My Daughter Playing In Pool
I bought a new camera the other day, a Cannon HG10 and needless to say it's already got at on of use. This is the first video I've got to put on YouTube and it's of my 9month old daughter Emma playing in her new pool.
Enjoy the cuteness.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=335GF_hQpcI]
ACRU TO CRU Ratio
Yes, I'm on an EPN kick this month and with good reason, since it's currently one of my leading earners in the affiliate realm. I'm getting a pretty decent number of bids, considering the limited traffic I'm pulling in, but what I feel I'm struggling with is converting CRU's(When a new user registers to ebay) to ACRU's(when said new user makes a winning bid or BIN).
Below are my stats so far in May:
CRU ACRU Bids Winning Bids
10 4 158 56
Keep in mind that I'm not selling low priced items, so even at 56 winning bids my EPN earnings are fairly high. ;) I guess I'm just greedy for those $25 ACRU's, but they are just not converting. Hopefully as the cookie carries over for the 30 days it will give them an opportunity to win one of the other 102 bids that were placed so I get that commission and ACRU commission.
Is anyone else having similar issues in the month of May?
EPN Announces Problems and Fixes
It looks like the eBay Partner Network is finally addressing some problems that date back to the beginning of April, unfortunately it doesn't look like problems that most are concerned with. You can find a list of fixes and bugs that they've squashed on the EPN Blog. Judging by the EPN discussion forums and other webmaster forums most people were concerned with actual ACRU and revenue reporting issues. Personally, I've not experienced any problems.
According to the EPN blog they have addressed issues like Customer Support downtime, confirming registrations, API Id's and the like. These issues do not discuss anything to do with their possible reporting errors with a small percentage of their publishers. I'm still assuming that the ones having problems are just not use to the swing cycle of online marketing, especially on a garage sale affiliate network. Guess what, people are outside this time of year and they don't have any money anyways.
I think Yoda knows what he is talking about, 'Patience'.
Check out the full post for the list of fixes on the EPN.
Finding The Holy Grail of Adwords
I've been involved in the online marketing game for a little more than 2 years and in those 2 years I've improved exponentially almost daily. It amazes me at just how much free and valuable information is available, if you can spare the time to educate yourself. But don't misinterpret what I'm saying, taking valuable information and applying that same knowledge is two different things and that is often where the breakdown happens. I myself have just recently been able to break the Google Adwords conundrum, after playing around with it for almost 1 year.
Time in the past could have been better applied to perfecting the balance between on-site optimization and attention to page quality score. Just now, in the past 2 months I'm realizing the benefit of optimizing my page score and finding the right balance to get my bid on keywords to an all time low. This my friends is how it's done, this is how people are becoming profitable, and this is how you turn a costly investment into a comfortable daily expense. In a matter of months I've been able to turn keywords I would normally pay $.36-.45 per click for, into $.06 per click opportunities. Apparently my optimization in regards to getting cookie credit was not the problem...it was the cost of getting those visitors to my site.
In the grand scheme of Pay Per Click advertising I'm still a little fish, but what I've learned these past few months is opening up more doors than ever. Furthermore, it's knowledge that is freely available IF you teach yourself how to apply it. Thankfully I have some capital built up in my business, so trial and error while costly, did not break me. Perhaps that is the key, not going upside down in the quest for lower paying keywords.
Could I tell you exactly how to do this for your site and niche? No. I'm not being elitist when I say this? No, because there are so many factors, that no one could possibly write out a step by step scenario to answer your woes. No one is feeding you bull when they tell you to study your niche, focus on lower competition keywords, and start optimizing your site. It works, but it takes time and dedication to be done right and consistently. The payoffs for when you do find the right combination however is enormous and nothing hardly a thing feels better than watching that affiliate revenue rack up throughout the month.
Let this be my motivational post for the month. Good luck.
New WordPress Theme Apex Elie
I've purchased the link rights to another wordpress theme that is just absolutely beautiful and I hope many will use. The name of the WP Theme is Apex Elie and is a 2 column pleasant blend of dark browns and orange.
Caution When Buying Links
No, this is not a post discussing the SE ethics in purchasing links, this is a warning to new buyers. In the past month I've spent a pretty good chunk-o-change buying links, using age old method TLA and through forums like DP. A simple thread stating what I'm looking for, niche, PR, traffic, etc normally nets me several handfuls of offers. A good thing...as long as you do your home work.
I've noticed more now than ever I have to check every single site, instead of taking face value, the cons are out there to steal your money. Link sellers are buying domains, which are either black listed, yet have residual PR or are faking Google PR. On more than one occasion I was offered PR5 links that sure enough checked out, but I continued to do some digging. After doing a 'Link' search on Google, along with a 'Site' search it showed that less than 10 pages indexed and only 2 links. This should throw a red flag!
So, in closing this is just a reminder to check the sites you will be purchasing links on. Using just the FireFox PR add-on is not always enough, do your home work and you'll be less likely to be burned.
Why Nails Blog?
I've used the online alias nails in some manner since the first time I laid hands on a keyboard. 'Nails' made reference to my favorite band, Nine Inch Nails. Literally, I've been a fan since the early 90's and was won over by Pretty Hate Machine and later truly devoted to the NIN following with Downward Spiral. Hence, my love affair with the nails name and now my persona 'cldnails' continues on.
This week maybe more than ever I'm proud to bear the nails moniker.
On Monday Nine Inch Nails released their 2nd album in the past 3 months, The Slip. Trent Reznor has managed to completely shake up the record industry with his previous release of Ghosts, which he marketed versions of as cheap as $5. Because of Ghosts success and Reznor's love of his fans, he released The Slip completely free and bearing a Creative Commons License. Free of a record label he's been able to connect with fans at a closer level than any other artist in recent history.
No DRM, high quality downloads, options for quality of download, and extras like art was included in NIN's past 2 releases online. Everywhere you look people who were not even formally NIN fans are starting realize the value of such an endeavor and supporting the cause.
For those interested in downloading and supporting Nine Inch Nails, head over to NIN.com to get your utterly free, DRM Free, and high quality copy of The Slip.
 RADIANT DECAY A TRIBUTE TO NINE INCH NAILS CD NEW  US $16.18
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 Broken Nine Inch Nails CD US $3.00
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 7 CDG KARAOKE LOT ADAM SANDLERNINE INCH NAILSMASTER P US $14.99
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 NINE INCH NAILS THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL CD US $4.85
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 1 CENT CD The Downward Spiral Nine Inch Nails US $8.50
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A Great Way To Make Money With eBay
When you hear"eBay" and "money" in the same sentence you probably think of becoming an eBay seller.
You place product listings in the eBay marketplace, buyers bid, you pay your eBay seller fees and what you have left is your profit margin.
There is, however, another way to build a business which still revolves around eBay but which doesn’t involve you selling a single thing in the eBay marketplace.
This "other way" opportunity is based on the eBay affiliate program and a great tool which makes entry into this opportunity not only possible but also super easy. This tool is called "Build A Niche Store".
Now if you don’t know – an affiliate program enables you as an individual internet entrepreneur to promote the products of a company in exchange for a commission on all sales that you refer.
You are basically operating as an internet middleman and connecting internet browsers to particular products and companies through you own network of websites and marketing methods.
If we return to the eBay affiliate program, eBay actually invites you to promote all of the product listings in the eBay marketplace and in exchange for your efforts will pay you up to 75% of the revenue they make from each sale you refer plus up to $35 for each new active eBay member you refer.
You can have a read about the eBay.com affiliate program here
What this means is that you can earn up to three quarters of eBay’s revenue simply for connecting people to the products listed in the eBay marketplace.
Not only do you get to partner with the best branded marketplace in the world, you also get access to and control over ALL of the products listed in this marketplace. The eBay product inventory becomes YOUR product inventory and yet you do NOT have to stock items, deal with customers, organize shipping or process refunds.
You are no longer limited to selling only those products which you can buy and sell for a profit margin. You can choose ANY niche market and promote those eBay products relevant to your chosen niche outside of the eBay marketplace, funnelling targeted traffic through to eBay and into your own affiliate commissions.
Golf clubs, sewing kits, laptops, dog collars, diamond rings, Florida real estate…
If you know eBay you know how BIG it is – there are NO limits.
At this point you might be thinking - well this sounds interesting but in reality is there any money in it? Well, here’s the shocker – eBay's top affiliates make over 1 million dollars a month. That’s right – 8 figures a year without stocking, selling or shipping a single thing!
Now eBay does provide some basic free tools to help you succeed as an eBay affiliate and build an affiliate business BUT it has been the development of a tool outside of eBay that has really opened this up as a legitimate business opportunity.
The tool, as I mentioned earlier, is called "Build A Niche Store" and what it enables you to do is build eBay affiliate websites targeted to any eBay niche you want. These act as the medium through which you funnel targeted visitors to eBay.
Here are a couple of examples, one targeting Mustangs and the other Golf Equipment:
Mustang eBay Affiliate Website
Golf Cart eBay Affiliate Website
As you can see, these are professional looking websites that contain all of those eBay products related to their target niche inside a searchable store format, each of which automatically contains your eBay affiliate id.
These stores then automatically update as new products are listed for sale and old listing expire from the eBay marketplace and the software has built in development features which enable you to create new store pages, add content to these pages, create content pages, modify your template etc etc.
Basically, in the space of about 10 minutes (once you are familiar with how the software works) you can create a fully functional eBay affiliate website targeted to the niche market of your choice.
Your store content is all search engine friendly which will provide the foundation for attracting targeted traffic from the search engines and you can then use the development features to attract more targeted visitors which will in turn mean more eBay affiliate commissions.
It really is a brilliant concept and I’ve been hearing great things about the guys behind the project and the member forum which you get lifetime access to when you purchase the product.
Build A Niche Store comes with a step by step user manual which will walk even the most technically inexperienced through setting up their eBay affiliate website, 9 professional template layouts which can be customized (from inside your admin panel) to match your target niche, lifetime member forum access, comprehensive product support and possibly most importantly – an UNLIMITED domain license which means you can build as many of these niche websites as you want for the small one time fee.
Think about how many niches eBay caters to!
How big could your eBay affiliate business be?!
This product gets my full recommendation – check it out today…
Click Here To Read More About Build A Niche Store
Free BANS Theme - Magazine
I recognize that there is a need for generic, usable, yet different enough to use BANS templates, therefore I bring you the BANS template Magazine. This BANS theme uses darker colors, with a touch of style in the header that can be used with almost any niche.
Magazine BANS Theme is free to use, distribute, whatever...I'm not greedy. Furthermore, I built my little money making empire on freebies and help from others, so enjoy. If you have any suggestions, comments, or questions in regards to this BANs theme please let me know.
Download Free BANS Theme Magazine - Click Here
Find Out What You Are Selling Through EPN
The new Ebay Partner Network has replaced the Commission Junction version of their program and the new in house method will be exclusive by the end of April. Gone with CJ is the ability to find out what products you sold your visitors on eBay and tracking your EPN affiliate sales can be difficult.
We've installed a script which allows you to view what items you affiliate for eBay and through the EPN program. It's free and I encourage anyone to use it or download their own, via Tropical Web Works. Absolutely NO information will be stored from you checking your EPN affiliate sales via NailsBlog.
Click Here To Check What Products You Sold Through EPN
Steps to find out what products where purchased through your EPN affiliate referral.
- Login to EPN.
- Click on the 'Reports' tab.
- Select 'Transaction Download'.
- Choose your date range.
- Download as a Text File, saving your EPN report to your computer.
- Visit Nails Blog EPN Affiliate Report Page.
- Browse and upload the text version of your EPN Transaction Report.
- Analyze report with eBay product pictures and links to items purchased on eBay by your referred visitors.
Good luck with your affiliate sales!
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