So I decided to stop all my 4 campaigns and focused on only 1 campaign that’s making most of the profit. Why? I have limited funds and I might not eat for a long time if I continue with all those campaigns.

I was not sure at first if I should continue this campaign. It is saturated, competitive and the keyword bids are fucking high. I’m talking about $2 - $11 average cost per click. But after asking many affiliates, they said that “If you’re breaking even or losing just a couple of dollars, then you have a winner“. I am making conversions but losing a couple of dollars a day $1-$12 a day. So I guess it is ok, I just need to tweak it more.

Now another issue is about the saturated market. I’m still new to ppc affiliate marketing and having to choose this competitive campaign I’m doing right now, I’m actually not sure if I would hit it big. Back then, when I was using just SEO on competitive niches, I was laughing my way to the bank with untapped, long tail keywords. But things are a little bit different in PPC. Since most affiliates said that I shouldn’t go for it because its saturated, I thought to myself, if many people are there, maybe there’s a lot of money to support those affiliates and their campaigns and the pie keeps getting bigger because more and more people are jumping into it. There is money in saturated market. Think porn. So that got me motivated in going for saturated market.

Well that’s just me, I never listen to advices anyway especially if its negative, we still have to test and risk right? Then we think, analyze and decide.

I’m also planning on buying a new dedicated server. My sites are going down quite frequently with other blogsites aiming for current events traffic and my affiliate sites getting huge traffic from PPC. I’m quite happy actually. Not because my sites are crashing, but because I know its time for expansion. Man, I love this industry.

Are you ready for this year’s biggest multimedia and design convention in the Philippines? I’m excited to attend this year’s Graphika Manila. Will be held on September 2008. Having to attend last year’s convention, you can get a glimpse of the latest trend in multimedia and web design from different experts around the world. Well, the speakers this year haven’t been disclosed yet but I’m betting that it would be a big ass party.

If you want to know what happened on last year’s Graphika Manila, check the video below.

Mark your calendars ladies and gents.

I am a big fan of Steve Jobs. Since I watch the movie Pirates of the Silicon Valley, I was astounded by how Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started. Today, Steve Jobs has been one of my inspiration in doing the things that I do and making the things I want in life happen. This might be an old video, but its really good and it would be a nice post for anyone, affiliate marketing or any other business.

Steve Jobs’ Standford University Commencement Address

I have been seeing a lot of people jumping into affiliate marketing. Though it is a lot different from blogging and adsense, it is as profitable. Affiliate marketing is a whole new playing field and in my experience it has been tough for me to think differently, away from adsense.

Change:

http://psdjf.com/ref=sadjsi213l to http://mysite.com/redirect.php

This post is about hiding your affiliate links. Hiding your affiliate links is very important because…

Reasons Why You Should Hide Affiliate Links

• Google hates affiliate links - Google will penalize you for having affiliate links on your page. And these link will also suck up your PR juice from your site. So it is best to hide them.
• People Hates affiliates - It must be a psychological issue. People don’t want somebody making money out of them. And many people wouldn’t sign up on your affiliate link if they don’t know you. If you provide good information though and helpful, they might consider, but most of the time, they don’t.

How To Hide Affiliate Links

There are different kinds of techniques in hiding affiliate links. The most common one is to use tinyurls. There are also iframe technique, where you will load the affiliate site on your website, so visitors will see that you really own the merchant site, with your domain in it. And the other one is the redirect technique.

I’ll be teaching about redirect technique because this seems to be the best that works for me and it is the simplest.

In order for this redirect to work, your server must be able to use .php pages. Let us make our .php page. We will call it redirect.php.

So open your text editor and add these lines of code:

<?php
header(’Location: http://psdjf.com/ref=sadjsi213l‘);
?>

Once you’ve done that, save and then, everytime you want to go to your affiliate link, call upon redirect.php.

So for example, “Buy Now” will have the anchor text and will have the link of <a href =”redirect.php”>.

So instead of seeing http://psdjf.com/ref=sadjsi213l as your link, you’ll see http://mysite.com/redirect.php

which is a lot cleaner and more professional.

That’s all there is to it.

If you have this (point to head) then you follow this (point to heart), if anyone tries to judge you, give them this (a middle finger).

It’s a very powerful speech. All people have the brains, come on, we are human, but we sometimes doesn’t follow our heart and tries to live the life what society expect us to live. If someone tried to tell you what you should do with your life or judge you by what you make, don’t let them get away with it. They asked for it.

No wonder why most newbies are afraid to do PPC. It will eat your money instantly. And the rate of success and being broke is dependent on how can you tolerate risk and see your money go down the drain.

Earning money is fun. Losing money isn’t. So what happens when someone afraid to take risk in PPC and don’t want to lose money to learn? He will not learn nor succeed. True there is still another option, go SEO. Its free. But, it takes a lot of time to see results. PPC gives you instant results. Though some people say that it is temporary as you can only send traffic as long as you have the money. What they don’t know is that, as long as that money spend on PPC comes back in a form of commission, its still a good source of long term income.

Doing PPC in affiliate marketing is really tricky you need to have data that you can base your decision. Bidding up or down blindly is not what PPC is all about. Being clouded by emotion has no place for PPC affiliate marketing. For example, you are losing $50 a day for a campaign. You still need to get at least 100 clicks to say that it is NOT profitable. But the weak-hearted might stop those campaigns right after the $50 was spent with no return. There are a lot of factors that you can consider why it didn’t become profitable. Maybe sales comes in Monday or week ends or seasonal, maybe your site isn’t converting well, your ads, your ad copy, your title and so on. There are a lot of factors and you need to lose some money at the start to gain data. You can not judge a campaign completely just by saying “I have spent $50 with no sales, so this niche is not profitable”.

PPC affiliate marketing is not for the weak hearted. Better of become an SEO affiliate marketer. Both have their advantages and I believe is a matter of preference. I never said one discipline is better. Just be wary of the consequences in going with any of them.

To sum it up.

SEO is for those who have Patience. PPC is for those who are Aggressive

People are emailing me about how I make money online with <insert whatever here>. You can make money online with thousands of different ways but I find these things that works for me the best. These make money online programs are FREE and you DON’T need to pay to join. Always remember that those that asks you to pay to join a make money online program, 90% are scams.

These are not make money online schemes, ebooks or software, but networks and tools that can help you make money online. You don’t need to pay anything to join.

Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing

Pepperjam Network is One of my favorite affiliate network. They have a very friendly interface, design and tracking. Free to join. The potential for making money is huge. Have a lot big networks advertising in them (i.e. eBay). You can read my experience with Pepperjam Network. Or join them now here.

Linkshare is one of the biggest Affiliate Network that you can join for free. They have a huge list of big advertisers here. If you want to promote more products. This is a good place to find more advertisers.

COPEAC is one of the most unique affiliate network around. They help affiliates by giving them web design services (only for affiliates). If you’re new to affiliate marketing, try them out, they can help you get started with web design and friendly affiliate managers. My personal experience and review with them here.

Make Money Online With Blogging

ReviewMe is great for bloggers. You’ll get paid for every review of a website you make. The review pay depends on your site’s popularity. You can earn as big as $500 for every post. Easy money right there.

Make Money Online With eCommerce

eBay. ECommerce is the future. A lot of people are making thousands of money in eBay through selling their own products or dropshipping. I bought & sold many items on eBay myself and its a good place for people that wants to buy and sell stuff.

Since I got my goal of $1k per month in affiliate marketing, I have been slacking a lot lately. There’s an increase in this month’s earning but I am not happy. This is not the kind of income that I want and I know I could’ve done better if I tried harder. It’s time for me to get things rolling because I’m planning to move out of the house. My parents and the people around me are not the ones that could help me improve and reach my goals. I love my siblings and my parents, I love my relatives but I believe they can’t help me reach my dreams.

As for today I would like to set my goal to reach a certain amount of income (personal) enough for me to move out of my parent’s house and hopefully buy my own. Do some crazy things and experiment. Expand my business.

It’s time to get serious… Like a pornstar ready to grind.

The Dark Knigh is probably THE BEST superhero movie of the year. I can’t say how happy I am to watch this film. The actors are great, the story has depth and the action scenes were awesome. Dark Knight was sold out in over 90% of Movie theaters this weekend and broke into the record books with a $155 million weekend!

I admired Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker. I admired his acting since the movie Cassanova and have been astounded by his acting ever since. Especially the role of clever villain. It is a tremendous lost for us that he passed away.

For those who didn’t know, Heath Ledger passed away due to overdose of sleeping pills

On the side note, I hope I could be like Batman, rich, handsome and powerful. Driving his Lamborgini in his stylish suit. Fucking. Awesome.

If you haven’t watch the film yet, I highly recommend you watch it on the big screen or buy a DVD copy. It will definitely be a classic.

Having to work with big design companies has a very large benefit. You get referrals just about anywhere and as time goes by, those that are referred also refers you to other potential clients like money having compound interest. This is basically, a web designer’s dream, to work and do the things he loves best and be appreciated by many.

But, before that happens, we must first know how to enhance our web design skills. Many new comers in the web design industry felt kind of lost to where to start. Sometimes, they have the desire to design websites but they can’t express it in a design. To make it simple, they can’t make their imagination into a reality. Sometimes, some people are not gifted with the eyes of a designer that can distinguish a good color combination to another.

Tips To Improve Your Design Skills When Starting Up

• Good Artist Copy, Great Artists Steal - Two people who actually said those words are two of the richest men in the world. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It is true. As web designers, you are an artist. The best way to start is to COPY other people’s design and make improvements to it. Practice on doing the same layout, the same design, the same color combination of other sites and make it your own. Once you know the style, its easy to make a new style that you can call your own.
• KISS Principle - The KISS principle or “Keep It Simple… Stupid” is one of the most widely used technique especially in the web 2.0 arena. Perfection in simplicity is determined not when there are no more things to add but there are no more things to remove. If you can make the design as simple as possible, you’re on the right track.
• Don’t Make Me Think - Always keep in mind that people who uses the internet always want to save time. People want to SCAN pages, not read them. And when they see something interesting on your page, that’s the time they will read the whole article. Keep in mind, web usability. Don’t make your visitors think. If you can make them do something on your site, without them thinking tremendously, you’re hitting the right spot. The book Don’t Make Me Think has been a bible for newbie designers and experienced web designers in the field of web usability. Definitely one of the many books you must have if you want to learn more.
• Practice, Practice, Practice - It doesn’t matter if your first few designs are crap. In time, you are building a portfolio and experience. Each page you make will only get you inspired and try another approach on every different site you handle. Allot a time for yourself wherein you can practice a new effect or learn a new graphic tool. Practice makes perfect.

Always remember that you can not please everybody. Just like every artist won’t be able to please anyone. Don’t feel bad. Its just a matter of being true and totally loving what you do and the design you make.