In the recent months we have been hearing a lot about TNX.net. When I first heard of TNX I expected it to be just a rip off of text link ads, but I was way wrong. The TNX system is way more advanced, and the cost is extremely reasonable.

There are two ways to benefit from TNX. Selling links, and buying links. One of my favorite features in the system is that the points you earn selling links can be used to buy links, instead of just getting a payment. I know several of you just want to get paid, but trust me, as many links as you get for your credits it is worth it.

Why TNX stands out from the crowd

One major flaw with other link building programs is the fact that they look like link building programs. This is not the case with TNX. Extra care has been taken to ensure that all of the links look natural to Google. They even offer you a free tool (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=526547) and advice (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=488057) to rank well for competitive keywords.

Another key element to TNX, is that they support more than just site wide link sales. This is an excellent benefit to the webmaster as it allows them to really maximize on their profits. This means you can sell more links, than if they were all site wide.

Conclusion

A lot of care has been put into the TNX system, and it really shows. Their customer support is excellent, and all of their features really make the site worth while.

I know that several of you are nervous to try such programs, as you are afraid to lose your money and such, but you have nothing to worry about, TNX has a free offer going on so you can give their program a shot. Just go here, and claim your free points. TNX also has a great referral program that you can use to earn credits to your account. (http://www.tnx.net/partner.php)

So go ahead and give TNX a shot, you have nothing to lose.

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Hello everyone! I know, it has been a while, again, but you know how it goes. Work, school, not enough time for everything. Anyways, I am back with some free time so you will get a few good posts over the next few days.

Now the reason for this post. Wordpress has released the beta builds of Wordpress 2.5. I am a Wordpress guru so this made me excited, and of course I rushed out and installed it right away. That’s right, this blog is now Wordpress 2.5 powered.

The most noticeable changes are going to be found in the admin panel. It is completely different and I love it. I have never felt that the previous admin layouts were up to par and was constantly tweaking thisngs to make it more enjoyable for me. The new admin panel is perfect so far, and I think that many webmasters will like it.

Screenshots to come later this week.

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How often should you blog? That is the question. Monthly? Weekly? Daily? Hourly? And sadly enough, there really isn’t a solid answer. I have read on several forums where people suggest new bloggers to post at least once daily, and some people will say to post several times a day, but in my opinion this isn’t wise, or feasable.

So how often is good?

Keep in mind that posting regularly is key for ranking well in the search engines and keeping readers happy, but this is not an excuse to post several times a day. It has been my experience that the harder you try to post more and more, your quality will suffer, and nobody wants to read crap. I can already hear it now someone is going to email me “But Craig, the search engines crawl my site more if I make more posts.” Now this is true, but let’s think about it, Who reads your blog? The search engines? No, real people do, and they don’t like to read crap. I believe that ranking in the search engines is almost vital for any website to survive, but we must remember to keep a good balance. We don’t want our sites to be built only for search engines, remember your ultimate goal is to get real people interested in your site.

Only you can decide how often you need to post on your blog. But hear are a few tips to help you:

1. Try writing several posts in advance for your blog. I have often found that writing articles in this manner greatly increases quality. It gives you time to think and really do a good job editing.
2. Since you are writing things ahead of time, try and combine short posts, into nice long posts. The search engines will love all of the content in one place, and your readers will have more to really sink into and enjoy.
3. Look at yourself as one of your readers, if you read one of your posts and don’t like it, maybe you should slow down and try again.
4. The biggest deciding factor - What are you comfortable doing?If you are comfortable making several posts a day and be happy with the quality, then by all means go for it, if not, then just slow down and have fun with it

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Stats, every webmaster should be keeping track of them, and know how to read and use them. But sadly, many webmasters have no clue what to do with stats, and even more don’t even gather them.

This post is going to be sure and sweet, as there is no good reason why you shouldn’t keep stats. Stat trackers and analytic programs can be found freely with a Google search, and they can be very useful to you. If you aren’t keeping track of stats then you shouldn’t be a webmaster. Stats are what tells you what marketing is working, helps you determine your rank in the search engines, shows who is linking to you, and is a great way to learn new keywords.

Why did I post this? Because the next few posts are going to be dealing with building traffic, and it is important when marketing a site that you keep track of what is working, and what isn’t. Hell, learning to use stats is one of the biggest parts of being making money online. Why do so many people ignore stats, or go by Adsense adviews? C’mon guys!

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This is something I have been seeing and thinking about for a while now. But first lets get a little background information from me. I enjoy reading, and I enjoy learning new things. This often leads me to purchasing a ton of ebooks. I think I buy almost every ebook I see that grabs my eye. You almost always get junk, but I learn from every ebook.

That being said, time and time again I see Jo Blo on a forum pissed off because he bought an ebook, followed it step by step, and didn’t gain nearly as much as the author claimed. WHat went wrong? It worked for the author, but not me!

It is simple really, one of two things has most likely happened.
1. The author is just bs’ing to sell his ebook.
2. The author has already milked the system dry!

#2 is normally the case. Someone discovers a truly unique, new method. Doesn’t tell a sole, reaps the benefits, and when things slow down, sells it!

Now this doesn’t mean never buy an ebook, or follow the methods mentioned. This just means you need to find a different way to use the information given to you. Put your own twist on things. Try and find ways to make the method better. Or, just use each method as a building block to create your own unique system. The shoe is on the other foot now!

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Wow, it has been a long time since I have been wrote here. I am sorry to all of my readers (rolls eyes), I didn’t even finish my series on affiliate marketing. You see, I have been busy with larger projects than my little blog, that is more for fun than anything. This blog doesnt make me any serious cash, and as i said it is just for fun. I don’t even do any real marketing or SEO here.

I can make excuses all day long but short and simple, I was busy. But now I am not, so you will see me post here more over the next couple of weeks. I haven’t decided if I am going to finish the series on affiliate marketing or not. What do you guys think? Would you like to see it finished? I dunno, no one really seemed interested, maybe I will finish, maybe not. I may start podcasting because I can talk better than type

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When creating a landing page there are several different ways of doing things. Some people like to link all of their landing pages together, others prefer just one page. If you are planning on getting your traffic from search engines, and no where else, then I would recommend linking all of your landing pages together in one big site, as this will yield better results from the search engines.

Choosing a Domain

Here I think you will hear a lot of different information. Some people will say, buy a keyword rich .com name. Others will tell you a $.99 .info will do fine. But for me, I find that subdomains work great. I have never had a problem using subdomains, and will continue to use them no matter what others say. However, if the product I am promoting is doing extremely well, then I will upgrade from a subdomain and buy a .com for that particular product.

Creating Your Landing Page

For this guide I have decided to go with the one page format. Many affiliate programs have pre-made landing pages that can be a great starting point. If you decide to go this route, be sure to re-write the sales page in your own words to make it unique. For my landing page, I took a trip over to OSWD.org and grabbed a nice clean template. Then, I wrote a quick little review of the product I am trying to sell, added an image of the product, and added a few noticeable sales links. I prefer to review the product, rather than writing a short sales page because people respond better to the personal touch of a review. You don’t need to write a sales page, that is what you are directing them to.

Opt-In or No Opt-In

Here is another point of the landing page that I differ from many affiliate marketers. I do add an opt-in form, but i do not require my visitors to opt-in to go to the product. People hate spam, even if you don’t spam they are leary of giving out their email. So for my landing pages, I add a link to the product’s sales page, just above, and below, my opt-in form. To attract my visitors a bit more, I offer a free product for them subscribing. For me this works well, but I find it best to just experiment and see what works for you.

Visitor Tracking

Always, always, always, install some sort of stat tracking software. This allows you to keep track of where people are coming from so that you can see what promotional methods are working, and what ones aren’t. I personally use Google Analytics for all of my landing pages. Their Adwords integration is just marvelous.

In closing, don’t just slap together a crappy landing page. Take your time to really provide a quality page to your visitors. After all, this is what is really selling the product. I will be creating my landing page later on today, and will post a link to everyone who is interested. Just check back to this post later on today.

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So, you are ready to get started making some serious cash with affiliate marketing? But what will you sell? It is obvious that you can’t just go out and choose a product based on it’s title and find success. The best thing to do when starting out is to pick a product that people are already successful with. This way you are more likely to make your first sale.

Let’s begin
For the Affiliate Marketing Guide we will be promoting products found at ClickBank. If you don’t have an account there, go ahead and get one. No need for the $50 version, the free one is all you need to be a seller, and start receiving commissions.

Once you have created your account and log in, it is time to browse to the marketplace, and choose some products to promote. To load the marketplace simply click on “Promote Products > Marketplace”Once you have found the marketplace it is time to start choosing your product. When lisitn the products you will see a few numbers underneath each product.

These numbers can be very useful. Most people will simply look at $sale, and be done, but that really isn’t the smart thing to do. Most people are misled to believe that $sale is what you will earn for promoting a sale of the product. But let’s take a look. The above image shows the details for SatelliteSoft.com. IF you look at the page you see that the sale price is $49.95 and they pay 75% commissions. Some quick math (49.95*.75) tells us that we will be earning $37.46 before ClickBank fees (7.5% + $1), so this particular product will pay you a total of $33.66.
Continue Reading…

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Today a situation was brought to my attention that I have never really thought of before. One of my friends was registering for one of my sites, and couldn’t. Why? Because he couldn’t read the Capthcha image. For those of you who don’t know, captcha verification is the same as image verification. We have all seen these and they tend to get harder and harder to read, but we all just refresh the page until it is visible.

However, in my friends case the captcha image wasn’t the problem. You see, my friend is colorblind. The whole image just looked like a blob. This got me thinking, I know many people that are colorblind, do they just look over the site they are joining? I think this is a fairly simple obstacle to overcome, as I have seen it done in the past. I see their being two options:

1. Add audio to the captcha. I have seen this implemented a few places. Basically you click a link below the image and it reads off the characters to you. This can be done for free using the services at Captchas.net
2. Use a question based captcha. Instead of having a string of characters in an image, just ask a simple question, like 1+2= _ . Eventually the spammers will crack this code too, but it is definitely something to try.

Aside from being hard to read for the colorblind, did you know that this may be against the law? The use of captchas without an alternate method for colorblind users to use, will fail Section 508 accessibility compliance for a web application. This being said, don’t you think it is important to update those old captcha images?

Fun Fact! The word captcha stands for: “completely automated public turing test to tell computers and humans apart.”

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I have been busy the past few weeks with school and a few projects, so it has been a while since you have heard from me. In one of the previous posts I made, I announced that I had recently started earning from affiliate marketing to gain some capital for a future product. Now since that post I have made some pretty decent money, through a very aggressive marketing strategy.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn some decent cash, and to be honest I am not sure why more people don’t do it. I hear stories of people struggling to make pennies a day with Adsense, why not try affiliate marketing where you can make $25+ per sale? I think that several people are intimidated by making that kind of money online, and may think it is out of their grasp. Well guess what, it isn’t! Just about any webmaster with basic webmarketing skills can earn from affiliate marketing. Of course the more skills you have, the quicker the sales will come, and the more you will make, but even novice webmasters can earn from affiliate marketing.That being said I am going to show you exactly how it is done. Over the next few days (weeks?), I will guide you step by step, over several aspects of affiliate marketing. And best of all, it will be %100 FREE!

The Topics to be covered:

• Choosing a product
  • What to look for
  • Products to avoid
• Creating a landing page
  • Why a landing page is important
  • The Do’s and Don’ts of the landing page
  • Building a list, why it is important
• Traffic, Traffic, Traffic!
  • PPC
  • Article Marketing
  • Some unique methods
• An much, much more….

I will try my best to show you every step along the way, and I will even show you the exact product I am promoting, along with my landing page, and marketing techniques! That’s right, I will keep no secrets with this guide! When the series is over I will also package all of the information, and screen shots into an ebook so that you can download it all and read it in it’s entirety.

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