The Nicher

Unless something particularly interesting or exciting happens first, the next post you should see is a step by step tutorial on building your first basic Squidoo lens.

I realize that most of you either already know how to build a lens, or don’t want to- but lately I’ve had several friends ask me how to do things, from building a lens, to putting ads in their blogger sidebar.

Rather than simply write an email to each one and leave everyone else in the dark, I thought I’d post them up here.

So if you’re brand new to marketing, and want detailed information on how to get started without any of that techie-speak, this is the place to be. This is rather labor intensive, so please be patient.

There have been numerous discussions on how Twitter can make money; There have been just as many concerning the wisdom of paid tweets.  But now there’s another way to monetize your Twitter account- with much less controversy.

TwittAds is an advertising liason between twits and advertisers. I found out about them through one of ProBlogger’s tweets. What they do is sell advertising for your Twitter profile background.

As someone who has only just figured out how to set up my background, I think it’s a smashing idea. After all, my background isn’t doing anything for me, and it’s completely non-obtrusive.

What you’re allowing the advertiser to do is rent out your Twitter background for a specified period of time- either a day, week, 15 days, 1 month, or 3 months at a time. You can start out at a day just to see what you think of the program, or jump right in at a month, as I did.

You also set your own price. There are no guidelines for this, and I saw prices ranging all over the place, none of which seemed to be based on any specific numbers.

You set the price, the length you’re willing to advertise, and advertisers pick the twits they want to advertise with. I seem to have set my price a little low ($25 for the month), but it’s a number that I’m happy with as payout is at $20. And if I change my mind before someone purchases the advertising (which you can turn down if you choose), it’s changed with just a few clicks of the mouse.

TwittAd home page

I think it’s an interesting idea, potentially a good money maker, and shouldn’t upset too many potential followers.  Use your own judgement of course, but for now, I’m game!

So far I haven’t found an affiliate program for TwittAds, though, so I’m sorry about that. Perhaps if the service proves lucrative for them one will be offered.

But it could just be a train headed my way.

No, really, it’s all good. The medusa site is nearly finished- just a few more pages to populate, and a bit more content on the main pages.

The other huge project? I decided that I want to be a Giant Squid. No, I’m not smoking any of that wacky stuff (heck, after staring at a computer screen for 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, you don’t need wacky stuff to act like this). A Giant Squid is a lensmaster on Squidoo who has 50 or more quality lenses- meaning you can’t just toss out a paragraph or two and call it a lens.

I’ve just finished my 51st lens, and now need to go back and update several of my older lenses, and totally rehaul 3 or 4. After that, I should qualify.

I don’t know what triggered the sudden desire to become a Giant Squid- I had no interest in it whatsoever until I heard that there was a deadline. Then, boom! I had to be a Giant Squid, and I had to be one now.

So between the medusa site, and building all those lenses (had 19 to start since I foolishly sold several before making this decision), I’ve barely had time for anything but internet work.  So, I built a lens on how to take breaks for internet workaholics. Oh, the irony.

But I’m nearly done. It’s nearly ready. And then? Oh, probably the other big website project I had in mind. And then in November it’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month- yes, I’m insane). Plus all of those domains that I have just sitting there gathering dust… And I should probably reaquaint myself with my husband’s face. If there’s time.

As a noob affiliate marketer, and a WordPress devotee, I’m always looking for plugins to make my life a little easier.

I came across a program called WordPress Affiliate Pro, and while I haven’t bought it yet, I’d like to.

Usually these things come across as the perfect way to throw away money- being ebooks with nothing new to offer, or a program that can be gotten free somewhere else. But this one is different, or at least it seems to be.

There are two main types of affiliate ads: banner (it’s still called a banner ad, even if it’s 125X125), and text.

In either case, it takes forever to log into the affiliate account to grab the code, search out the appropriate keywords, copy/paste/insert link- and you have to do it for each location on each post and page that you want the ads on. Even if you keep a file of the individual codes for easy access, it still takes time to get the links live.

The WordPress Affiliate Pro plugin does all of that for you. You simply install and activate the plugin, and then follow the video’s instructions for adding keywords, affiliate codes,how often you want the links to appear, in what color, etc- and then the plugin does it for you.

For example, all of the links you see here? Yeah, I could have done that through the plugin. And I could have done it across the whole site, instead of just this post.

You know how all those text linking programs like Contera won’t accept you unless you have something like 1000 uniques a day?  Yeah, no issue with that here.  And you’re getting the full commission by using your own links.

Right now, they’re offering a free trial- a pop up window when you load the page says 30 days free, and at the bottom of the pitch page it says money back guarantee after 56 days (why 56? I have no idea).  The page doesn’t read like a sales pitch, it just lists all the benefits to the program.  And really? Since he explains why you do things like color the links differently, etc, you’re getting extra information on marketing.  How could that be a bad thing?

And, get this- he actually is willing to install and activate it for you (with purchase, of course).  I’m not kidding.  I’m really bloody tempted to try this out myself, but the buy price is a little steep for me in my current marketing efforts.  Right now I’m working on my stores rather than my blogs, but if I start focusing on blogging for income? Well, it would be pretty hard to pass up that plugin.

Just read the page; you’ll see what I mean.

Yesterday, I came home to find a check sitting on the floor beneath my mail slot. Despite the fact that it said “ClickBank” on the envelope, my work worn mind thought it said Commission Junction.

Now, I haven’t checked either account in quite a while as neither has been performing for me. Opening the envelope to find a check that was worth more than my CJ payout level, but less than my CB level continued to mess with my mind.

Once I realized that it was CB, I was livid. I had nearly twice the amount in my CB account than the check was made out for.

I checked my CB account, and sure enough, they’d deducted over $10 in fees. I knew that they’d been deducting $1 a month since I hadn’t met the requirements for pay out, and they justified a little over $3 in excess charges which is mentioned in their payment terms. But there’s an additional $7.50 which has no explaination.

Granted, I’m glad that they released what was left in my account, since I haven’t had purchases from 5 different cards yet (seriously, their terms are whacked, and I wouldn’t use them at all if it weren’t for a very lucrative program that affiliates through them), and I can even deal with them deducting nearly half of my money when they spell out why.

But that last $7.50? I really want to know why that was taken out. That one just burns my buns. I don’t do affiliate marketing for a living, but I still need my money. If I didn’t, would I really be marketing? Well, maybe, since I actually enjoy the creation process of these websites, but I certainly wouldn’t devote as much time to it as I do.

Clickbank: up yours.

It’s been two months since the eBay affiliate program moved in house.  So what does a newbie like me think of it?

At first I was very displeased by the change.  Not that I was particularly attached to Commission Junction, but it was a lot of work for me to change over.  BANS is very good about making easy updates, but my updates didn’t work.  So I had to erase my stores and start over completely.  The truth is, as most of those stores were merely experiments, it was the kick in the butt I needed to create stores that were actually worth having.

The commissions themselves stayed the same, aside from an introductory bonus that eBay offered to those who switched early.  So as far as that is concerned, it wasn’t an issue. And really, aside from the updates, it didn’t effect Build A Niche Store users at all.

But here’s what you get with eBay alone: great widgets.

Seriously- you could build a passable store without buying BANS at all using only the widgets that eBay provides you.  However, you won’t get the same detailed, niche and micro-niches you can get through BANS.  But if your shop is meant more as a hobby than as a business, you could do worse than signing up as an eBay affiliate.

For example- here’s one of the widgets you can build through eBay:

In my opinion? The move was good. It takes a bit of exploring to find the widgets (or as they say “creatives”), links, and RSS feeds that work best for you and your site or blog, but once you do? It’s great. Not quite as versatile as Amazon’s affiliate program, but a lot more lucrative.

And best of all? You only need to reach $5 for a payout with eBay, where as Commission Junction was $24, and Amazon is (I believe) $10. The commission reporting is much more regular as well, with clicks updated hourly and purchases updated daily.  New sign ups through your link will garner you between $1 and $50 per sign up (so long as the sign up bids on an auction within 30 days of signing up) depending on the quality of your traffic.

Personally, I still prefer to build my stores with Build A Niche Store, but eBay’s in-house marketing materials are a great addition to regular websites and blogs. 

For a while, Squidoo was touted as the best promotional tool in the world.  I think we all know that there is no such thing, but just because something doesn’t live up to the hype doesn’t make it worthless.  In fact, there are a lot of great reasons to build a lens at Squidoo. (Why, yes, that is a referral link.  I do appreciate any join ups.)

1. You actually can make money with Squidoo.

Believe it or not, I didn’t know that when I joined up with Squidoo.  The first lens I built had me so befuddled, I gave up half way through and let it go.  A few months later I decided to give it another shot and, lo and behold, my unfinished lens had earned me money!  I believe it was something like $0.37, but it wasn’t nothing, and it encouraged me to push through and finish not only that lens, but a dozen more.

You can earn money through direct sales (your own product), affiliate sales (someone else’s product- in fact, Squidoo offers sales modules for many different companies that you can use), and clicks on ads.  Squidoo sets up AdSense and other affiliate links on all lenses, and they share 50% of the profits on these with all lens masters.  So even if your lens isn’t successful on its own, you’ll still get a cut.

2. Low payout threshold.

This is related to #1 (above), but you can set your own pay out threshold as low as $1.  I have mine set to $10, but you can set it as high or low as you want to.  You can even have the income donated for you.  Just select one or more of the dozens of charities and causes Squidoo provides and put in the percentage you want donated.  You can mix and match across the board, or on individual lenses.  For example, on lenses that are automatically compiled by Squidoo (rather than hand built by me), I have 50% donated to the Grameen Foundation, and the other 50% sent to my account.

3. Draw traffic to your other sites.

For some reason, Squidoo lenses tend to rank high in search engines.  If you build your lens well enough, a visitor may be interested enough in what you have to say to follow a link to whichever site you wish to promote.  If you have a blog, even better as you can insert a RSS feed directly into your lens.

 4. Raise your Page Rank with links.

As I said, lenses tend to rank well in search engines which gives them a good bit of authority.  Insert one or two well chosen links into a popular lens, and you’ve instantly given yourself more authority on whichever site you chose to promote.

5.  It’s completely free.

While you can pay someone to build a lens for you, or buy one pre-built, building a lens is easy and the options are continually growing.  The only thing that you risk is your time.

6. There’s a referral program.

While Squidoo is totally free, they do offer a referral program.  For every person you refer, you earn $5 after they earn their first $15.  For some lens masters, this will never happen.  For others, it could be in their first week.

Once you’ve finished your first lens, take a look at my post on ranking high on Squidoo.

I set up my Build A Niche Store account on January 11th.  I immediately set up my first shop, staying up quite late tryint to make everything “just right”.  The next day I set up two more.

For a few days, I actively checked my stats on Commission Junction several times a day to see if any of my stores had generated a sale.  I only noticed one click and a number of impressions, but no sales.  Not too worried since, of course, all the sites I had set up were brand new and probably not indexed yet.  Naturally, most, if not all, the traffic had come from my blog readers following my links.  I never expect, or encourage, conversions from friends.

A few days ago I stopped checking sales stats figuring the old “watched pot” theory may be applying.  Instead, I put myself into fixing up my started affiliate sites, and starting a few new ones.  But today, I decided to take a closer look at my stats.

 At first I was very pleasantly surprised to see that I’d had 4 click throughs.  That may not sound like much, but I believe only 2 or 3 of the shops are currently indexed, and the cookie Ebay places on the clicker’s computer lasts 30 days (meaning anything they buy through Ebay for the next 30 days will give me a kickback).  And that’s not taking into account that one of my niches has an extremely high price point.

And then I remembered.  While BANS is intended to earn affiliate money on Ebay sales, the company itself offers its affiliates a nice cut of their purchase price.  I logged into that account and had a wonderful surprise- just over $44 was sitting in my account. 

That cuts my total investment by about 1/3.

What a great start only 2 days after signing up!