Market Leverage Contest Winners

It’s time to announce the winners of the ZacJohnson.com Market Leverage content. The original post ended up with 100 comments/entries… so I would say it went over pretty well. Without further ado, here are the winners!

This Month’s Prize is Still Up for Grabs: WIN A FREE IPOD TOUCH!

iPod Nano (Highest June Earnings) - CD8298

$200 American Express GC (Random Affiliate) - CD8179

Flip Video Camera (Random Blog Link)
Slick Affiliate

USB Pen - (Random Blog Link)
Darn Good Reviews

USB Pen - (2 Random Commenters)
About Blog Contest & Jay Geiger

Winners will be contacted by Market Leverage.

If you haven’t already signed up to Market Leverage, please do… as this month’s prize is a brand new iPod Touch, which will be going to the referred affiliate with the highest earning for July. The month has just started, so it’s game for anyone to walk away with.

Thank you and good luck!

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Creating Your Own Video Entertainment Web Site

When looking for new ways to make money online, the decision to create your own site and build up a member/visitor base is always a good one. Today I will show you how to create a video / entertainment site of your own, while setting up the necessary advertising to turn it profitable. Way before there was all of this video content available, one of the first areas I started making money online in was with freebies, celebrities and video entertainment area. Now, putting all of these methods together and utilizing the free resources at hand, you can create your own money generating entertainment site.

To give you a basic idea of how you can setup your new video entertainment site, I will use the CollegeHumor layout as an example. The key points I will focus on are Building Your Site, Adding Fresh Content, CPM Advertising, Tell a Friend Forms and Newsletter Subscriptions. I have marked several advertising and viral linking methods on the image below.

Building Your Site & Adding Content
For this article, we are going to focus on building a site around funny videos. There are already hundreds, if not thousands of funny video and humor sites out there. The main purpose of all of them is to gain the attention of the user and keep them coming back to the site. In the end, they make money by offering free content and getting paid every time banner ads are displayed. The longer a visitor stays at a web site, the more money there is to be made.

We all know that everyone loves watching videos online and there are already several huge sources that can provide you with free content. Just head over to any of the big video sites like YouTube, DailyMotion or MetaCafe and start grabbing content. These video sites want to get more viewers, and are giving you their “embed” code to place the banners on your site. Since you are grabbing content directly from their site, you don’t have to worry about copyright issues from videos or having to host them on your servers. To make your life easier, these sites already have the videos indexed and broken down into categories, you can easily create multiple categories or new sites based on each different category.

To keep your web site updated with new videos, simply visit these video site often and add new content, or visit the “What’s Hot” categories and add the most popular videos to your site. As your site continues to grow and gets spread around, you should start seeing some nice free traffic coming in through your free search engine listings. Once your site gets larger and established, you may want to host your own videos.

CPM Advertising on Your Site
Once you create your video entertainment site, you are going to try and build the site around your content, along with premium placement for advertisements. In the CollegeHumor.com example above, you can see they have a 786×60 skyscraper on top and a 300×250 banner on the side. Because of the massive traffic and branding of CollegeHumor, they are able to sell their advertising direct and on a CPM basis. Not all of us have this same branding and traffic power, so the next best solution for us, is to place CPM banner advertising on our sites from companies like CasaleMedia, ValueClick Media and CPX Interactive. If you are unable to get approved by any of these CPM networks, you can also place your regular affiliate network offers on the site. (In addition to cpm advertising, you can also play around with contextual advertising, such as Google Adsense. Placing adsense above or below video content has proven to perform well.)
- CPM Networks I Use: CasaleMedia, ValueClick Media, CPX Interactive
CasaleMedia is a more premium network and hard to get approved with. ValueClick Media is one of the largest and easier to get approved with. CPX Interactive is the easiest to get approved with, but also offer the lowest cpm rates.

Tell a Friend Forms & Social Network Marketing
Below the main video content, you should have the option for users to embed the video (if you are hosting your own videos) or link back to your web site. Offering your users the ability to link to your content, will not only give them something to add to their MySpace page, (thus sending more visitors back to your site) but it is also one of the greatest reasons to create a video site… people love to send funny stuff to their friends. In addition to social bookmarks and linking, you should also add a Tell a Friend form, which enables the visitor to send an email to a friend, with your web site url and funny video link. There area few TAF affiliate programs that will pay you to add a tell a friend form onto your web site, where you will get paid every time the form is sent. The ideal placement for a tell a friend form is right below the funny video or funny picture content.
- Tell a Friend Networks I’ve Used: TafMaster & OptMedia

Building Up Your Newsletter
Creating a newsletter for your web site is crucial to it’s growth. In most cases, people will visit your site for a few seconds, then leave. If you offer them a newsletter subscription, you can have them coming back to your site daily. In addition to sending out the latest content added to your web site, you can also feature ads or free content of the day. In most cases, this can be any type of freebie or trial offer from an affiliate network. You can send out mailings daily, once a week or once a month. Sending out daily would be best for traffic as long as you are providing quality content and mailings.
- Mailing Provider I Use: Aweber

In addition to the methods I listed about for earning revenue and increasing traffic, you can also link with partner web sites (check webmaster forums), run “free stuff” (cpa offers) sections on your site, create a forum around your site where users can submit content or even offer your own image/video hosting service. The options are limitless, and each will help in establishing your new web site’s presence.

Before jumping into the video entertainment area, make sure that you spend some time to research other sites and what may be your next competition. There are thousands of sites out there fighting to get top position in search and trying to build a visitor base. If you can create a unique or useful service around video entertainment, you might just be able to create the next hot video portal like CollegeHumor.com, Break.com or EbaumsWorld.com.

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The Emergence of PepperJam Network

It was no surprise when MarketingSherpa released their latest reporting, basically stating “PepperJam Network Explodes onto the Affiliate Marketing Scene with Unprecedented Growth and Industry Support“. In the report from MarketingSherpa, they break down some heavy numbers on the largest affiliate networks in the game today, and it’s no surprise to see PepperJam Network giving the big players a run for their money. Here are just a few of the big numbers we are seeing from PepperJam Network after just 5 months from their network launch date. (Results from Partnercentric surveyed top partners)

Networks with Active Affiliates
In the first chart, we clearly see all of the big players in the game which have had networks for years, and it’s really no surprise to see these names listed. However, in the fifth position, PepperJam Network is quickly gathering market share and soon enough, may even pass some of these well known affiliate networks.

Where Affiliates Make Money
The next chart shows which of the top networks affiliates are also working with. All of the same affiliate networks listed in the first chart appear again, but not in the same order. Shareasale affiliate activity crushes Linkshare, even though they have a larger following… and the same can almost be seen with Performics and PepperJam. Performics has a higher following in the top chart, but nearly tied with PepperJam Network in affiliate activity.

Why Affiliates Choose Some Networks Over Others
We are all members of different affiliates networks, but the majority of us only make money with a couple of the many we are affiliates with… why is that? As part of the survey, affiliates were asked the same question and their response was the following:

For more details and the full report, be sure to head over to MarketingSherpa. I’m sure in the followup report, we will see even more promising numbers from PepperJam Network.

What’s New at PepperJam Network?
Based off the report from MarketingSherpa, PepperJam Network is showing some very promising numbers. In addition to their growth in the affiliate space, I also wanted to keep you updated with some news surrounding their network.

- Make Money with eBay: If you ever made money with the eBay affiliate program, you were probably making it through Commission Junction. On April 1st, the eBay Partner Network launched as they removed themselves from Commission Junction. Just recently, eBay and PepperJam Network teamed up to offer affiliates another alternative for advertising their network. Now you can run eBay directly through PepperJam Network. (For all affiliates running Build a Niche Software, the ability to run and track through PepperJam is now available)

- Tons of New Offers: Since going live, PepperJam Network has added an amazing amount of new advertisers to the network. Now with over 250 offers, they are quickly becoming the prominent network to make serious money with. Keep in mind, the 250 offers I mentioned are each their own web site and brand name!

- $10 Signup Bonus to New Affiliates: With the explosion of growth PepperJam Network is seeing, they are only pushing harder to make this growth continue. If you aren’t currently an affiliate with PepperJam Network, join now and you will receive $10 in your account once you are approved as an affiliate. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you join the PepperJam Network. If you’re already an affiliate, be sure to login and see what offers were recently added to the network.

As an affiliate, what makes you choose certain networks over each other and what would make PepperJam Network or any of the other networks mentioned, be your network of choice?

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Pay Per Click Isn’t the Only Way to Make Good Money Online

We all know there are a lot of ways to make money online, and one of the most preferred ways to make money is through pay per click marketing. However, what if you don’t want to learn pay per click marketing or have the funds to provide for a campaign budget? People are on the internet for one of two reasons… they either want to find something (product, purchase information), or want to be entertained (videos, news, celebrity blogs). Here are a just a few new ideas on how you can start making money online, without relying on paid search.

1.) Start a Free Stuff Web Site
Years ago when I first started making money online, I ran a few free stuff web sites and newsletters. To this day, thousands of people are still search for “free stuff” daily, and web sites are cashing in. Provide your web site visitors with the latest freebies and promotions available, while offering free/trial CPA offers in the process. You can also build up your web site by offering a daily newsletter or a forum for other members to list new freebies on the web.
(Example Site: TheFreeSite.com - One of the largest and oldest free stuff resource web sites)

2.) Contest & Sweepstakes
In addition to running a free stuff web site, I also had plenty of contest and sweepstakes web sites. If you are more interested in cash prizes, games and lotteries, this may be the niche area for you. Just like in the “free stuff” market, you can offer CPA offers to your web site visitors.
(Example Site: ContestBlogger.com - A large resource site for Online Contests, Sweepstakes and Free Stuff)

3.) Get Paid to Complete Offers (Incentived)
There are many sites out there that have the concept of “get paid to….”. Usually the concept it to take surveys, but there is also a whole market for cash prizes and rewards. These type of networks are a lot like the email/zip offers, but usually have the option to complete more or less offers and not limiting you to specific prizes. There is a new site called ThisSiteIsForReal.com, and all they do is list a ton of CPA offers, and pay users a small percentage for completing them. Whatever they don’t pay to the person completing the offer, they profit from.
(Example Site: MyPoints.com - Get paid to complete offers)

4.) Running a Niche Product Content Blog
Blogs are one of the easiest ways to setup a new web site, which can focus on individual products or services. For instance, PepperJamNetwork has a ton of affiliate programs for well known products that aren’t available on other networks, one of them being the AeroGarden. If you were to create a blog based on growing a garden or on vegetables and herbs… you can easily target this blog towards the sales of AeroGarden. Based on your blog content, you would receive free search traffic and people interested in the product. This same process can be done for almost any product or service available.
(Example Site: WeViews.TV - a blog that reviews individual products)

5.) High Traffic Content Web Sites
Reference back to the top post this blog post and how I said people are online to either find something or be entertained… in either case, you can be the resource for what they need! If you can provide a content service or something that brings people back to your site often, you have a winner. Instead of trying to sell a service or product, you can focus on selling advertising to your web site or blog. The repeat traffic to your web site will only increase with time and so will your ad dollars.
(Example: CollegeHumor.com - Funny Videos, Pictures & Content)

6.) Create an Online Store
Provide to the people that are searching to make purchases online, by creating your own web store. It’s easy enough to setup a store with Yahoo, or many of the other providers out there. Your main focus is to find what you can sell and how you will do it. I recommend and prefer the concept of drop shipping, I would never want to hold inventory in-house. If you are able to find quality products through a drop shipper, all you need to do is process the sales and bring new buyers to your web site.
(Example Site: WorldWideBrands.com - Resource for Finding DropShippers and Products to Sell)

These are just a few of the different ways that you can start making money online, without relying on, or having to master pay per click marketing. If you are still stuck for an idea, think about what web sites you currently use, and how you could make them better. In addition to finding a profitable business, make sure it is one that you have an interest in… otherwise it will just become another annoying job, like what everyone else has!

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Do You Suck at Making Money Online?

Whether you are currently working a 9-5 job, running your own business, or even just a student in school… you probably suck at doing a lot of things, which is probably why you aren’t doing them? Gary Vaynerchuk recently made a quick video talking about the things he sucks at, then stressing the point about not focusing on what you suck at… and focus on what you are good at.

There are plenty of ways to start making money online, if you aren’t already. One of the fastest ways to start making money online overnight, is through pay per click marketing. Another way to make money online is through blogging (which takes time), as long as you can establish yourself and your blog as a prominent place for people to visit often and where advertisers may flock to. A more of a long term strategy for making money online, is to establish a web site that will continually grow in size and build up a membership base over time… whether that be paid subscribers, content providing or video entertainment. Just remember, a lot of people are making money online, but in hundreds of different ways.

If you are currently “sucking” at making money in a particular area, don’t stress yourself to death trying to make it work… there are so many alternative paths to online riches. As you dive into new marketing strategies, you will only continue to educate yourself and get better at this game. Making money online isn’t a one way street… don’t be afraid to take the path less traveled and try something different.

Take a moment and step back from your overall business model and ask yourself… where else can I be making money and what area am I sucking at?

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