Goodbye Amazon Affiliate Links

July 1st, 2011 by chris 2 comments »

Goodbye Amazon Associates affiliate program!  Sayonara.  Adios.  I must bid you adieu.

amazon associated gone in CA - boohoo!It’s sort of a bummer that Amazon has discontinued its associates program (the program that allows web publishers like me to earn money from product referrals to Amazon.com).  I say “sort of” because I never really did that well with the Associates program.  I sent considerable traffic Amazon’s way, but I never earned significant commissions.  Part of the reason is that Amazon’s commission percentage is so darn low.

The low commission percentage should be offset buy Amazon’s inherent trust and supposed ability to convert sales, but I never experienced any of this.  I could truly never get over the fact that selling a $100 cell phone would only net me 6 bucks.

While it is a shame that Amazon has cancelled its affiliate program in California (in other words, won’t work with website owners in CA) due to a recent ridiculous law being passed as part of the Jerry Brown’s budget, it really is not hurting my bottom line at all.

I feel very sorry for those people who make significant income from Amazon, but I also know that if they are making significant income from Amazon, these same people will be able to make potentially more with other companies.  Good luck!

Image Attribution: Hey Riverfront Times, I hope it’s cool I used your image in this post.  It works so well for this post.

JustHost Web Hosting Plans Only $3.45 Per Month

December 3rd, 2010 by chris No comments »

JustHost makes it incredibly easy to get your website, blog, or ecommerce store up and running in no time.  They offer great service at bargain basement prices.  $3.45 per month is a very affordable monthly rate for all the cool things you get from JustHost’s web hosting plan.

Here’s what you get…

Let’s start with unlimited GB’s of space.  This is a crucial element to look for in any web hosting plan.  If a plan doesn’t offer this, move on.

Unlimited GB’s of transfer.  Another huge plus.

Unlimited domain hosting.  Want to host or park a bunch of domain names at no additional cost?  You can with a hosting plan from JustHost.com.

Unlimited email accounts.  Not bad.  Want to hire a writer or give your mom her own email account?  Now you can at no additional cost.

In addition to unlimited MySQL databases, you also get to use a free site builder to make your site and you also get one more thing…

A Free Domain Name just for good measure.

Oh yeah, and there’s an anytime money back guarantee.  Huge!

If you’re looking for web hosting that won’t cost an arm on a leg, jump on this deal from JustHost and start your web empire.  It won’t last forever, since it’s a special rate.  Go get it.

iPage, another web hosting company, is currently offering it’s unlimited hosting plan for $2.99 per month.  In addition, you get entered into a drawing for a free iPad.

Hiring Writers on Odesk

November 12th, 2010 by chris No comments »

If you’re looking for a writer to write some articles for you for your website, article directory promotions, or blog posts, a good place to look is Odesk.

Odesk is a good place to find freelance writers at competitive prices, and it can be much less of a hassle than trying to find a writer on Craigslist. Believe me, I’ve tried both ways.

At Odesk, you can see your candidates history through writing samples and from client feedback. These can be very enlightening and can give a glimpse into the work habits and talent of your potential hire.

If you’re looking for a writer to write blog posts or other content for you, it will help you immensely to see some previous work and feedback. This will help you make a more informed decision.

When you set up a job offer, you will get a bunch of potential candidates who will tell you why they should get the gig and will also “bid” on the job, effectively telling you how much their services will cost.

It takes some time to weed out the unqualified writers from the ones that will do good work.  That comes with the territory when you’re looking for a freelance content writer.  It’s a good idea to start with a small job before moving onto a larger project.  You want to know you can count on the writer.

ODesk.com
is a very good place to find writers. I recommend the service and have had a very good experience with the site.

Hubpages for Making Money Online

November 3rd, 2010 by chris 2 comments »

Hubpages seems to keep climbing higher and higher.  This really speaks to the management of the website and in no small part to the amazing content writers on Hubpages.com.

If you are looking for another way to make money online, you should have a look at Hubpages.  But you should know that if you want to be successful with your pages there and actually make some money (who doesn’t) you are going to have to write a lot of good to high quality content.

And if you want to do really good, then you are going to want to do extensive keyword research.  This will help you find subjects (and the appropriate corresponding keywords and terms) that you can write about with less competition or at least with a more informed understanding of how many other sites have similar content.

One absolute key thing to do (and perhaps this is most important) is to see if other people are already writing about a given subject on hubpages.  If they are, it may be smarter for you to write about something else.  Or, maybe you want to tag along and think about the residual traffic that may come to your content as a result of being somewhat linked (by tags) to the similar content on the site.

One thing is for sure and that is that there are quite a few people (maybe about 100 or so) who are making very good money from Hubpages.  There are probably 10 who are making exceptional money.  You can be in one of these groups if you want to.