An Affiliate Marketer from the Ground Up

I've mentioned the phpBay WordPress plugin on this blog many times. Just in the previous post also as a matter of fact. If you have a WP blog, regardless of the topic, you should have this plugin. Even if you're not necessarily trying to monetize the blog, it doesn't hurt to make enough from it to pay for your hosting and a few other things.

I'm sure you probably know phpbay allows you list items from eBay on your blog. Well, the developer of that fantastic pluging has a new one in the works. I've actually purchased it, but it's still in the 'pre-release' version right now. It's not listed publicly on his site yet for sale. Only registered users of the phpBay script(s) were able to obtain the first release.

The new plugin is called phpZon, and it allows you to list products on your WordPress blog from Amazon.com. Obviously that's many, many products.

I still haven't had much time to play around with the script, as I just got it yesterday, but it looks like it's already implemented very well, and I would expect nothing less from Wade, the developer. This guy is very talented, but just as importantly, is as dedicated to his products and support as anyone I've ever seen.

I mentioned in the previous post that you can see the phpBay plugin 'in action' at The Guitar Store, and I also use it on TheGuitarPLayersClub.com. The latter looks just like a WP blog, but the former is configured to look more like a store. Obviously, the phpZon pluging will be able to be used the in the same manner. They both can also be used on the same blog, allowing you to list both eBay and Amazon feeds simultaneously.

I should mention, the store I have set up (The Guitar Store), was a first attempt. It's ok, but if you're talented in web design, the possibilities with just these two plugins are endless. There are more visually appealing sites linked to from the phpBay.com Website.

Personally, I don't really like just having a WordPress blog that looks like a WordPress blog with ads in every post, and in every inch of the sidebar(s). I know, I know, that's what this one looks like now, but it's going to be changed, hopefully soon. I've just been concentrating on other things lately.

Anyway, if you trying Affiliate Marketing, but you're having a rough time setting up a shopping cart or store type of site, then just keep using WordPress, except a modified theme version.

WordPress is a great piece of work, the developers keep updates coming regularly, there's tons of plugins for it, the search engines love blogs, and IT'S FREE!! What else could you want ?

For the measly cost of some good web hosting, I use both Bluehost and HostGator, the phpBay WordPress plugin, a domain name, some of your time and effort, and you can get a great looking WordPress store online very cheaply.

If you have a look at this guitar site that I put up, you'll see how easy it is. I will say however regarding this site, it isn't a flashy, graphic-filled, animated site, mainly because this was my first effort at modifying a WordPress (theme) this much.

I also wanted something simple, but functional. This site has served me pretty well considering I've added very little content to it. It has however, dropped to very little traffic because I didn't keep adding fresh content to it.

After you modify a WP theme, add some 'text widgets' in the sidebar(s) as I've done, naming them of course to whatever is relative to your store. Then, instead of just writing and displaying posts like a standard blog, you can set up pages instead. Using the phpBay plugin to insert your auctions, and you've got a great little store set up with very little work, and not much money.

About the only HTML you'll need to know is how to add (and display) the link to your page (where the auctions are).

It's similar to the following:

<a href="http://ThisIsMyDomain.com/widgets-auctions-page">Buy My Widgets Here!</a>

Of course you'll then have the link 'Buy My Widgets Here!' being displayed in the text widget of your sidebar.

If you look at 'The-Guitar-Store', that's exactly what I've done. All the items for sale are eBay auction listings. I do need to add a better header, a touch more graphics, and to do a few tweaks, but it wouldn't take much to make that site very professional looking.

If I average the cost of the phpBay plugin, my hosting and domain registrations over a year, I'm paying probably less than .75 cents per day (figuring just 1 web host). It actually gets cheaper as I add more sites because BlueHost and HostGator allow unlimited domains on my hosting services, and the phpBay plugin can be used on as many sites as you feel like setting up.

I've paid for everything and then some already. The rest is pure profit for the first year!!

If anyone has any questions on how to set up a WordPress/phpBay auction site, just click the 'Contact Us' link on The Guitar Store site, or this blog.

If you've just started in PPC Marketing, or you'd like to get started, there's a new training site online. I've seen a few others, but the one that came highly recommended was out of my price range.

Well, this one is priced very reasonably at $29.97/month. I really can't imagine finding anything even remotely worth your time for less money. The PPC Classroom is headed by Anik Singal of 'Affiliate Classroom' fame, and also Amit Mehta, PPC guru extrodonaire.

I've signed up, and have been through the 9 PPC modules once. I do, however, want to go through everything again as I get time. There's quite a bit to commit to memory. It's good to know that all the information is available with a couple of clicks of the mouse.

One great thing about PPC Classroom is that it will always have new, fresh information, and not just a stagnant, static course. I thought I knew quite a bit about PPC Marketing, even though my first campaigns haven't been successful, but I learned so much that I never knew existed.

Amit's method for setting up an Adwords campaigns is great. Using Microsoft Excel and a macro that is downloadable from the site, he shows you how to get a massively sized campaign up and running in the shortest time possible. After looking at his way of doing things, I would imagine what can be done using his procedures, versus manually doing it, would literally save you weeks on a large campaign.

There's also some cool, free downloads on the site. Just one of the bouses was worth the first month's membership fee, for me anyway. It's a huge file of awesome graphics that you can use on your sites. There's checkmarks, arrows, contact us (email), guarantee seals, buy now and many more graphics, in various colors.

It work take a huge amount of time to create these, even if you had an original and just created all the different colors of each one. The zip file, if I remember correctly, was about 70megs., so that gives you an idea of how much is there.

There's also an addon that you can get, if you so desire. It's called the 'Niche Detective Club'. The following is directly from the PPC Classroom site.

The 'Niche Detective Club' is priced at $19.97 per month, but it was free for a month when I signed up so I opted to check it out.

I'm not sure exectly how useful it will be as I've yet to run a campaign using the information provided. I will say that everything is as promised, but even with 3 niches per month, if you get a large number of people picking the same campaign, with most of the same keywords, it could be even much more competitive than PPC normally is anyway. I would say it's worth checking out, for sure if it's still free when they're accepting new members. You'll just have to judge for yourself if it's something that will help you to produce income.

In closing, I'd just like to say...if you're new to PPC Marketing, I don't see how you can do better for training than PPC Classroom. There is a monthly fee, but of course you can cancel at any time you wish. The way I look at it is if you're able to get a very successful campaign going using the information in the training, the realized profit could pay for many monthly membership fees, and much more.

If you've been investigating Affiliate Marketing for long, you've probably read (many times) that the money is in 'The List'.

Well, that's partly true. You can have the biggest, most focused list on the Internet, but if you don't have a quality product or service to promote to your list, then it's all for nothing.

Let's assume however that you do have your great product and just need individuals to market it to. The basis for your business is going to be your Website. I won't go into what you need there, other than to say you'll want a well-focused, content (original) rich site. Make sure you do your homework on keywords and generating organic traffic. Obviously PPC (Pay Per Click) is a great way to get visitors too, but if you can get many visitors without spending money, it's a whole lot better.

So, you've got your product/service/site etc. Your visitors are obviously interested in what you're offering because they searched for it or clicked a relevant link somewhere in the mix.

Here's the sweet spot...the list and your autoresponder. When the surfer first comes to your site, you must entice them to give you their email address. Obviously we're not out to use just any method of getting the email address. We want to offer the visitor something valuable in return. Something that will help you build respect and creditability with everyone on your list.

What you offer is beyond what this article is about, but it's usually along the lines of a free ebook or newsletter. You can also have them 'opt-in' via your RSS feed. Some people like receiving the feed via email too, so make sure that's an option.

Now, the product that makes all of this possible....AWeber. This product is the best at what it does, period. They've been around for over 10-years, and really know the business. What AWeber does is allows you to add a tiny bit of code (the form) to your site that collects the email address (and name), thus constructing your list.

After the intial form is filled in, an automated process can begin, where the user is emailed a link for their download/confirmation, and then subsequently. You can have the automation set up to send emails at predetermined intervals, or just when you initiate it.  If you don't have a newsletter that's published regularly, that's no problem.

I won't try to cover all the possibilities here, but it's a very simple principle, and I'm sure you can see the value in the list, and at least as importantly, the automation that AWeber offers. You can sign up for a free trial and check the system out to see the value it will add to your online business.

Just imagine what the process would be manually. People use to even use this bulk mailing (and still do to some extent) with the 'snail mail' postal system. You'll have a massive amount of potential for earnings available to you with the combination of your list and the automation, ease of use and power of AWeber.

I've mentioned XSitePro here before, but in case there's anyone that isn't exactly sure what it is, I'll just touch on it before I say anything about XHeaderPro.

XSitePro is simply (in my opinion) the best possible option available if you're wanting to create Websites. It's a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program. I haven't used Dreamweaver so I won't say that it's better. However, from what I've heard and read, I seriously doubt there's any where near the learning curve for XSitePro as there is for Dreamweaver. Of the people that have used both, XSitePro seems to be the overwhelming choice, so that should speak for itself.

XSP is not a minimum features program either. It has virtually everything you could ask for in this type of software. I used to use a free program called Kompozer, which in it's own right was a pretty good choice for a (free) WYSIWYG program, but it had very limited features.

I do realize that Dreamweaver has a few more features than XSP, but you also pay for those added features. When I bought XSitePro it was $197.00 and I believe it's still one of the best buys that I've ever made on a software package...bar none.

If you're wanting to put up a quality, nice looking site quickly, it's a good choice. If you're ready to do a major site that has to be as good as you can possibly make it, it's also a good choice. Just need a quick sales page ? XSitePro is an excellent choice.

It comes with a fantastic selection of templates with many different themes, that you can use exactly as they are. Of course you can also modify them to your liking, so there's no chance that anyone else will have the exact look that your site does. There's also blank templates that you can customize to your exact design.

With all the page analysis, widgets, and more options than I could hope to cover here, XSitePro is a program that you really need to have a look at before you buy Dreamweaver or any other WYSIWYG Web creation software package. Here's a 6 page brochure that highlights the features very well, xsitepro2productguide.

This was about XHeaderPro though. In case you haven't figured it out by the name, XHeaderPro is by the same Company, Intellimon, Ltd. (Paul Smithson), and is as feature rich as XSitePro. It's extremely easy to use and allows you to make awesome headers. I won't go into details about it though, because it's so easy to use, you can download it and have a beautiful header created in just a few minutes. There's a video to show you how to use it, but you wouldn't even need it to figure the software out.

I just about bought another highly regarded header creation piece of software (for $97.00) before finding out about XHeaderPro. It also does a wonderful job, but it doesn't look to have a thing on XHeaderPro. As I mentioned in the title...the software is completely free also!!

With just XSitePro and XHeaderPro, you would have pretty much everything you could ask for to create top quality, fantastic Websites. Realistically a good graphics program would come in handy also, but a quick download of Gimp, which is everything (and more) most users would ever need, would give you a complete arsenal to designing sites that you can be extremely proud of.

If you're into, or just getting into Affiliate Marketing, XSitePro is geared for for you, having built in options for adding Google AdSense ads, as well as other advertising, and other convenient options for marketing.

Consider XSitePro and XHeaderPro to build your Website(s). I think you'll find that there's no better options available, regardless of how much money you spend.

The XHeaderPro software is a full release version (version 1), it's not a beta release.