Randy Roedl

posted by Randy Roedl on Apr 14

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According to The World’s Glossary of Internet Terms, “affiliate Marketer is defined as: “A business relationship with a merchant or other service provider who allows you to link to that business. When a visitor clicks on the link at your site and subsequently makes a purchase from the merchant, you receive a commission based on the amount of the sale, a referral fee or a pay-for-click fee.”

This is a simple, straight-forward agreement between a merchant and an affiliate. Budding affiliate marketers run into a problem when they try to reverse the success process. Instead of starting at the beginning, they try to start at the end.

Making money is the end of the process. The beginning of the process is education and there are several steps in between. Too many people, who are just getting started in affiliate marketing, fail to take the steps necessary to get to the end of the process and actually make money.

Step #1: Educate yourself. This is the key, opening the door of opportunity. It’s also the common thread connecting successful affiliate marketers. Education lays the foundation - the building blocks to success. Start by gathering the best information you can find about affiliate marketing and absorbing it.

Step #2: Turn that information into usable knowledge. Even the best information remains kind of worthless, however, until after you discover how to use it - how to make it serve your purpose.

Step #3: Start applying the knowledge … take action …start building your affiliate business. Will you make mistakes, even though you’ve invested all that time educating yourself? Yes, you most likely will make mistakes.

Step #4: Test and tweak, test and tweak. This one never ends. And it’s often the dividing line between succeeding and failing. Attention to small details often returns big rewards.

Following these steps will define you as a successful affiliate marketer.

posted by Randy Roedl on Apr 13

Bidvertiser (http://www.bidvertiser.com/)
Like AdSense, Bidvertiser displays text ads in your page. But the difference lies in the fact that advertisers bid over your advertising space, ensuring you earn as much revenue as you possibly can. This also means that bids will increase over time, earning you even more cash. You also get a great way to customize your ads with a very easy to use tool and detailed reports on your site’s status.

Quigo AdSonar (http://www.quigo.com/adsonarpublishers.htm)
Quigo AdSonar achieves relevancy by placing a filter according to your site’s categories. It also offers you on-line reports of your site’s status and the possibility to add your own custom ads replacing ads that don’t gain you any revenue. The setup is very simple, in a similar fashion to AdSense’s and quite customizable as well.

Vibrant Media IntelliTXT (http://www.intellitxt.com/site/web_01a.html)
Vibrant Media IntelliTXT offers user-activated ads, highlighting certain words within the content of the page and presenting relevant ads when a user hovers his mouse over them. It uses a pay-for-performance pricing scheme and can easily be used along with other advertising methods, because it is unobtrusive. It places you in full control, allowing you to easily integrate it within your site with some simple JavaScript.

Nixie (http://www.nixxie.com/display.php?section=Partners)
Nixie claims to hold a technology that can read and understand your site, enabling it to display the most relevant content to your site. Besides text ads, Nixie also features price comparison listings as well as live auction advertising. It’s very easy to implement and has a good payment policy as well.

MIVA AdRevenue Xpress (http://www.miva.com/us/content/partners/arx.asp)
MIVA AdRevenue Xpress is targeted towards small and mid-sized publishers. It implements Search Box functionality and also features things like a Category Directory as well as the handling of 404 error pages. It can be integrated with your page using a simple on-line wizard.

Fastclick (http://www.fastclick.com/publish.html)
Fastclick offers you an impressive 65 percent of what it makes from a click on your website. Payments are done monthly, via PayPal or through checks. The ads can be formatted as you wish, and Fastclick even offers a free support serice for its members and no fees are required to register with the service.

contextWeb ContextAd (http://www.contextweb.com/Corporate/publisher/publisher.shtml)
ContextAd offers the possibility of contextual ads for dynamic pages, meaning ads will change as soon as your page does. It’s very easy to use and free to sing up for and offers a transparent payment policy. The ads are fully customizable and real-time reports are available 24/7.

AdBrite (http://www.adbrite.com/)
AdBrite offers publishers the possibility of integrating text ads in their pages. These are done on your own rates, with the websites you approve by hand so it bares some similarities with a classic advertising scheme. You also have the option of adding a "Your Add Here" button that buyers can immediately click to ad space on your page. It can also be used in conjunction with Google AdSense, maximizing your CTR and offering advertisers the possibility of showing their links in your Google AdSense space. You have full control over the look and feel of your adds and finally, you get an incredible 75% of what the advertiser pays for on every click.

So, as you can see there are many offers for this kind of advertising, and many hybrids based on AdSense like advertising. Also, a lot of services can work together with AdSense to earn you an even greater amount of revenue for your ad space.

You need to have optimized Niche website templates for best results. You may find the best adsense templates and blog templates at www.AdsenseTemplates.com (http://www.adsensetemplates.com). They are offering 100 fresh new templates every month.

posted by Randy Roedl on Apr 12

Many people have started using google’s AdSense program, but there are some who find it a bit too uncertain or simply not suiting their own requirements from an ad program.

But thankfully for such people, there are many alternatives to AdSense which attempt to alleviate some of its shortcomings. Here is a list of the most noteworthy ones from the lot with a description concerning each one.

Allfeeds (http://www.allfeeds.com/?action=publishers)
AllFeeds has a great pool of online advertisers to choose from. It also features many display formats that you can choose from. These include banners, buttons, XML feeds, DHTML pop-ups and so on. It also features real time reporting of your ad status. The site will mail a check every month, provided that you earn more then $25.00, while rolling over earnings for the next month if you don’t. Another interesting thing about AllFeeds is that it integrates with Google AdSense, maximizing your earnings with AdSense.

MarketBanker (http://www.marketbanker.com/mb/sell.php)
MarketBanker allows you the unique possiblity to set the pricing for your site. It also allows you to allow or reject any link that appears on your site (although AdSense itself does a very good job of this as well, with URL filters) There’s also a statistics section which will allow you to see how well your site is doing. The ads are small just like AdSense’s and they’re just as easy to set up. Also, registration for MarketBanker is free.

BidClix ( http://www.bidclix.com/PubTop.html)
BidClix is different because it has advertisers compete for clicks on your site, which in turn is meant to generate the highest possible profits for your page. It also has a very large pool of advertisers which ensure there are plenty of people to choose your site. However, it does require more polish on site contents then AdSense. As most sites, real time statistics are available and its very easy to get started with this service, but it’s also very flexible.

Chitika (http://www.realcontext.com/index.php?option=RealContext:+Contextual+Targeting+Engine)

posted by Randy Roedl on Apr 11

What exactly is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is the single fastest growth industry on the Internet. It’s also true that affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and most creative ways to make money and have a career on the Internet.

Simply put, affiliate marketing is selling products on a commission basis. You own a business that advertises and sells products for other companies. You may have a product of your own to begin with or not. The things that a successful affiliate marketer must have are:

1. Your website is the jumping off point of all your marketing efforts. So the first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. You must build a user-friendly website, which will attract your prospects and motivate them to click on the links to the products and services you are promoting and make a purchase. There are companies whose business is building websites that you can hire to build one for you.

2. You must find products to sell, you must be able to determine whether there is a demand for those products and if people will actually buy them.  You may either have your own original product or products that are made by others. Which ever way you go, you must believe in the products.

3. It will be necessary for you to become an adept advertiser and be able to tell whether the advertising you are paying for is producing more income for you than the advertising is costing you.

4. It is necessary that you have good mathematical skills. You will need to be able to track your sales and determine profit, as well as, see to it that your suppliers are paid in full and on time.

5. You need the full and unwavering support of your family so that you can devote the time and energy necessary to launch your affiliate marketing business.

posted by Randy Roedl on Apr 11

Well its time again for Armand Morins Big Seminar 11 in Atlanta Georgia. You know , everytime a seminar comes up I have to ask myself these questions. Are there going to be top name speakers, will they have new programs, will I learn enough new content to make it worth while.

Well the answer to all of these questions is the Big Seminar. Now most people would go because it has all of that, but not me. I am only going because Armand Morin keeps calling me on the phone, sending me emails and asking me to come to this big event.

 Now Armand and I go way back. The truth is, if he wasen’t begging me to go I probably would’nt.  Him and all the other marketers and speakers just keep emailing me all the time and I just cant get any work done.

So HEY!!! you guys win… I will be there at the Big Seminar 11 Live in Atlanta. Hope to see all of you there.

posted by Randy Roedl on Mar 26

Sometimes its had when you know a little more than other people. They have a tendency to call you all the time to ask questions about their blogs or about microsoft office and how it works. This can really become a pain in the @%#$. I believe that there are some people out there that will NEVER get the internet. They will never understand blogs, web pages or html. They simply wont get it. This is why its hard to keep answering the same questions over and over. At some point and time you either need to get it!!! or get out!!!.

I dont mean to rant about this but come on people, you cant get any easier that word, excell and wordpress blogs. There are even a ton of videos online to help with all of these programs and they are all free!!!!. DO your reasearch, do your homework anfd figure it out!!! or GET OUT!!!!!!!

This artical was not meant to hurt your feelings in any way, but if it did, think about what you are doing.

posted by Randy Roedl on Jan 30

Structuring, organization, management, business administration, practice,
\r\nday-to-day operation, staffing, routines, acounting, filing and other
\r\nsystems all form part of a business. The types of businesses available to
\r\nyou might also influence how you organize the business. State guidelines,
\r\npersonal goals, financial means, tax-friendly solutions all feed into
\r\nwhat you  may end up having as the  structure of yrou business. It could
\r\nbe a sole proprietorshop, an incorporated business, a partnership, or a
\r\njoint venture. Thre are risk/rewards for each of these types of
\r\nbusinesses, areas of strenght and weakeness, for example, sole ownership
\r\nis great for you are your own boss, but that also means all the liability
\r\nattaches to you personally and professionally, business-wise as well. Not
\r\nthe optimal model most would aruge, even though it provides great tax
\r\ndeduction potential at tax time each year for legitimate business
\r\nexpenses and such deductions.

\r\n

Many business minded professionals going out on their own prefer a
\r\nlimited liability company(LLC) that offers liability protection of a
\r\ncorporation and a partnership without most of the complications, effort
\r\nor hassle, legitiamte and above board.

\r\n

Profitability, purpose and day-to-day operating of a successful work at
\r\nhome business will give and take, ask a lot of you. It is a personal
\r\ninvestmnet way beyond the capital and hours that you work.

\r\n

It requires dedication, plans, execution, attention to detail, focus and
\r\noftentimes working long hours, sacrificing personal time and luxury etc.

\r\n

If you work at home business is about making money, you will feel it.
\r\nThere might be challenges, obstacles and more to overcome in due course.
\r\nThings that you might have to pay particular attention to will relate to
\r\nbusiness aspects like: accounting, taxes, employees, office space,
\r\noffice tools, customer satisfaction and sales, follow-up, makerting and
\r\nadvertising, growing and expanding the business,e ven closing it down (if
\r\nfailed or unsuccessful). The experts all agree that regardless of the
\r\nnature, industry, size, expertise, most if not all work at home business
\r\nideas, launches, start-ups, will not have a chance of success,  if these
\r\nand other factors are not managed correctly, deliberately and
\r\npro-actively. Are you ready and up for the challenge for what your work
\r\nat home business might cast your way!?

\r\n

\r\n

\r\n

posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 29

\r\n

I practice a tactic called Domain Seasoning. Because google likes domains that have been hosted for a long time, I felt that I should do something about all the domains that I owned. Most people out there just purchase domains and let the set in there domain account. I like to do the opposite.  What I do is get the domain out there to season. It doesn’t matter when you are ready to begin using the site for something real, it just needs to be.

\r\n

\r\n

This is a quick and easy way to get indexed and maybe get some pagerank before you are ready to begin working on the site. Not to mention, you could add some adsense and banner ads and collect some money that you may have never seen. Here are the easy steps to Domain Seasoning.

\r\n

\r\n
1. Host your site

\r\n

2. Add wordpress

\r\n

3. Make a few small changes

\r\n

4. Add your articles through rss with relevant content

\r\n

5. Use wp-o-matic to add articles

\r\n

6. Add your adsense

\r\n

7. Let it season

\r\n

\r\n

\r\n

You will see after a while that your Domain that was just sitting there doing nothing, now has a life of its own. Maybe it will be bringing in some money also. Try this technique, it works and it’s easy.

\r\n

posted by Randy Roedl on Oct 9

On a day when stocks basically went nowhere, shares of Internet search giant google (GOOG, news, msgs) topped $600 a share for the first time today. \r\n\r\nThat pushed its market value above $190 billion and ahead of Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, news, msgs), whose business is about 20 times more massive. \r\n\r\nGoogle gained 2.6% to $609.62 today and is up 6.5% this month and 31% this year. \r\n\r\nWal-Mart, meanwhile, was down slightly this day to about $45, a victim of worries about consumer spending. The stock has been stagnant in the past few years, falling 11% in 2005 and 1.3% in 2006. This year, the stock is down 2.3%.\r\n\r\nIf that\’s not enough, Google now has a market value greater than Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor (TM, news, msgs). Toyota shares fell slightly in New York to $117.29; its market cap sat the close of trading this day was about $187 billion. \r\n\r\nMarket capitalization is the value of outstanding common shares. \r\n\r\nGoogle and tech stocks generally were higher today. The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped to a 7-point gain to 2,787. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, was down 22 points to about 14,044, and the Standard & Poor\’s 500 Index was down 5 points to just under 1,553.\r\n\r\nIf Google were in the Dow, the company would rank eighth in terms of market capitalization among the 30 stocks in the blue-chip index. \r\n\r\nAfter just three years as a public company, Google shares have jumped more than 600%, and the company is now worth more than 22 of the 30 companies listed in the Dow. \r\n\r\nIts market cap is almost as huge as the five Dow stocks with the smallest market caps combined: Caterpillar (CAT, news, msgs), DuPont (DD, news, msgs), Honeywell (HON, news, msgs), Alcoa (AA, news, msgs) and General Motors (GM, news, msgs). \r\n\r\nAt the same time, it would be the 23rd most valuable company in the world. While plenty of analysts say Google stock is headed to $700, it is still pricey: It trades at 45 times its projected 2007 earnings of $13.18 a share and 21% above its 200-day moving average, even though it has traded as high as 62% above its 200-day average. \r\n\r\nSeventeen of 23 analysts rate the stock a strong purchase. Its 2006 earnings per share were almost double earnings in 2005. But it looks now like the 2007 earnings will be only 30% higher than 2006 earnings.\r\n\r\nvideo: Google\’s spectacular rise\r\n\r\nTech stocks were about the only strength in the market this day. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, news, msgs) led the Dow with a 2% gain to $51.98, and IBM Corp. (IBM, news, msgs) and Intel (INTC, news, msgs) were among the top five Dow stocks today. \r\n\r\nApple (AAPL, news, msgs) jumped 4% to $167.91. Amazon.com (AMZN, news, msgs) rose 2.6% to $95.85, and World wide web software company Akamai Technologies (AKAM, news, msgs) soared 8.4% to $33.92, tops among stocks in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 Index ($NDX.X), which includes nearly all the biggest Nasdaq stocks. The latter index was up 0.6% to 2,163.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, the Amex Interactive Week World wide web Index ($IIX.X), which includes Google, was up 0.8%. \r\n\r\nWhat pulled the market lower? Economic worries, set off by an earnings warning from Ryder System (R, news, msgs), which stated the economic slowdown has moved beyond the housing sectors. \r\n\r\nAt the same time, there was weakness in oil stocks, materials stocks and financials. \r\n\r\nExxonMobil (XOM, news, msgs) was down 0.7% to $90.68 as crude oil fell more than 2.7% to $79.02 a barrel in New York. \r\n\r\nStock Charts (Year)\r\nGoogle\r\n\r\nWal-Mart Stores\r\n\r\nRyder System \r\nCitigroup (C, news, msgs) was off 1% to $47.80. Alcoa, which reports third-quarter earnings tomorrow, was the Dow loser, down 1.3% to $38.30. \r\n\r\nAnd Wal-Mart? It was down 0.2% to $45.27 as investors used the Ryder warnings to worry about consumer confidence and spending. \r\n\r\nRyder\’s nasty warning\r\nRyder shares fell after the trucking company warned that weak demand for commercial rentals would negatively affect its third-quarter earnings. \r\n\r\nThe company, which leases trucks and trailers, anticipates to earn between $1.12 and $1.14 per share in the third quarter, below a previous forecast of between $1.20 and $1.23 per share. \r\n\r\nvideo: Zipcar goes to college\r\n\r\n\”Economic conditions have softened considerably in more industries beyond those related to housing and construction,\” the company said in a press release.\r\n\r\n\”Consequently, freight and shipment levels have weakened to a greater extent than previously anticipated. The impact to earnings is primarily driven by softer-than-anticipated demand in the commercial rental product line, as well as from lower pricing and higher carrying costs associated with used cars.\” \r\n\r\nShares fell almost 6.8% to $45.92 this day and was the biggest loser among S&P 500 stocks and among the 20 stocks in the Dow Jones Transportation Index ($TRAN). The index was down 1.2% today to 4,935. \r\n\r\nSprint\’s Forsee resigns\r\nAfter the market close, cell phone company Sprint Nextel (S, news, msgs) said Gary Forsee had stepped down as CEO and chairman amid pressure from investors unhappy with the company\’s stock performance. \r\n\r\nThe stock, which had dropped 2.7% to $18.50 in regular trading, jumped 0.5% to $18.59 in after-hours trading.\r\n\r\nSprint also confirmed the fears of some investors who worried that the company\’s already poor financial performance in current months is deteriorating. \r\n\r\nSprint said today that it expects to report a third quarter net loss of approximately 337,000 subscribers in the key \”post-paid\” market segment — customers who sign annual contracts and pay monthly bills.\r\n\r\nForsee\’s departure comes just two years after he engineered the $35 billion purchase of cellular operator Nextel Communications to keep pace with rapid consolidation in telecommunications. \r\n\r\nThe Wall Street Journal reported last week that the company was actively seeking a replacement for Forsee.\r\n\r\nEnergy prices — New York close Mon. Fri. Chg. Month chg. YTD chg. \r\nCrude oil (NYMEX) (per barrel) $79.02 $81.22 -$2.20 -3.23%\r\n 29.43% \r\nHeating oil (per gallon) $2.1596 $2.2235 -$0.0639 -3.50% 35.15% \r\nNatural gas (per million BTU) $6.8460 $7.0730 -$0.2270 -0.35% 8.68% \r\nUnleaded gasoline (per gallon) $2.0002 $2.0493 -$0.0491 -3.29% 24.85%

posted by Randy Roedl on Oct 1

I’m thrilled to announce that Version 2.3 “Dexter” of wordpress is now ready for the world. This release includes native tagging support, plugin update notification, URL handling improvements, and much more. This release is named for the great tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon.\n\nThe entire team is really proud of this release, and I’m happy that this is our second on-time release under our new development schedule. The grand experiment of a more agile WordPress with significant features in the hands of users more often is working. I could write a blog post about each new feature, but I’ll try to be brief:\n\n 1. Native tagging support allows you to use tags in addition to categories on your posts, if you so choose. We’ve included importers for the Ultimate Tag Warrior, Jerome’s Keywords, Easy Tags, and Bunny’s Technorati Tag plugins so if you’ve already been using a tagging plugin you can bring your data into the new system. The tagging system is also wicked-fast, so your host won’t mind.\n 2. Our new update notification lets you know when there is a new release of WordPress or when any of the plugins you use has an update available. It works by sending your blog URL, plugins, and version information to our new api.wordpress.org service which then compares it to the plugin database and tells you whats the latest and greatest you can use.\n 3. We’ve cleaned up URLs a bunch in a feature we call canonical URLs which does things like enforce your no-www preference, redirect posts with changed slugs so a link never goes bad, redirect URLs that get cut off in emails on similar to the correct post, and much more. This helps your users, and it also helps your search engine optimization, as search engines like for each page to be available in one canonical location. More info here.\n 4. Our new pending review feature will be great for multi-author blogs. It grants authors to submit a post for review by an editor or administrator, where before they would just have to save a draft and hope someone noticed it.\n 5. There is new advanced WYSIWYG functionality (we call it the kitchen sink button) that grants you to access some features of TinyMCE that were previously hidden.\n\nYou’ll notice that two of those features are straight out of the most-voted for ideas list. That’s just the user facing stuff, if you’re a developer you’ll be interested in:\n\n 1. Full and complete Atom 1.0 support, including the publishing protocol.\n 2. We’re using the new jQuery which is “800% faster.”\n 3. Behind the user-facing tags system is a really kickass taxonomy system, which adds a ton of flexibility. It’s probably the biggest schema upgrade since version 1.5.\n 4. The importers have been revamped to be more memory efficient, and you can now add an importer through a plugin.\n 5. Through hooks and filters you can now override the update system, the dashboard rss feeds, the feed parser, and tons more than you could in 2.2.\n 6. The new $wpdb->prepare() way of doing SQL queries.\n 7. Finally there were over 351 tickets in Trac closed for this release, with over a hundred people contributing. This is the polish, the hundreds of little bug fixes and features that make WordPress what it is.\n\n

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