Affiliate Marketing Blog

How to Find Clickbank Products That Sell

sam.frost — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:43:41 +0000

It's been a while since my last blog post unfortunately - but never mind, because today I'm back with a bang! In today's Affilorama blog post we are looking at how to find Clickbank products that sell. Clickbank, the web's premier digital product marketplace, is literally teeming with thousands of different products that you can promote as an eager affiliate marketer. Some products are bad, some are average, and a much smaller selection are actually very good.

Picking the right product on Clickbank can mean the difference between making little or no money, or stuffing your bank account full of cash. This is especially true once you start building up bigger traffic or list numbers - a simple change of product to something that converts even 1% better could result in hundreds, if not thousands of extra dollars a month!

Rather than bore you with the theory of picking Clickbank products that sell, let's work through a practical example!

Head over to the Clickbank Marketplace: (click on any image in this post to open it full-size in a new tab)

From here it's time to select a product category. I'm going to go with health and fitness, because I know there are a lot of products in this niche. I also know that this is a very profitable niche in general. Remember that on Clickbank, "health and fitness" covers a wide variety of products from dieting, weight loss, and muscle gain, through to skin care, eye health, and more.

Clickbank has kindly sorted the products in this category by "popularity". Clickbank determine a product's popularity based on a whole heap of different factors. When it comes to finding Clickbank products that sell, you can usually be pretty sure that a highly popular product is going to sell well (such as "The Truth About Abs" below)

However, the "popularity" rating is a bit too arbitrary for my liking. The most popular product in a category might not necessarily be the biggest seller either. That's why it's better to sort by "gravity" - use the "Sort results by:" function to do this.

Now in case you're wondering, Clickbank's Gravity score is a measure of how many affiliates have made sales of any given product during a set timeframe.

Clickbank themselves provide the following definition:

Number of distinct affiliates who earned a commission by promoting the vendor's products during the past 12 weeks. This is not an actual number of affiliates. For each affiliate an amount between 0.1 and 1.0 is added to the result, depending on when his/her last transaction occurred. More recent transactions are given a higher value.

So The Truth About Abs has a Clickbank Gravity score of 364.67 (at the time of writing) This is a very high gravity score, and means that hundreds of different affiliates are making sales of this product. Obviously it sells very well! However, a gravity score this high means that there will be fierce competition to promote the product. You could also be up against "power affiliates" who can afford to spend lots on PPC, or even give away their own bonuses with a Clickbank product in order to encourage more sales.

I'm not saying that promoting high gravity products is impossible, otherwise they wouldn't be high gravity in the first place! However, unless you have the resources and determination to really promote well then you are better off trying to carve out your slice of a less competitive pie.

Thankfully, the Clickbank Marketplace offers a great little tool for finding Clickbank products that sell well (without too much competition)

It's called the "Filters" tool, and it allows you to filter your search results based on a variety of factors, such as:

Product gravity - You can select a minimum and maximum gravity score. In an evergreen niche such as the muscle gain/fat loss example we're using today you would want to avoid any products with a gravity score of less than 20, as this would indicate it's not a highly-converting product. In micro niches, however, you might want to consider low gravity products.
Initial $ per sale - How much money you are going to earn up front.
Avg Rebill Total - How much, on average, you will earn from any recurring commission products such as upsell newsletters. Remember that not all products offer recurring commissions.
Date added to marketplace - Pretty self-explanatory, but shows when the product was added to the Marketplace.

Although I didn't cover every available filter, you should get the picture by now that the "Filters" function is extremely useful.

But anyway, the main thing we want to do is find Clickbank products that sell well. To do this we are going to use the gravity filter to find a list of products that have at least several affiliates making sales, but don't have hundreds of heavy-hitting competitors.

All you need to do is set the minimum Gravity to 20, and the maximum to 99, using the convenient little sliders:

By setting the minimum Gravity to 20 we are basically eliminating any products in the Health & Fitness niche that aren't PROVEN sellers. The last thing you want to do is build up a website full of content that pre-sells a product which doesn't convert! In an evergreen niche there are always going to be loads of products to pick from, so it's really important that you choose a Clickbank product which has a proven track record of selling well.

At the most basic level, this is a very proven way of finding Clickbank products that sell in any given niche. However, it always pays to refine and improve the method a little bit - NOBODY ever regretted spending a few minutes extra on product research. The time you spend now will directly translate into earning more money down the track!

Here's how you can refine your product selection even more with Clickbank:

Make sure your product choice is an exact match to your niche. The Health & Fitness niche offers a few brilliant examples of this with the various fat loss, muscle gain, and weight loss programs around. If you run a weight loss website then selling a muscle gain product (even if it's an absolutely awesome product) probably won't net you very high conversions. Why? Because a muscle gain product is likely to be aimed at men looking to bulk up and get stronger, whereas the weight loss niche is largely women looking to lose weight. The closer you can match your choice of product to your niche topic, the better.
Ask for review access. Let's say that you find a product which looks really good in terms of sales page and testimonials. It could all be very slick and professional, but you still want to make sure that the product itself is up to scratch. You can't judge a book by its cover, and you can't judge an eBook by its salespage. Therefore, get in contact with the product owner and ask for review access. Don't be demanding or rude, but instead do your best to convince them that you are a serious affiliate, and you want to make sure your customers are being looked after.
Scope out the sales page. Don't just pick the first product with a gravity score of 20-99 that looks good and roll with that; make sure you are seriously inspecting every product you consider promoting. Is the pitch page professional, with strong calls to action, good testimonials, and benefit-driven copy that encourages you to purchase? If not, you will probably want to keep looking. My favorite rule of thumb is this - a great sales page will make you feel good, even if you didn't buy.
Read honest reviews of products. Although you don't actually own the products you're promoting, if you refer people to junk products your reputation will be harmed (not to mention you'll suffer the cruel fate of Clickbank refund requests) Therefore it pays to seek out honest, unbiased reviews of the products you are planning to promote. Look for discussion boards/forums and blogs that discuss your products in an honest manner. If a product "stinks" don't be afraid to look for an alternative; this could save you a lot of hassle down the track.

That's how to find Clickbank products that sell. However, even more important than picking the right product is choosing a hot niche. If you jump into the right niche then you will never run out of things to promote, and you will make far more money (which is what affiliate marketing is all about, at the end of the day)

So how do you find hot and profitable niches? Luckily for you, Mark has put together an awesome video training report (that also comes with a bonus PDF guide) called 'How to Find Profitable Niches'. In this report he teaches his personal methods for niche research and product selection that have made him a super affiliate - how cool is that?

The best part is that Mark is giving this exclusive video training report away for FREE. The only catch is that it won't be around forever - in fact, it won't be around for much longer at all.

Go here to secure your free copy of Mark's exclusive report 'How to Find Profitable Niches'

If you've got any questions about finding profitable products on the Clickbank marketplace (or you'd like to share your own secrets) then leave a comment below!

Announcing AffiloBlueprint 3.0

jonathan_l — Thu, 24 May 2012 03:42:21 +0000

Do you ever wish there was a simple course for getting started in Affiliate Marketing?

There is - it's called AffiloBlueprint, and we're releasing a shiny new version of it on Tuesday May 29th!

AffiloBlueprint 3.0 is our step-by-step blueprint for anyone, from total newbies to seasoned pros, to get started and learn techniques for succeeding in making profitable niche websites!

Today I wanted to give you a bit more of a heads up and tell you a bit about what'll be in the course, as well as what's new since the previous version.

Even more bang for your buck

This brand new AffiloBlueprint includes all the great lessons of the previous version, including teaching you about:

Doing your Market Research
Finding profitable niches
Creating a quality affiliate website
The best SEO methods to get your site ranking
Getting started with email marketing
Taking email marketing to the next level so you get the big commissions
How to succeed with the Google content network

All these lessons have been overhauled and updated for 2012 (including post-Panda and post-Penguin updates). We've also expanded several sections, including:

More than tripling the link building and off-page SEO strategies we teach you
Adding a very important section where you'll learn how to think like a millionaire
An upgraded detailed training in email marketing (the cornerstone of my online marketing empire)
Teaching you in-depth about content creation
How to profit from several other affiliate programs (Clickbank, other digital products, physical products, CPA are all covered and more!)
Brand new training in success with the Google Content Network
Special bonuses (more on those closer to launch)

Now, with over 80 videos, all voiced by Mark Ling, we cover just about every angle of affiliate marketing, while keeping things simple enough for anyone to follow!

It gets even better

When you get your copy of AffiloBlueprint you will also get the brand new version of AffiloTheme! It's the powerful WordPress theme behind our AffiloBlueprint sites, and makes getting started with Affiliate Marketing even easier.

This new version includes new themes, inbuilt redirect handling and, our best new feature, the ability to create signup forms and squeeze pages right from inside AffiloTheme!

But what's even more exciting than getting a step-by-step video course and a powerful WordPress theme to get you kickstarted?

Free hosting!

Yes, we'll also be throwing in a year's free AffiloTheme hosting - you can host your AffiloTheme-powered WordPress website on our secure, optimized and incredibly easy-to-use hosting platform, just to make it even easier for you to get started with AffiloBlueprint!

When can you get it? (Plus: get a free report on "How to Find Profitable Niches")

Right now we're gearing up to let you guys get AffiloBlueprint 3.0 on May 29th.

That might seem like a long time to wait, especially for this exciting new release of AffiloBlueprint. So, while we're getting ready, we're giving away a free report on how to find profitable niches!

It's a video and PDF report, based on a lesson straight out of our new AffiloBlueprint course, so you can get a taste of exactly what the course will be like and get a head start on finding a profitable niche for your affiliate site!

Click here now to get your free report on how to find profitable niches!

Questions? Comments? Let us know in the comments below!

(P.S. Already own AffiloBlueprint 2.0? Take a look at your AffiloBlueprint Members Area - you're able to get early, discounted access to AB3.0 right now!)

Freelancing for Extra Cash

sam.frost — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:27:30 +0000

In this week’s Affilorama blog post, we’re taking a little break from SEO and affiliate marketing. Every so often it can be fun to mix things up and talk about a different topic – although I can assure you that we will be right back into affiliate marketing next week.

Instead, we’re going to be looking at freelancing for extra cash. Sometimes you might need some extra money for unexpected bills, or you just want to buy something you’ve had your eye on for a while. Whatever the reason, one of the best ways to raise some extra money is through freelancing. In this blog post I’m going to tell you about a number of different freelancing sites, as well as share some of my personal freelancing experiences and advice.

As a caveat, any freelancing I have done is writing or SEO; that doesn’t mean that these are the only skills in demand online. In fact, if you are good at programming, graphic design, web development, app development, or anything along those lines then you can sell your services as a freelancer. But for the purposes of this blog post I’m going to be talking about freelance writing and SEO.

iWriter

The easiest place to start writing articles as a freelancer is on iWriter. A few months ago Mark wrote a post about iWriter, but I’m going to add my own experiences in here.

Signing up as an iWriter author is extremely simple, and you will be ready to write in just a few minutes.

Here’s how the iWriter system works:

Bloggers/webmasters/content publishers want articles written
They submit a request on iWriter – picking article length, which quality level writers are allowed to complete the job, how much they are willing to pay (there is a minimum level)
Any writer can then browse these open projects and elect to write articles, on a “first come first served” basis
As a writer, you get a set amount of time to complete the article – up to 4 hours
Once you submit your article, the requester has 24 hours to approve the article. If your article is accepted then you be paid and the requester will leave a review of your work. If it is rejected they can still leave a review, but the article returns to the open projects section. If they don’t approve within 24 hours then the system auto-approves your article anyway.

That’s very straightforward, as you can see. However, there are a few reasons why I wouldn’t recommend iWriter as a place to make extra cash from freelancing:

When you start out the pay rates are painfully low. I’m talking $1.62 USD for a 300-word article. If it takes you 30 minutes to write 300 words, then you are only getting slightly above $3 an hour.
It takes 30 articles and a rating of at least 4 stars to become a Premium writer – and the pay rates still aren’t much better. Elite writers (4.6 stars +) receive a minimum of $8.10 for 500 words, but I’d still only class that as reasonable pay.
Too many unreasonable requesters want top-notch content for peanuts. If you’re paying less than $5 for 500 words you really can’t expect much.
There are just too many writers willing to slave away for a few dollars per article – you will never make good cash by writing in the low-end content mill.

Although I admire the simplicity of the iWriter system (and the fact that there is almost always work if you want it) I can’t recommend it to anyone with a modicum of writing skill, solely because you will struggle to make a good return on the time you invest.

Constant Content

Another popular freelance writing website is Constant Content. Unlike iWriter, Constant Content prides itself on being the home of high quality articles for sale. The sale system is also completely different:

As a writer on Constant Content, you are completely free to charge as much as you want for your articles. You could charge $10 for a 500 word article (very cheap) or, if you think your writing standard is up to scratch, $50 for 500 words. In fact, there are many articles selling regularly over the $50/500 word mark.

You can sell:

“Usage rights” – Where a purchaser is able to use your article on their site to reprint, but you retain all other rights. The content can be used only once and may not be edited. You can sell the same article multiple times to different users! However, usage rights tend to sell for a lot less.
“Unique” rights – This is the “middle ground” of the Constant Content system. Here, a purchaser may use your article as many times as they want on any sites or services they own. However, your pen name is still accredited as the author, and the article cannot be given away or sold. An article can only be sold once for unique rights.
“Full rights” – This is a full transfer of article ownership. You lose all rights over the article, and the purchaser can do whatever they want with it. Generally, full rights articles sell for the most.

For example, I recently sold an article that had a "usage" price of $20, a "unique" price of $30, and a "full rights" price of $45. Protip - generally it's easier to sell an article once for a higher amount using full rights or unique, than it is to sell multiple usage copies of the same article. The only exception seems to be with short articles that aren't worth so much; it may well be easier to sell two copies of the same small (300 words) article for $10 apiece than it is to sell full rights for $20.

As a writer on Constant Content, you can also write for public requests. Say someone wanted an article written on “Labrador puppy training”, they could make a public request and then I could write an article on the topic and submit it as being for a public request. Of course any other writer could potentially see this request and do the same, so there is a bit more of a sense of urgency with request writing. However, request articles are much more likely to be purchased, and you can make some good money if you keep up with requests.

Generally, article purchasers on Constant Content understand that good quality content isn’t cheap. Browsing through the requests tab at the time of writing this, I can see a number of public requests paying at least $20 per 500 words (or equivalent)

Probably the most important thing with Constant Content is to maintain a steady stream of submissions. Writing one article a month won’t do you any good; but if you can maintain say 5 articles a week, you will see sales.

You can sign up for Constant Content here.

Elance

One of the biggest freelancing websites, Elance is a place where service buyers and sellers come together. I’d liken it to a digital freelancing marketplace. Unlike both iWriter and Constant Content, on Elance there are jobs for programmers, developers, web designers etc (in fact, these are some of the most demanded skills on the site)

In a nutshell, Elance works like this:

Person A wants a job done (for example, 20x500 word articles for a new website)
Person A creates a job request.
Elance members who are registered as having skills in that particular request field (SEO, writing, programming, whatever) can submit a job proposal. You can name your price, estimate how long the work will take, and try to create a killer proposal by providing as much proof of your quality of work and skill as possible.
Person A then picks the proposal they fancy the most, based on factors such as job pricing, freelancers’ skills, their ratings, and whether they have any qualifications for the job or not.
Elance then provides a virtual workroom where you post work drafts, communication takes place, working time can be tracked, and more. This workroom system is quite advanced, and you really need to experience it yourself to get a hang of it. Suffice to say, the system works.
Payments are processed through Elance escrow, so the risk of not being paid is very low. You can safeguard even further by setting project milestones, and being paid upon completing them. For example, you might agree to a milestone where Person A pays you $100 after completing the first 5 articles, and then $300 upon finishing the rest.

I like the flexibility to set your own prices and submit detailed proposals that Elance offers. It’s also great as there are jobs big and small available, with so many different skills in demand. As long as you are consistent in submitting proposals and build up a great profile, you will eventually find work.

However, I have had some bad experiences on Elance. Interestingly enough, these have come from selling freelance SEO services mostly. One customer claimed he was looking for an SEO consultant, and was willing to pay well for a quality partner. It soon transpired that his idea of an SEO consultant was someone willing to transcribe ten-minute YouTube videos, optimize them, and then build links to the transcribed articles – all for a measly $6 apiece.

The Elance system is pretty complex, and it would take me more than one post of its own to explain. Therefore, I suggest you check out Elance yourself and sign up.

There are many more freelancing websites out there, such as:

Odesk
Fiverr (for small jobs)
Guru
Freelancer

Bonus tip – Finding your own clients

When it comes to freelancing (especially freelance writing) the best thing you can do is build a list of clients who want your work. Build up solid relationships with people willing to pay what YOU consider good money for your work.

Remember that there are just as many potential customers willing to pay well for quality work, as there are those looking for 1000 word articles for 5 bucks. However, those looking and willing to pay for quality aren’t generally the type to advertise this fact!

Here are some tips for building a list of high-paying clients:

Using your affiliate marketing skills, find a group of quality sites in your niche. Contact them and offer content/article writing services with a free trial piece. You are much better to offer a free trial article than set your prices low in an attempt to find clients. For example, offer a free 1000 word article, and then charge $5 per 100 words, as opposed to offering an introductory rate of $1 per 100 words. Once you set your prices low, it will be hard to raise them. Keep contacting until you have as much work as you want. Be on the lookout for bloggers/webmasters who want content regularly!
If using sites such as Elance or Odesk, really over-deliver on your work and inform the requester that you are willing to do more work for them in the future. If you are approachable and they like your work then there is a good chance that they will contact you again directly, the next time they want something done.
Build a personal website that showcases your freelancing talent to the world. Have example work on display, and provide pricing information. Create a contact form where prospective customers can email in their job requests, and allow them to negotiate on price. Be careful not to short-sell yourself however, so don’t go too low on your list prices. Promote your personal freelancing website in forums such as Warrior Forum or Digital Point.

By building a list of clients, you will always be in hot demand. Now as an affiliate marketer I don’t suggest becoming a full-time freelancer (although I do enjoy a bit of freelancing myself, especially writing) However, there is so much potential to make money with freelancing that you’d be crazy not to explore it.

The best freelancers, especially freelance writers, are so highly-demanded that they can almost charge whatever they want for their work. I’ve personally seen writers charge $100 for 500 word articles. But those 500 words weren’t “filler”, or spun nonsense. They were 100% unique, well researched, and impeccably written. Clients willing to pay this much demand nothing but the best, but will happily pay well because they know they can re-use that content in such a way that it profits them better than a thousand low quality articles ever could.

Closing thoughts & goal setting

Coming from an affiliate marketing to freelancing was a bit of a system shock to me. Although it’s easier to be paid as a freelancer (generally, if you do the work you’re going to earn some money) the lack of leverage afforded by freelance writing seemed quite daunting at first. When promoting Clickbank or Amazon products, I know that although a new site might start out slowly, once the traffic and links pick up I can keep earning money repeatedly on the same work.

However, once I learned the ropes of freelancing I discovered that it can be a lot of fun, and there is big potential to earn extra cash in a much shorter time frame than with affiliate marketing. Seeing as I’ve always enjoyed writing, I decided to give freelance article writing a shot. I was pleased enough with the results that I’ll probably keep doing it on the side for a while to come.

One final thing – goal setting is extremely important when freelancing, especially if you are just doing it to fund a new purchase, such as a holiday, car, or motorbike. For starters, set a reasonable goal of earning your first $100 within a month. Next, expand that out to $500 within a month, and so on.

Goal setting is crucial for affiliate marketing. All successful affiliates set goals they wish to achieve, and then strive to hit those targets. The best freelancers do the same! In fact, one thing most successful people have in common is a vision and the ability to set goals.

So whether you want to stick solely to affiliate marketing, or branch out into the exciting world of freelancing, make sure you set yourself goals that will encourage you to work hard.

On the issue of goal setting, the words of the famous Roman stoic Seneca are timeless:

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you've learned a bit about both freelancing and goal setting today. I'd love to hear your opinions and experiences on freelancing - just leave a comment below!

SEO Blog Commenting 101

sam.frost — Sun, 27 May 2012 05:14:12 +0000

It's no secret that I love blog commenting. Blogs represent everything that is great about Internet technology; they are easy to set up, easy to maintain, attract a more active audience than traditional "static" websites - blogs are also fantastic for SEO. Blog commenting is great for affiliate marketers and webmasters who are looking for a bit of extra link juice and traffic. It's easy, fun, and doesn't take very long to master. Today I'm going to give you the SEO blog commenting 101 so that you can benefit as much as possible from this exciting link building strategy.

Now before we begin with the lesson, I'd like to take the time to tell you how NOT to blog comment for SEO purposes. Many affiliate marketers seem to get quite confused about blog commenting best practices, but it really is important that you get this right!

SEO blog commenting is not:

Using automated blog commenting software
Purposely avoiding "no-follow" blogs
Commenting on unrelated blogs because they are do-follow
Using cookie-cutter comments that do not add any value (I'll talk more about this in a moment)
Spamming blogs with annoying comments in order to gain links

These blog commenting mistakes are going to deliver poor results, and are a waste of time. Of course it's entirely possible to purchase software that will leave auto-generated comments on thousands of blogs. It's not even that expensive to do. However, with anti-spam plugins becoming increasingly effective, and bloggers becoming more aware on the issue of commenting spamming, this "black hat" blog commenting is on its way out.

For example, here at the Affilorama blog we receive plenty of spammy comments. Now a quick browse of the comments section will alert you to the fact that we don't allow users to post URLs in their comment details (unlike Wordpress blogs) However, every morning when myself and the other Affilorama staff check the pending blog comments, there are always entries from people with rather strange names, such as "cheap backlinks service" or "Xrumer blast package". These comments are always marked as spam, because we know right off the bat that these have been left by comment spamming software that looks for blogs and automatically adds a set keyword as the "Name", and then tries to link that up to the spammer's URL of choice.

In fact, spammy comments are even easier to identify when you look at the main comment text. It is either something generic and positive, like "thanks for the post, I truly thank you", or something generic and interrogative, like "but are you sure this is true?". It makes sense that newer bloggers could be drawn in to thinking these spam comments are genuine - but once you have a bit of blogging experience it becomes easy to identify the spam.

With that out of the way, here's how to do SEO blog commenting, in 5 easy steps:

Always read the blog post first. If you don't read the blog post you're going to comment on, don't even bother to try and comment. The whole point of the comments section of a blog is to elicit meaningful discussion and debate. In fact, try to think of it as a digital debating chamber! By reading the blog post you will actually be able to leave a comment that adds value and get an insight into the topic at hand. Any experienced blogger (and it's these kind of blogs you want to be commenting on) will have a sixth sense for identifying comments where the submitter hasn't even bothered to read their hard work. Neglect this step and you will find yourself floundering in the spam bin.
No generic comments, ever. So you've taken the time to actually read the blog post - when it comes to commenting you must resist the temptation to leave some meaningless comment like "thanks for the interesting read". Make sure your comment is closely related to the topic of the blog post, and that it is never some generic statement or question.
Avoid keyword dropping. The biggest culprits here are people who try to stuff their keywords into the blog comment name field on Wordpress blogs. Names like "Joe Bloggs@ Blackhat SEO Services" automatically raises the suspicion of any spam-savvy blogger. Save keyword-based links for blogs that actually allow HTML in the comment body.
Don't fret over no-follow/do-follow. Many affiliate marketers will completely avoid commenting on high-value blogs if the comment section is no-follow. Instead, they turn to do-follow blogs, full of spammy comments from every link hunter on the Internet. What do you think will deliver more link juice; a do-follow comment from a blog post diluted by hundreds of spammers, or a no-follow comment from a quality blog with active spam management? Hint: the no-follow comment will be far more useful for SEO purposes. In case you haven't seen it, check out my blog post on do-follow vs no-follow links here.
Comment on relevant blogs. It really pays to be as relevant as possible when choosing blogs on which to comment. For example, if your website is about golf equipment then first look for other golf equipment blogs. Next, move on to general golfing blogs (for example golf swing or golf news blogs) By moving out in concentric rings of relevancy you will always find enough potential blogs, in all but the smallest of niches.

The real SEO blog commenting secret

When it comes to blog commenting for backlinks and traffic, there is one strategy that is almost universally ignored. However, if you can master what I'm about to tell you then you stand to generate powerful backlinks, big traffic, and more sales/leads.

You want to comment consistently on high-quality blogs with insight, advice, and relevant questions. Really become a part of the community, and attempt to build a relationship with the blog owner. After a while, contact the blog owner and ask if you can write a guest post for them - point back to all of the great discussions you've started or participated in on their site. This strategy has a high initial time investment, but the rewards far outweigh the effort you need to put in. By building a strong stable of comments and a healthy relationship with a blogger, you have powerful ammo in your arsenal for guest posting opportunities.

Guest posting will provide you with some of the most potent backlinks possible, and just a few posts on highly-ranking blogs can generate more links and traffic than thousands of article directory submissions or directory listings.

Remember - when it comes to SEO and affiliate marketing, always think outside the box!

I'd love to hear your experiences with SEO blog commenting. Also, if you have any questions or need help I'll do my best to respond. Just leave a comment below!

Hands-On with Push Button SEO for Wordpress

sam.frost — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:27:34 +0000

One of the coolest thing about the Wordpress platform is the huge number of plugins available to make your job easier. From spam protection through to SEO (and everything inbetween) there is bound to be either a free or paid plugin available. In fact, SEO plugins are some of the most popular Wordpress plugins out there. If you've been using Wordpress for a while then you will probably have tried a few different SEO plugins - some are bad, some are good, and some are even better.

In today's Affilorama blog post I'm going to be giving you a hands on look at one of the newest SEO plugins available. It's called 'Push Button SEO', and has been developed by a guy called Brian Johnson. What I'll be doing in this blog post is showing you some of the different features of Push Button SEO. I've installed the plugin on one of my personal Wordpress blogs, and deactivated any other SEO plugins I had setup previously.

At-a-glance SEO analysis

My favorite feature of Push Button SEO is it's very simple graphical representation of how well your posts are optimized for on page SEO. You can enter the main keyword you are targeting for your post or page, and then see how well your content has been optimized for that particular keyword. This is very handy, as it means you don't have to crunch any numbers

Let's see an example of this in action. I've got a post on my blog that is targeting the keyword "gold investment guidelines". So what I do is enter this keyword into the "Primary Keyword" field of Push Button SEO, and then I press "analyze":

As you can see, Push Button SEO then returns a graphical representation of my on-page SEO for this post. I've got an orange bar that is half full; this tells me that there's quite a bit of room for improvement here. But what if I want to get more in-depth information? To get Push Button SEO's full page report I simply click the "Report" tab.

Even more graphical representations here in the in-depth report, which is once again useful for quickly informing you as to what needs work. I can easily see that my URL is matched properly (this is because my post is /gold-investment-guidelines - an exact match for the keyword "gold investment guidelines")

My META Title, page headings (h1, h2, h3 tags) and internal linking are all good. My META description and outbound links are letting the page down, according to Push Button SEO. A good META description will encourage visitors to click through to my website from the search engine results, and having outbound links optimized for anchor text gives your page more credibility and weight with Google.

This kind of graphical analysis really does make proper on-page SEO much more simple and accessible. In my humble opinion, a lot of people are put off doing proper SEO because they find it confusing. With this plugin, there really is no excuse.

Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions

Take another look at that screenshot above. Beneath the fancy colored bars are a list of suggestions for simple SEO improvements. This is usually pretty simple stuff, but done correctly will have a good impact on your rankings and site optimization.

Embedding a video in your main content, for example, is always a good idea (especially if you embed a video from your own YouTube account, as this will increase your view count) as this will keep visitors on your page for longer. If you can keep people on your site for longer then your bounce rate will decrease, and a lower bounce rate will see your site being rewarded in the search engines.

Push Button SEO also offers a keyword suggestion function. This is a quick and easy way of finding additional keywords to target in your post. Having used this function quite a few times, I've got a feeling that the keyword suggestion tool is very similar to the free one you find on Ubersuggest.org - of course you do get the added convenience of it being built right into your Wordpress editor window.

Mind your links

Internal linking is a very important part of proper on-site SEO. Building strong links throughout your website acts as a kind of glue that holds the whole thing together. You can also use internal linking to boost the ranking of a particular page (for example, if there is one page on your site that you really want to rank highly, build anchor text links from other pages to it) as well as for indexing new pages.

Push Button SEO has a useful internal linking function that allows you to assign certain pages as "SEO Targets" - pages that are the most important - and then quickly insert links when making new posts/pages. Here's how to do it:

Let's say that I want my "gold investment guidelines" page to become an SEO Target. From the "Links" tab of Push Button SEO, I just check the box that says "Assign as SEO Target":

Now whenever I make or edit another post or page, I have a quick option to add an internal link to "gold investment guidelines" from within the post editor:

That's a useful time saving feature, as you could create a list of a few pages you really want to rank well for and build lots of internal links to them. One little tip - make sure you vary the anchor text for your internal links, as this creates a more natural link profile.

You can also use Push Button SEO to add links to authority content. This is good SEO practice, as the search engines seem to reward websites that actively link to informative and authoritative pages - sometimes helping your competition out can actually be beneficial for yourself.

To do this, click the "Authority" tab and enter a keyword you want to find authority content links for (in this case I've searched "gold investment")

You can preview the content snippets, and then add any authority links you choose with a simple mouse click. Adding authority content is a great way of boosting your website's credibility, and adding to the overall user experience.

Content Curation 101

The final tab of Push Button SEO we have left to explore is the "Content" tab. From here you can pull in images, videos, blog links, and news links and add them into your own posts. This kind of thing was made popular with Web 2.0 platforms such as Squidoo and Hubpages, where you could easily pull in other content and incorporate it into your own pages to add more value for readers.

To use the image function of Push Button SEO you will need a Flickr API key. Fortunately, you can apply for one of these for free, and all the details of how to do this are actually present in the plugin settings.

My favorite thing here is actually the video search, as it saves time having to head over to YouTube and manually grab the embed codes of videos. For my "gold investment guidelines" post I've searched for "gold investment" related videos:

By clicking on either "small" "medium" or "large" you can embed different sized videos straight into your content.

Push Button SEO adds your video using a shortcode like this:

So it's important to preview your post to make sure that the video displays correctly:

The "Blogs" and "News" tools are very self-explanatory - you simply enter a keyword and can preview then pull in links to related content.

Conclusion

Note: Push Button SEO is currently being offered for special launch pricing so don't miss out on that if you are intending on getting yourself a copy.

Where Push Button SEO nails it for me is in its simplicity. Not everyone has hours to spend pouring over detailed SEO reports, or hunting out great content, images, videos etc to incorporate into their own website. By using Push Button SEO you can save a lot of time and effort, which you can then put back into adding even more content for your website to move further up the search engine rankings.

If you're new to SEO and affiliate marketing, or you just dislike complicated plugins then Push Button SEO will be a breath of fresh air. It is effective, easy-to-use, and as simple as you could ever hope a plugin to be.

You can get your copy of Push Button SEO here. If you buy through this link you will also receive a free copy of Brian Johnson's Halloween Super Affiliate course. This course sold out fast, but Mark has managed to secure Affilorama users a copy. All you need to do is buy Push Button SEO here, then forward your receipt details to hsasupport @ gmail.com to get your free Halloween Super Affiliate Course.

This course shows you how to quickly and easily build Wordpress sites targeted around a specific keyword, and then profit from those sites. Brian uses Halloween as an example of a holiday that makes it easy to make lots of sales in a short space of time. You can't get this offer anywhere else, so make sure you get Push Button SEO + the Halloween Super Affiliate course - place your order here.

Also, if you have any questions about Push Button SEO don't hesitate to ask and I'll do my best to answer. Just leave a comment below!