Happy Father’s Day

Today is a special day for all of the Dads and father figures in the world. Life goes by way too fast and at times we spend so much time with the small stuff, that we don’t get to appreciate what really matters. Not only have I been blessed with financial freedom and being my own boss, but am also blessed to have the Greatest Dad in the World, and I wouldn’t trade him for anything! I would not be where I am, nor who I am, without him in my life. Just from a business aspect, I’ve always had the full support of my father and to this day I still take him to all my networking and conferences all around the world! It just simply wouldn’t be the same without him, and I appreciate every moment.

My Dad and I at Affiliate Summit Cruise 2003.

Take the day off (it is Sunday after all!), give Dad a call and make sure you let him know how much he means to you. Have a great Father’s Day!

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Money Making Blog Updates & News

I’ve actually had a lot going on lately and wanted to keep you updated. Here are some of the new projects I have in the works.

- Today I was contacted by John Chow and he wanted to know if I was interested in running his TTZ Media Ads program (while it’s in beta). I have seen the banners (preview shown on the right) on his blog and a few others and wondered how it would perform vs. other networks like Adsense and Auction Ads. Depending on the volume of click I can send, this may be a nice new revenue source for my network of sites. I will start testing the offer this week and keep you updated.

- I recently started working on a free online gaming site I’ve had for a few years now. Unfortunately I’ve been focusing more on other sites and it’s been quite some time since I’ve touched the one. At one point it was a decent ranked web site and receiving some traffic. Now the site is ranked 8,853,239 on Alexa and receiving around 100 visitors per day. This will definitely be a fun challenge to see how fast I can grow the site and bring it into a top 100,000 Alexa ranked gaming site.

- Search arbitrage is a huge market and a ton of affiliates and publishers are using 7Search.com to heavily push traffic to CPA type offers. I’ve tried in the past and unfortunately I get frustrated and never really committed too much time into the cpc/seo market. I just opened a new 7Search account to try and start promoting some of my own network sites. While 7Search may be known for delivering lesser than quality traffic, I would still like to see how it performs for a content based site. I’ll keep you updated on the progress and see if it’s worth the time and money.

- I’ve been keeping an eye on PayPerPost lately. I’m seeing a decent amount of blogs making comparisons between PayPerPost and ReviewMe, mainly that PPP only takes 10% of a review’s cut, while ReviewMe takes 50%. If you take a look at the PayPerPost site, you will see they now feature their "Top Bloggers this Month", and right now they are all at the $800 range… which means they should end up with around $1500 by month’s end. This is pretty good for posting paid reviews. I will look into this more deeply and post a detailed review on their setup vs. Review Me soon.

- I have always loved gambling and I’m even a certified dealer in nearly all casino games. (I took all the classes for fun at a local casino school :)) Since I live in New Jersey, I visit Atlantic City a lot… and I also hit up Vegas every year while at Affiliate Summit West. I’ll soon be adding a new category to the site, "Gambling". In addition to "Making Money", this blog is also about myself… so any posts in this category will keep you updated on my gambling adventures to AC and other casinos around the globe. I’ll also keep you informed on the best casinos to visit and how to score some free rooms and comps! You’d be surprised at how much you can actually get "comp’d" and receive from casinos after a little game play.

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AuctionAds Mid-June Performance Update

Since last month’s update, I have seen a complete turn around in AuctionAds performance. Today we are at the mid-way point for the month of June, and I wanted to keep you updated on my performance. In my AuctionAds May Performance post, I mentioned "I would really like to see end of the month earnings around $750 and a little more than a penny earned per click." Since we are now halfway into the month (and actually two days in stats behind) and I have already nearly hit my target for the month, I am more than happy to continue running the AuctionAds campaigns on my site. Below is a rundown of the month so far.

Right on target to hit my monthly goal… in half the time!

I really can’t wait until AuctionAds improve their tracking setup (if they plan to). It’s really frustrating to see the first three days of the month in the $50 to $99 area… then on the 4th I only product $2.70 in commissions. I emailed their support and they said it was just a "coincidental down day". However, with consistently sending over 2,000 clicks a day and CTR rates always in the same area, I would just like a little more stats or explanation on what caused this. I understand sometimes there are down days, but the sporadic jumping of a down day at $2.70 days and a few high days in the area of $99.84 leaves one to wonder.

Unfortunately, I’m still hearing a lot of people not being able to produce high earnings with the program. All I can say is, KEEP TESTING! I have a lot of traffic to play with, so if you are a smaller site and seeing low numbers, I can understand. Testing can be very frustrating, and even more so when your stats are not what you expected. I went through this process last month when I started running the program. I still feel eBay’s higher commission structure that went live this month, had a major factor in my higher numbers.

I’ll keep you updated on how numbers are looking at the end of the month. Feel free to leave any comments or advice for others on your AuctionAds performance.

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Blogging Tips - Blogging Guides, News, Tips, Resources

I first came across Blogging Tips when John Chow had done a review on the site about a month ago. I very happy to have Kevin Muldoon be the first to order a paid review on my blog. Not only because it’s related content, but now I get to spend some quality time to thoroughly read his blog, which I already visit often. Thanks again to Kevin for being the first to order a review!

Right when you visit the site you are hit with the big header on top “BLOGGING TIPS” and with his awesome Superman (Kevin Muldoon) logo/toon. Everyone already knows I’m a big fan of the cartoon mascots and I’m also a huge Superman fan… this site already has me hooked! In addition to the great header and character toon… the domain is excellent; www.BloggingTips.com. Sometimes forking over a few extra bucks for a domain really pays off! You can read more on Kevin through his About Me page… and his adventures around the world and Taekwondo training back home, while taking on some Thaiboxing in New Zealand! How cool is that!

I find a lot in common with my blog and Kevin’s. Like myself, Kevin does his best to try and have a new blog update to the site daily. Quickly glancing over at his Archives section, you can see an average of around two posts per day over the past couple months. Just having time to make one post a day can be quite a task, so Kevin also has an arsenal of other blog authors to post for his site. (Think you can write? Try applying for his blog.) Another big PLUS for the blog is how Kevin also spends time to reward his users with promotional contests. This month in his “June 2007 Competition“, Kevin is giving away 3 Blog hosting Packages, A Complete Blog and a sweet $100 in Prize Money. I’ve held some contests on my blog as well, and I really think it helps to offer your blog readers incentives to come back and post often.

Now, onto some posts which I found really useful and enjoyed:

- Why Paying for a Review on JohnTP was Worth the Money
Like Kevin, I also spent a lot of money on ordering reviews for my blog since starting. Blog reviews can get expensive and sometimes offer little to no help on reviewing your blog. This post explains not only why some blog reviews are worth buying, but also why blog reviews are more beneficial than free advice from forums.

- How to Install WordPress
To some, this post may be usless as you may already have WordPress installed. However, there are thousands of new bloggers every day, not to mention the growing amount of users on free blogging networks that want to expand to their own domain. Kevin does a great job walking you through the process on installing WordPress and setting up your own blog. (Through Blogging Tips you will also find many other posts on Wordpress widgets and ways to improve your blogging experience)

- Links Round Up
Occasionally Kevin will post his “Links Round Up”, which are a collection of some of the most informative and best blog posts he has come across. These posts are a big favorite of mine because they offer a wide selection of new blogs that you might not have seen yet, while pointing out what’s new and hot. I even got listed in his June 5th post!

- Advertising Networks: Stop Basing Our Advertising Rates on Alexa
This is an excellent post and spreads the knowledge of how manipulated Alexa rankings are. I have sites that are up in the 500k-1M range… but still make money, while other sites are ranked 50k-100k and make a lot less. This one is a must read.

In the end, I find myself and Kevin have a lot in common. Aside from both of our awesome toon characters , we are both looking to help others with blogging and to make more money! While other blog reviews sometimes rip sites apart and tell you what they don’t like, I did not feel the need for much improvement on this site. The layout, colors and content are all great and you are allowed to easily read the content without advertisements and contextual popups in your face. I look forward to future updates from Blogging Tips and recommend you read over the blog too!

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Media Jump and Ask Search

I just saw my first set of stats from Media Jump’s "Ask" campaign. Unfortunately they were not too thrilling. I’m getting the volume I need (over 1,000+ clicks daily), but with this program it’s a bit different than Yahoo Publisher Network or Google Adsense. Instead of being paid for the initial click from the user, you now have to rely on them to click the "keyword" listing on your site, then actually click on one of the "sponsored listings" once they are sent to Ask Search. I still feel if you are targeting correctly, this program can still make decent money, but will require some testing.

I initially added their regular keyword listings to the site, which also contained a search box. I talked with Media Jump this morning and they said the majority of the users were using the search box for low end terms that did not have any sponsored listings. Right there itself is killing earning averages, but this is why we test. Media Jump has now supplied me with a new tag (shown below) without the search box (which you can remove in the admin area) and with some keywords that will produce paid listings once at the search page. I will keep you updated with the performance of the new ad set.

Quick Web Search Links

Gadgets for Men - Flirting Tips - Fast Cars - Men’s Magazines - Cheerleading Stunt Videos - Online Dating - Stunt Bikes

As requested by Ask / Media Jump, I would like to clear up the difference between the two companies. Ask.com is of course one of the largest search engines and is owned by InterActive Corp. Media Jump is a distributor for Ask.com and running their "Ask Related Search" campaign. The two are separate companies and Ask.com will probably be coming out with their own exclusive search program in the coming months. Any questions or comments on the program should be sent to Media Jump and not Ask directly.

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