My Affiliate Place Blog

Amazon Ends Affiliate Program In Some US States

2009-06-27T08:48:00.003-06:00

Amazon Ends Affiliate Program In Some US States

With the recession, some states are trying to pull in more revenue, and they are now going online to get it. One company Amazon, is handling the proposed sales tax levy by North Carolina by closing their affiliate program from the state.

Per Fox Business, Amazon has closed their affiliate program to residents of North Carolina due to the proposed change in sales tax for affiliate sales. Amazon told their marketing affiliates in the state "that the move was a direct result of North Carolina's push to levy a tax on purchases made through Amazon affiliates."
(Fox Business)

Are there any other states where affiliates may be closed out by Amazon. Consideration is also on the board for California and Hawaii (Rumor or Fact: Hawaii is said to be closed by Amazon).

Will other states follow? Time will tell.

Adsense-Font and Font Size Changes Available

2009-06-22T12:43:00.003-06:00

Adsense Changes-Different Font and Font Sizes Now Available

Here's a quick note to a new change that Adsense is now allowing publishers to use.

If you have been wanting to have different font and font sizes for your blog or website, you're in luck. Adsense, after their own initial experimenting, has found that changes in font and font sizes does affect revenue. Thus, you are now allowed to change font and font sizes for your ads within your website or blog.

What's available?
For font sizes you'll be able to choose between: Small, Medium and Large, with font styles of Arial, Times, Verdana.

You will notice that the current default setting for your Google ads are typically set to small, but from a little experimenting they found that medium did perform better than the small. Thus, medium will soon become the new default.

If you are wanting to play around with your ads, you'll need to keep the following information handy:

When creating new ad units you can now choose:

1. the default font size
2. your new account-wide font size
3. Or a separate size

Updating existing ad units

To change existing ad units you will need to visit the "Manage Ads" page under the Adsense Setup tab.

Note: any font size change that you make to an individual ad unit will remain in place EVEN if you change your account-wide default in the future.

It Can Happen To AnyOne

2009-06-12T10:44:00.002-06:00

Is It Just Another Day Online?

One day Melissa received an email in her inbox. She glanced at the subject line
for a moment, cursed under her breath, "Now what", when she say the subject line that read:

"Please Verify Your Paypal Account".

She read the email thoroughly. Someone was getting into her account, and they would like her to verify her information. She was busy, but she thought that she should take the time to resolve the issue to get her online work done before the weekend. She clicked on the link they provided, and entered her id and password. But.....

When Melissa got into the website, she noticed that some of the items were not populated. No sweat, just refresh. It still didn't work. And when she clicked on the calender to put in the date span-it didn't work.

Frustrated she leaves. But then she remembers something that she had just read about phishing. Her stomach knotted up, as her mind wondered to the "What if possibility". Whenever she got that knot in her stomach, she knew she had to act. She got the link for Paypal from her stored links and contacted Paypal.

To her dismay she had been hit with a phishing scam.

When you have been hit by a phishing scam you should act immediately. Melissa did some things wrong, and some things right. One of the right things she did was to contact Paypal immediately. Why?

They can being to monitor the account, kill any suspicious transactions from the time you contacted them, and change your password and user-id.

Phishing affects credit cards, banking and other financial dealings. To learn more about phishing and the new avenue in which they are utilizing phishing, and most importantly, how you can protect yourself- read my article titled:

Phishing Can Affect Anyone

Google Enhancements and Additions

2009-06-04T12:55:00.004-06:00

Google Enhancements and Additions

Google is adding new things to their inventory of services. What is it? It looks like Google is moving into social networking and is now offering "Google Friend Connect".

They state that with Friend Connect, your visitors can join your site using credentials they've created with Google, Yahoo, AOL and others and link in the people they know on services like Google Talk, Plaxo, Twitter, and more.

They will offer "gadgets" with features like commenting, ratings and reviews and the social bar to add to your site. How is this added to your site? Just like Adsense, you just need to add a snippet of code to add the feature to your site. To learn more about Google Friend Connect or to get started click here.

Another Adsense Enhancement

Google Adsense is making another enhancement-this time, its with their link units. After you click a link unit topic, an image ad has been added to the bottom of each of these pages. In there testing, it showed revenue improvements for many publishers.

The image ads are contextually targeted, so what you see as the topic of the links you see the same topic with the image ad. What happens if there is no image ads available for the given topic? If no image ad is available you will see text ads instead. Some may be cringing with the thought that if there is no image ad or text ads for the topic they will show the ugly public service ads or a nice big blank space. Adsense says this will never happen.

How does it work for advertisers-they can bid on the image ads on a Cost-Per-Click or a Cost-Per-Impression basis. As you can see, publishers will be able to generate earnings for valid click and impressions. But one item to keep an eye on, in my opinion, between cost-per-impression vs cost-per-click revenue. Will it help you make more or less?

If you're going to try link ads, you may want to generate a link unit report on your Advanced Reports page to see if it is helping your site to generate more revenue with the added image ad.

Your Website and Springtime Dusting?

2009-05-11T07:34:00.002-06:00

Your Website and Springtime Dusting?
By Vickie J. Scanlon

Okay, you can tell it's Spring. Or, that I have a strong case of spring fever. But along with Spring, comes Spring cleaning. And that is not just restricted to housecleaning. Your website should go through some simple, well, maybe not simple, spring cleaning rituals.

Sometimes, these simple things discussed below can have a great effect on your pocketbook, as well as, better exposure with the search engines. So what can you do to get the cobwebs out of your website?

1. Clean out the broken links. This should be a continual process. Broken links can push your search engine ranking-page ranking down. So eliminate those links that go nowhere.

2. If you have articles on your website by other authors, you better check those links. Why? Some websites succeed, some fail, and some people just get bored with the website and have a for sale sign plastered on the front page.

What do you do with these links, find the website and their contact information. Send them an email and tell them that you have their article on your website and would like to update the link that is now a "link to nowhere". They will happily supply you with a new link.

Other times, the website is gone. I've kept their name, as the author in place, but eliminated the dead links.

3. Clean your webpages. This is the not so simple one. Here you have to go page by page and clean the code so that the search engines can more easily find you, and your server can better service you. Bad links on your server can cause you some problems-such as incomplete stats. And stats, are an important component not to have distorted or missing.

4. It also may be time to determine which products stay and which should go. If the product has been on your site for a year, made no money, had no clicks and you have given the product the exposure it needs to be seen, you might want to let it go.

However, if you have to let go of the old, remember you can bring something new to your site.

5. Last but not least, recheck and tweak your goals. Goals change. Why? Live is not static, nor is an online business.

I know, I know, spring cleaning is not fun. It's hard work, but hopefully you will see the rewards in short order.

To help your spring cleaning along-you can utilize this online tool for free: Dead-links.com to help you find your dead links. For other website tools you can check out my web page: website management tools

Category Filtering Beta Testing By Adsense

2009-04-29T08:30:00.002-06:00

Category Filtering Beta Testing By Adsense

Adsense is developing a much requested feature for publishers-category filtering.

What is category filtering? Category filtering will give the publisher a little more control over the type of ads that they can block from their website. You'll have specific categories to choose from, such as:

Dating
Drugs and Supplements
Get Rich Quick
Sexually Suggestive Weight Loss
Politics
etc...

You can choose up to 5 different categories in which to exclude.

One nice feature is the percentage of recent revenue that the ads in each category is generating-this will give the publishers a better tool to predicting how the filtering selections will impact their revenue.

This may be a viable way for publishers to rid their website of irrelevant ads on their website or blog. However, this feature is now in only in beta testing. Which means that only a small select group of publishers are able to utilize the tool currently. Thus, we are going to have to take a wait and see as to when and if it is going to be offered to the whole Adsense community.

Listening To Your Inner Voice

2009-04-24T12:39:00.002-06:00

Everyone has that "Inner Voice" and when you're working on the internet, many prey on your desires, while hoping that you will ignore your inner voice, and take the bait.

Let's take an example. We'll call the participant, Joe NotSoSmart.

Joe NotSoSmart got an email from another webmaster that they would like to buy space on Joe NotSoSmart's website. The webmaster told Joe NotSoSmart the specific page that they wanted their ad on.

Joe NotSoSmart, was elated about the prospect of making some money on a monthly basis. And simply said, "when will you have your ad ready?"

Joe NotSoSmart did not:

1. check the website. Always check the website, and all it's links. Why? The website may be a single splash page, with absolutely no content or link. Doesn't happen you say? It does.
2. State that he had Google Ads on his site, and he will follow the Google rules. Which means that, he will properly identify it as an advertisement. (This quickly will determine the mindset of the
individual). Either they will agree, or you will quickly know they were after your ranking-and will not respond.

What can happened to Joe NotSoSmart because he did not check these simple things?

1. The link can go to anywhere, especially if the website is only a single splash page that has only one benefit- a professional looking page. Could it possibly end up leading to a page that Google does not think highly of? If so, his website is in trouble. Obviously, it's not going to a no-content splash page.
2. He could possibly run into a problem with Google and see his ranking fall, as well as, his position in the Google search engines fall. Or, the worse case scenerio, be banned from Google. As well as, some of the other major search engines. This would eventually lead to his closing his website down and starting from scratch.

As you can see, always place your bets on the side of caution. And do your research.

Affiliate Programs-What's Best?

2009-04-08T10:05:00.003-06:00

I was asked a simple question. Are Affiliate Programs a Scam? And the answer can be a -- Yes or No. On the Internet, you always have to do your due diligence on anything. If you slack off, or become to trusting-taking things at face value, you may get burned.

There are always warning signs, if it is not legitimate. For example, contact information is bogus-you call no answer, you email-no answer; or if you're in the program, you're getting a lot of chargebacks-a major red flag.

However, most affiliate programs are legitimate, honest programs. But...you do need to look at the affiliate program and know what they do offer the affiliate, and what they don't offer the affiliate.

My article "Are Affiliate Programs a Scam" gives you a quick look at the programs offered by a business, and programs that are offered through the affiliate brokerage company. With each, you have to be aware of certain things.

Are Affiliate Programs a Scam

Are affiliate programs a scam? Yes and No. I'll explain.

Affiliate programs come in many varieties and is offered in many different formats. However, which is better? I'll let you be the judge.

Everything Adsense

2009-04-01T09:51:00.003-06:00

Everything Adsense

What's new at Adsense? What changes are taking place?

Video Units are Retiring-Somewhat

It looks like the Video units have not been the success that Adsense thought they would be. With that being said, Adsense will quietly retire the Video units at the end of April.

If you still want to display video ads you'll still be able to do so, by going to YouTube directly.

But most importantly, this video unit retirement will not affect the availability of other video ad units that appear through the image/text or image option of your ads. So yes, Adsense for video is still accepting applications from eligible publishers who produce video content.

New Email Notifications

Adsense will be rolling out new email notification preferences in your account over the next few days.

What does that mean? You'll have the option to receive specific messages like event invitations, information about webinars, and personalized account suggestions from members of the Google Adsense team.

In a couple of days you see a one-time page when you sign-in to Google Adsense. You will be asked to select the type of email messages you would like to receive from them. What if you change your mind? No problem.

If you change your mind about the selections you chose, you can simply sign in to your Account, visit the Contact Preferences section within your Account Settings to update the type of emails you want to receive.

Google Testing Interest-based Advertising

2009-03-13T12:26:00.003-06:00

Google is making an enhancement to their Adsense program. It's called Interest-Based Advertising. And whether you like it or not, it will affect your website and specifically your privacy policies. If you don't have a privacy policy on your website, it's time to get one.

Interest-Based Advertising will help the advertiser, the publisher, and hopefully give the user a better experience. It is Google's hope that the user will benefit from the additional relevancy that the interest-based ads will provide. And yes, users can opt-out of the interest-based ads if they so wish. Check out my article

What Is Interest-Based Advertising
Interest-based advertising enables advertisers to reach users based on their interests and allows them to show ads based on a user's previous interaction. Why is this important? Because Google is in the process of a launch of the new interest-based advertising feature. Read More

Affiliate Programs-Does It Pay?

2009-02-25T12:40:00.003-06:00

Affiliate Programs are a good way to bring in extra cash for your blog and website. But with anything on the Internet, it is always wise to know what you are putting on your site. Why?

One word, creditability. When a person comes to your site, you, the webmaster should be trying to gain their trust. With trust can come sales. Thus, it's imperative that you take the time to do your research. It will save you time, money and keep your online creditability intact.

So what do you need to consider before committing to an Affiliate Program? My article:
Is That Affiliate Program For You will give you some insight as to what to check when considering an affiliate program for your website or blog.

Is That Affiliate Program For You?
Affiliate Programs is another avenue in which to make money on your site or blog. The only thing that you need to be concerned about is if the affiliate program matches or blends with your niche and that it is legitimate. What are the typical things that you should consider when committing to an affiliate program-be it a stand alone affiliate program or an affiliate program offered through an Affiliate Brokerage Firm like Commission Junction or Clickbank? Read More

New Changes For Adsense Users

2009-02-20T10:21:00.005-06:00

Google Adsense is now letting you have more control over the appearance of your ads on your site. You can know change the font face on text in ad units on pages in Latin-character languages. Three options to choose from: Verdana, Times and Arial.

How and Where To Make The Changes

To change the ad unit quickly, you can go into your "My Account Settings" page and select the font preference. Note: when you make the change within "My Account Settings" this will affect all your ads on all your web pages. In other words, it's a universal change.

Can you create custom ads for specific web pages? Yes, Google is also allowing that as well. To set the font face for specific units on a web page you will need to make the change within the Manage Ads Page.

Note: If you change the font face of an ad unit from the "default" setting, that will be maintained even if you change the account-wide settings later.

As with anything, its wise to experiment.

If you have surpassed the free stage of keyword search and research and are looking for a tool that will advance your website, PPC program, and Adsense program to another level, then take a look at Keyword Elite the comprehensive tool for your SEO, PPC and Adsense keyword search.

Videos- Should Your Video Have Value?

2009-02-05T12:57:00.003-06:00

Videos can be a great promotion for your business. You can do many things to get the message across. In other words you can...entertain and still sell your product or service at the same time. Many use humor. Humor is great, as long as, the message doesn't get lost.

But there are some rules you should try to adhere too-at least until you're comfortable with the results.

The question you must ask yourself when you are creating a video is: Does it have value? Value is important because if the value is not in the video, it can affect your online creditability with your visitors. Which simply translates into-visitors have no reason to want to return.

Check out my article- Does your video have value?

And if you're looking for video editing softwae than check out my web page on Digital Media Software

Phishing Scam

2009-01-30T11:21:00.003-06:00

Phishing Scam- This is just a heads up to a phishing scam that all should be aware of.

Phishers are getting more creative in their phishing attempts. And one of the most recent is a phishing attempt using the Google Calender event invitation.

Part of the invitation reads as follows:

This email is from Gmail Customer Care and we are sending it to every Gmail Email User Accounts Owner for safety. we are having congestions due to the anonymous registration of Gmail accounts so we are shutting down some Gmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending you this email so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account.

Here's the key to this scam: Google does not ask for your password in an email. So delete.

Bargain Hunting-Is It Truly A Bargain

2009-01-19T10:02:00.002-06:00

I know everyone likes a bargain, right? But you might be asking yourself why end with a question like "Is It Truly A Bargain". In my case, experience.

As you know Circuit City is going to be closing it's doors. Granted, it's not a good thing because people will be out of work and it eliminates another store in which you can compare prices to get the best deal. Hopefully, a new store will step up. Anyway, with the bargains of 50% and 70% that they may display on their signs you will have to ask yourself-"Is this for real?" Why? Because it may not be.

Let me give you an example of my own experience. A department store was going out of business and we-my husband and I thought that maybe we could get a dining table reasonably. So we went out to the store and looked at the different, remaining dining tables. One caught our eye-and it was 40% off, so they said. Now, you would think that it would be a time to grab-but we waited and came back in several days. Now the 40% off was still there, but the price on the table itself had gone up. Something smelled-don't you agree.

This all translates into a simple lesson-do your homework. Research your product, and don't be taken in too quickly by that little old 40% or 70% off sign. My article "Going Out Of Business-Bargain Hunting" gives you some tips before venturing into "Do I Have A Bargain For You" Closeout sales.

Economic Downturn and Work At Home

2009-01-10T11:11:00.004-06:00

This article is for people who are new to the Internet and are thinking about finding something on the Internet so you can work at home.

First you have to begin with a different set of ideals. And they follow as such:

1. Do not be naive. Research all opportunities.
2. If it is too good to be true-It is.
3. Don't go after the "you can make money quickly" schemes. The only one getting rich are the ones making the claim.
4. A true opportunity-will require work.

There are opportunities out there on the Internet-some good, bad and ugly. My article " Do You Want To Work At Home" will give you a quick introduction.

Log Stats are they important

2009-01-06T15:19:00.003-06:00

Log Stats, for those who are not all that hip about the analysis side of a website, this may be a bit confusing, or a "low interest" area. But it is a necessary part of your website. Why?

The log stats can let you know what is going on with your site. From the straight forward look at how many hits you are getting, bandwidth usage, referrer spam, and hijackers. Didn't think about that part, did you.

If someone is hijacking your web pages, you need to know and stop the outside bleeding. Why? It's costing you traffic. That is the same with referrer spam. Check out my article:
Web Log-Analyze Your Data to learn what areas you should keep your eye on as a webmaster.

Constructing a Website

2008-12-29T14:16:00.002-06:00

When you are building your first website, many do not have a clue where to begin, or what is really important to consider.

There are certain elements that should be considered when you are planning your site.

They are:

1)navigation
2) speed
3) layout
4) color

Though simple, they are often overlooked, or not even considered. Color can give your visitors a negative or a positive impression. But sometimes people believe they can put their website in any old color and people will come-maybe-but they may also leave quickly as well.

Check out my article "Building A Website-4 Elements To Consider".

Working With HTML

2008-12-17T19:20:00.003-06:00

There are a lot of web hosting services that offer WYSIWYG, so you don't really have to know HTML. But as you move forward in your online business you may want to begin learning HTML in your spare time. It can open new horizons for you.

One thing I have learned is to try and view your web page in several browsers, and at several different window sizes - 640x480, 1024x768 -it will give you an idea of what is being seen by your viewers.

For those who are HTML challenged, I've given you a quick look at some HTML and how you can create a sample of a web page yourself in my article:

HTML What Is It?

When creating a website, there is one coding language that you should become acquainted with to help you to progress in your online business. The language is HTML.

Many start with a coding program that is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software. In fact, I've used FrontPage. But even FrontPage has progressed beyond basic HTML - to include CSS into their software mix. Thus, if you want to edit your web pages, you may well need to understand the meanings of some of those tags. Read More.....

SEO-Where Do I Begin

2008-12-10T08:25:00.005-06:00

I have had emails on occasion wanting to know where to begin with their SEO process. There are some basic things that you need to do in the SEO process, as well as, some mistakes to avoid. Your content is what brings traffic to your site. And it is the SEO process that helps them to find you.

Though page ranking if a necessary part of the SEO part, the other major parts of the mix that you should ask yourself is:

1. how are my web pages converting
2. Am I getting traffic?

Page rank means nothing is you do not have traffic or your traffic is not converting into sales.

If you are new to SEO, or want to know what is the basic elements to consider when starting the process, check out my article:

SEO-Doing it yourself.

What Your Log Files Are Telling You

2008-12-02T10:19:00.003-06:00

When you are new to an online business, the stats in the backend of your website and blog has little meaning. And, in most cases, the only thing that you may look at are the "Hits" and "Visits" within the stats page. If that is all of what you are doing, then you better take a closer look at what is going on. Why? Because your backend data can lead you to some interesting information.

Your data can give you clues to such things as:

Is your data being stolen?
Is a renegade search engine bombarding your website?
What are the keywords that people are using to find your site?

Or....Is a webmaster spamming your site, stealing your bandwidth for their on page ranking joys. Referrer Spam-an ugly problem that can still your bandwidth and destroy your stats. Check out my article "Referrer Spam-What is It">Referrer Spam-What Is It?" to learn details, as well as, how to protect yourself from this problem

New Issues for Linking

2008-11-24T10:35:00.005-06:00

Linking as we all know is a way in which to get better page ranking within all the search engines.

In late 2007 Google put into place, rather abruptly, the smack down on paid links, stating that sure you can have paid links if you:

Redirect through URL blocked by robots.txt
Redirect through URL using 302
Use JavaScript to direct the link
Apply rel="nofollow" attribute to the link
Add to the page header

As you can see, this pretty much eliminates any benefit of buying linking.

For the newbie's benefit - the paid link crackdown in 2007 was just that. Website and blogs suddenly found their page rank lowered dramatically, or no rank at all.

That being said, it looks like a new service is in town, with an offer of paid links that is causing a debate between webmasters and the search engines. Check out the details of the debate with my article on Linking Issues 2008

Working With Adsense

2008-11-18T12:16:00.002-06:00

When working with Adsense, be aware, if you are not already, that each site is different. The word I would suggest with Adsense is experiment. And as Google suggests:

1. Using colors that blend or complement your site
2. Use lighter colors for borders, or use none at all
3. Rotate colors or switch locations of your ads-With the Manage Your Ad Tab, this is a lifesaver, if you want to rotate your colors. As to switching locations of your ads, that is a hands on task. But experimenting with location should be considered from time to time.
4. Save sets of frequently-used colors as a palette. If you have found several colors that does show promise, save them, and rotate them. It can a slightly different color scheme and newness to your site.

Working with the Google Competitive Ad Filter
First, the Competitive Ad Filter helps to restrict those contextually-targeted and placement-targeted ads from appearing on your pages.

To place an URL within the competitive Ad Filter you can:
1. click the AdSense Setup tab, then click on the Competitive Ad Filter
2. Then you must determine the URL of the ad

How to find the URL
1. Use the Adsense Preview Tools or..
2. Ad Review Center- allows you to review specific ad groups and advertisers before they appear on your pages or block ads by type. However, you will need to opt in to the Ad Review Center at top of Competitive Ad Filter. Once you have opt-in, you can begin reviewing ads.

If you are planning on blocking an ad, Google would like you to provide a reason for the blocking. This is to help improve products and help advertisers improve their Adwords campaign.

Remember: Do not click on the ad url on your site to find the url, this is a violation of Google Adsense Rules.

Taking a Close Look At Email Marketing

2008-11-04T16:35:00.004-06:00

Email Marketing has had it's ups and downs. The downs happen when people don't follow the rules and forget the opt-in options or don't apply simple ethics when working with email marketing.

What happens when you don't follow the rules? You may be called a spammer and their may be fines coming your way if you do it too often. Or, the email with hit the junk spam of an user. You're off their radar forever.

Here is an idea I wrote called: "Email Marketing Revisited".

"Email Marketing has been around for some time and in the beginning, it was the traditional way of reaching your target market/established customers. But the threat of fines or being called a spammer, made some people rethink email marketing in a different light. So, how is email marketing used now? And why is it still used? Read more....

Buying Domain Names

2008-10-21T09:45:00.003-06:00

There are many reasons to buy a domain. And the obvious one to set up your own domain for an online business. However, some have bought domain names because it is their method of making money online.

If you're buying to:

1. resell the domain name
2. set up a website to flip

You will need deep pockets, skill and experience, and nerves of steel if things go awry.

Buying a website and Flipping it-what is it?

Flipping a website is buying a domain/website and flipping it for a profit. Many have made a business out of flipping websites for profit. This is a definite high risk way of making money.

What do you need?
1) a lot of money in your pockets due to the high costs of making a purchase.
2) skills and ability
3) Nerves of steel. In some cases, it's like day trading, or working the stock market

Buying a domain name to resell

This is where an individual will seek out a site, for it's name only. They are not concerned about the site or it's content, just the name. Here people are looking at trends, and what the value of that trend will give them.

Just think what value you would have had, if you would have created a website called "blogger.com". Get my meaning.

If the domain name is for your business?

If the purpose of your buying a domain name/website is to create your own business-what must your domain name include? The domain name should include your product or service. Translated in simplest terms-what you website will be about.

Most search engines favor a website that includes the keyword in the domain name. Why? It gives them an idea of what the site is about. For example, do a search for a website you frequent. What do you see highlighted in the search results. It's the very keywords that they emphasize in their url?

When you set your plans up, if possible you should include thoughts of what target market you will be reaching. This simple tips can help you from missing your tarket market, and slowing your online business progress.

To conclude, as you can see, your domain name is important-not only to you, but maybe to someone else.

About Author:
Vickie J Scanlon -- Visit her site at: http://www.myaffiliateplace.biz
for free tools, articles; ebooks, web hosting/domain info, Dell computers, Norton security software, tech accessories, and how to info for the Affiliate Marketer/Internet Marketer.