PR could be spoofed and what you were left with was a dead domain, possibly even black listed.  I held on though and after about 12 months I had developed a working directory, complete with link building news blog.

Z-Blackfox.info was also the first website that I started investing in, at least heavily with advertising campaigns.  The link directory relied on a small review fee and certain sponsored listings.  I think I broke even...maybe.

What I learned was that there is such a thing as too-good-to-be-true in domain purchasing.  Also, that just because you throw money at a project does not guarantee success.  Without a solid business model, like any business, failure is always a step away.

This is the conclusion of Part 1 of My Failed Websites and Why.  Trust me, I have plenty of other failed websites that I will be covering in another post.  It's just as important for people to share their mistakes as it is for them to share their successes.  All too often in the blogosphere guru's are willing to talk about how great they are, yet fail to mention all the failures they walked over to get where they are now.  Hopefully, this exercise will teach someone, something, at least how not to fail like I did.

Google Insights

I just got around to reading the blogpost on InsideAdwords and man, even in a short few days I've really been missing out.  The announcement of Google Inisght for Search will be a priceless addition to any CPC campaign user.  Hell, I've already picked up a handful of new keywords to add to my Adwords campaign.  My initial thoughts are that paid services that are already in this market will quickly become obsolete.  Second, here are a list of 3 of my favorite things about Google Insight for Search.

• Incorporation Of Google Trends - To be honest it was a bit cumbersome using Google Trends and as such, I never really used it as much as I should have.  But now, I can search my keyword and get a trend for the past 5 years.  This trend for seasonal search keywords is already becoming invaluable as I ramp up my campaigns for the summer rush.  Furthermore this trending graph will allow me to plan for slow times in the year or adjust my campaign accordingly.
• Rising Searches - This handy little feature on Insights allows you to see related keywords that are rising in popularity.  Although it does not directly give a numerical figure to how popular the search keyword is, it does give you the percentage increase in search frequency.  This obviously becomes important when looking for sub-niches or seasonal changes to an Adwords campaign.
• Categories - This may seem like a ho-hum addition to most people, but not affiliate marketers.  Hell, most of the products that I market online I don't know a thing about, I just know keywords.  So the category section of Google Insights gives me areas that I can explore within the keyword and how relative my keyword is to a specific niche.  For example, on golf carts, I now know that most searches originate within the Sports Category rather than Automotive, which I had originally been targeting.

Without a doubt I will be spending a lot more time on Google Insights in the upcoming weeks.  This new tool by Google will allow me to flesh out some more keyword ideas and fine tune the Adwords Campaigns I already have running.  Thank you Google for such a great free tool, but curse you in the same sentence for creating more competition in the fly-by-night domain of affiliate marketing.