Update 27th July 2010: Even their trial month is now completely free, they just waived the $1 fee for the first month!

Back in April when I read on Lissie’s Blog that The Keyword Academy was about to increase their monthly subscription fee from $33 to $67, it was for me the last [...]]]>

Update 27th July 2010: Even their trial month is now completely free, they just waived the $1 fee for the first month!

Back in April when I read on Lissie’s Blog that The Keyword Academy was about to increase their monthly subscription fee from $33 to $67, it was for me the last push I needed to join them in order to benefit from the lower price. This morning I received an email saying that this monthly fee has been reduced again to the old price of $33. So, why am I writing about all this when, in fact, it doesn’t affect me at all? Lets look first at what The Keyword Academy (TKA) actually is, what it offers, what it does well and what it does not so well.

TKA is a membership and monthly site that teaches people how to make money online by teaching them how to choose profitable and low competition keywords to build sites around them.

Their method in finding these sort of keywords works top-notch and additionally they offer the use of a range of online based tools to make this task even easier and to help you with your own accountability. And there is postrunner, basically a guest posting hub distribution center that makes and receiving guest posts for your site a blast. Plus an active, troll-free forum were a lot first class internet marketers (the sort that makes money, not the sort that claims to make money) are willing to share in their experiences. Plus videos, webinars and q&a sessions, they even do a regular q&a for the ones of us that are in the European time zones.

So, they provide sound teaching and great tools, why did they reduce the price then? From the horses ones mouth (love that sentence ): “… many of our new members don’t understand the value of PostRunner until they’ve been around a while, and $67 is just too high during the time they get their head around what we’re doing here.” , the ‘horse’ is called Mark and is one of the founders of TKA. What does that now mean is practical terms?

• For existing members like me that already are fixed on a subscription of $33/ month: nothing.

• For existing members that pay $67/ month. You should have received an email stating how to change your subscription amount to the lower price. If not, send an email to Lisa at support.

• For people that have contemplated on signing up, but found the price to steep, here my friend Lissie’s:

>>Honky-Tonky big and yelling TKA affi link <<

When you sign up you will be charged only $1 for your first month of membership, if you like it, you stay and pay $33 / each month until you cancel your subscription in Paypal. If you don’t like it, you can cancel the subscription in any given moment directly in your own Paypal account. So, the most what you risk is one dollar.

For whom is TKA and for whom not?

TKA is no a get rich over night scheme nor teaches anything that goes against any Google TOS. It is basically an online school teaching you SEO and making money online by building quality websites around certain, profitable and low competition keywords. It is great for absolute beginners, but the advanced tools and the community input and experience level make it also an useful place for people that know already the basics and / or are at an intermediate or even advanced level.

TKA is not for people that don’t want to put the work in, they don’t teach any magic shortcuts that make you tons of money over night, because such shortcuts don’t exist. If you don’t want to put the work in, don’t join. Keep buying useless get quick rich over night schemes!

Are there any negative points to TKA

Yes, there are a few points that could be seriously improved. One is the organization of the teaching material, it needs improving and updating. The material is great, but it needs to be presented in a better framework, at the moment it is very much watching everything non-stop and then connecting the pieces in your head. If you have already a bit of an idea of internet terminology and wordpress etc, that is not too difficult. If you are an absolute beginner that knows little more than turning a computer on and off, that can be a daunting task! Manageable, but daunting. In case you get stuck, their forum is always full of people that are willing to help out.

Summary: TKA is a great place to learn SEO and MMO if you are willing to put the work in in order to benefit from passive, residual income from your websites in the years to come. Link: TKA

As you all know, I am a real [...]]]> Rofl, I guess a lot of people, especially the kind of A-list bloggers and internet marketers that sing continuously the ‘don’t let money on the table’ song, will now declare me for stupid! Doesn’t matter, this offer is too good to not pass it on to my readers!

As you all know, I am a real Market Samurai fan girl and promote the product where ever I can. Now Vance from vancesova.com has alerted me yesterday to the fact that this years challenge (previously known as the 30 day challenge) will in fact go over three months AND they offer a free trial of Market Samurai for the whole period!

Yups, a free 100 days trial for Market Samurai!

The challenge is free to join, just sign up here http://www.challenge.co and then go to one of the blog posts to download your free trial, for example this one: http://www.challenge.co/training/2010/mod1/day1/ (Scroll down, right sidebar, under related resources).

Quick note, have to run, the challenge is a yearly event that teaches newbies and veterans how to make money on the internet, for free! Plus they offer a lot of free software trials ect during the time the challenge runs. I keep an eye on them since 2005! And every year I learned something new and / or found a new piece of software / website etc that proved valuable for long time. Guess, what? I got my own Market Samurai program through last years challenge So, time to pay it back, here the two links again:

Sign up for the Challenge and learn making money online.

Download your 100 days free trial of Market Samurai from this site.

Are there things I don’t like about the challenge? Not really, the only things that might upset some people, are  that you obviously get some promotional emails over time from them (but less than you get from your average A-list blogger). And for some people the ‘now we all do this at the same time’ approach simply doesn’t work. The Challenge is very much geared towards people that like an exact step-by-step instruction on how to proceed as well as people that know already how the game is played and are just after a bit of additional knowledge and some cool software deals, but don’t care too much about the actual teaching. If you are somewhere in between, you might want to try The Keyword Acedemy It is not free, but the trial month is only $1 and as you see, my friend Lissie recommends it

Have to run now, see you around the interwebs!

Why that? Because they believe in a) [...]]]> If you sat on the fence until today and have asked yourself if you should purchase Market Samurai or not, than here is another reason to do so now:

• Market Samurai will open its affiliate program to everybody in 72h! Ok, everybody that is an owner of the full version.

Why that? Because they believe in a) rewarding loyal customers and b) want honest, review-style promotion approaches that are delivered by real users of the software.

How to get into the Market Samurai Affiliate Program

• Sign up for your free Market Samurai Trial here (only a valid email address required, nothing else).

• Download Market Samurai for free. You will be able to test drive the full version for 12 days.

• If you like what you see, buy Market Samurai (Hint: The earlier in your trial period you buy it, the cheaper you get it.)

• Go to the Affiliate Sign Up Page and enter your details.

• You will receive your affiliate code on Monday 14^th June 2010.

• Start promoting a great piece of software and get paid a great commission on every sale you refer.

That was the summary, here a bit more of background information, my personal experience as a Market Samurai Affiliate (before you ask, I got in last year by invitation) and a bit about the attractive affiliate contest the run. Can you say “Yummy Apple Prices”?

How much money can you make being a Market Samurai Affiliate?

Market Samurai is one of the highest paying programs in the market, you get a whooping 48% commission per sale. Depending on when somebody buys Market Samurai (early in/ late in/ after the trial period) the commission results in being between $46.56 and $71.52 for a single sale. As Market Samurai offers a full, no questions asked, 30 days money back warranty, you will get paid your commission after this time frame is over. At the start of each month, the nice people at Market Samurai, also known as Noble Samurais, count up all of the sales generated by you that are 30 days old or older (and exclude any refunds), and pay you the resulting amount in commissions via Paypal. Any sales that are less than 30 days old (and therefor still inside the refund period) will be paid in the following month.

My personal experience as a Market Samurai Affiliate

No, I will not tell you how much I made exactly with this program (but I am making good money, so much I can say, plus I own now one of the best niche and SEO tools on the market). Here a bit of my experience with them:

I bought Market Samurai last year after doing a long and thorough research on niche, keyword and seo tools. I decided on Market Samurai, because it was simply the best, it was available in both Mac and Windows editions and was sold for one, low, price that includes lifetime updates. Many other, similar, tools out there require monthly payments and are only available for Windows. Now, I am using a Mac as my desktop computer and a Windows laptop, guess what? For one price I could download, install and activate the two different versions of Market Samurai for my machines. That I call great customer service. Soon after having test driven the software, I started to spread the word about it, yes, I admit, I was a Market Samurai fan girl from the very beginning – and I am still one. After a while, it occurred to me to check if they actually did have an affiliate program

Until now, joining the Market Samurai affiliate program was only possible by invitation. An invitation that I received in August 2009. Since then I have promoted Market Samurai, both on this blog and elsewhere on the internet. And yes, the links here in this blog post are also affiliate links My experience in these few months has been so far:

• Market Samurai practically sells itself due to the attractive free trial they offer.

• The support of the guys that call themselves the Noble Samurais is superior, both from a user as from a affiliate marketer perspective. You always get a real answer from real people that actually care about what they -and you- are doing.

• And, last but not least, they pay in time!

Why is it such a great affiliate program?

A lot of things on the internet are sold with the help of affiliate programs. Meaning that the companies do little to no direct advertisement, but instead share the money they earn per sale with the person that referred the buyer to them. Market Samurai is not only sold with a “30 days money back, no questions asked” warranty, but also with a free trial period of twelve days. And that is the big selling point! People are more inclined to download and test drive a program for free, than paying for it and hoping to get their money back if they don’t like it. If you join the happy crew of Market Samurai affiliates, the one most important tip I can give you from my experience is to promote the free trial heavily. People need only to provide a valid email address, nothing else and can then try the software for free for 12 days. Plus, even if they don’t buy the full version, the keyword research tool, stays available for life. “Only” the seo, content, promotion and other exciting tools turn automatically off after the trial period is over.

The next reason you should know is that Market Samurai does the whole follow up for you. Means they send people additional emails with tips on how to use the software more effectively etc. They don’t spam, that is important to note, they don’t spam people into buying their product, they add so much value to it, with training material, videos, blog posts etc that being on their email list is beneficial for everybody, users and not users of Market Samurai. If you have your own email list, membership site etc they are happy to either help you promoting the product or to even tailor a campaign just for you (if your list has a certain size).

If you are just a normal, starting out affiliate marketer like me, the best thing you can do to be successful is to use their banners, links, custom links etc to promote the free software trial and let them do the rest.

Oh, you wonder why I didn’t mention how long their cookie lasts? Here comes the surprise, their cookie is of the “hard-coded for lifetime” variety, providing you with a true passive income possibility. I explain, lets say somebody signs up for a free trial via your affiliate link, than the email used to sign up and to download the software is linked to your affiliate account as long as you both shall live Even if the person in question decides only a year later to buy the full version, your account will still be credit with a nice 48% commission! Sounds better than the 24 hour cookie Amazon uses for their referral program, doesn’t it?

Conversion Rate

Market Samurai states, and I have no reason to doubt it, that an average of 20-25% of the people that download the free trial end up buying the product. If you have been longer then a few days dabbling in affiliate marketing than you know that is a superb ratio! And none of the people I recommended Market Samurai to came ever back to me and regretted buying it, because they could test everything in advance, before parting with their hard earned cash!

Where do the Noble Samurais actually live?

For support and other questions it is good to know that the developers of the software and their support team are living down-under, in Australia. Bear that in mind when you contact them!

A little tip, apparently there are only few people in the UK, Continental Europe, South America, and Asia that know about Market Samurai, if you have contacts and / or website visitors from these parts of the world you will have a very low competition and a nearly untapped market on your fingertips. Especially if you are from Asia, one of THE growing internet marketing markets, you are in luck.

Just to repeat it, this affiliate program is EXCLUSIVE to Market Samurai owners, you have to be an owner and user of the full version to promote it and get commission for it. If you sign up for your free trial now, you have time until Monday to decide if you want to be part of the team or not. If you do, just submit your details after you bought the full version and you are good to go. Not only can you make money with promoting the software, you also have a great tool for lifetime to do your keyword, niche and seo research. Oh, you can join the affiliate program obviously also later, after next Monday, but than you might miss out on:

The Affiliate Contest

Eugene, the head samurai and his team start this really off in style. The contest runs from Monday the 14th June to Sunday the 27th June and look at the prices they offer:

iPads, the sparkling new, just announced iPhone 4G and more. Prizes will “unlock” for you as you refer buyers, the more you refer, the better the prizes. Full details will be revealed on Monday, when the contest starts officially, but the big, fat, first, grand price is already announced, it is:

A collection of Apple products worth US$4,400 including:

A MacBook Pro, the newest iPhone 4G, an iPad 3G, an Apple TV (160GB), a set of Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin Mini-Speakers, a wireless Apple Keyboard with Bluetooth and, drumroll please: A Magic Mouse, also wireless

How is that as first price for the one that refers the most new Market Samurai owners? And don’t forget the 48% sales commission you get each time!

Now, don’t go crazy now, there are a few things that the Noble Samurais don’t tolerate and that is “crash car” advertising. If you use one of the following approaches, chances are 100% that you loose your affiliate account, so:

• Don’t use spam, black hat techniques like cookie-stuffing, lies, other dirty coding tricks, scams or similar.

• Don’t use ads or promos that start with “Market Samurai is a scam” or similar.

• Don’t use anything you wouldn’t tell your mother -or Google- about.

Do play clean and fair and you will be rewarded, try to deceive people and you will be quicker out of the program than you can say “Oops”. Seriously, the following is a literal quote from the Market Samurai crew:

“We’re willing to make less money – and refuse or reject affiliates – if it means we get the RIGHT affiliates. Our reputation is worth far more to us than a few extra sales. (That’s why we’re “Noble Samurai” – not “Evil Ninjas”.)”

They want to protect their good names, and that of their product, understandable, isn’t it? They are into this long term and not just an overnight super-duper offer. And that warranties that the affiliates, us, also have a lasting income opportunity that we can be proud to promote. Any questions? Leave a comment and I am happy to help as good as I can, SY

Get a great niche, keyword and SEO research tool plus the possibility to refer it for a 48% sales commission by signing up here: Download Market Samurai now for free.