How to get banned from your affiliate program

(or how to make money from firefox plugins for the self-hating internet marketer)

(or in fact, what your grandma doesn’t know about internet marketing part II)

You have become a self-hating internet marketer and to alleviate the oppressive guilt, you need a way to get yourself banned from your affiliate program don’t you? Well, you’ve come to the right place. This one is in the key of Gm. Watch me for the chord changes, and try to keep up.

I know what you’re thinking you big-shot successful internet marketer. You’re thinking

Brrrrrrrr It’s cold out there and I’m feeling guilty about all those people I eagerly directed into buying a diet product that I know nothing about, have not used and indeed do not need. How can I pay back some of the karmic debt I have incurred upon my wretched soul?

Fear not my child, for I offer absolution. A way in which you can and will eventually get banned from your affiliate program. “Only if they find out”, you cry as you continue on your quest to make money with little traffic. But I know you want to get caught. All criminal do. Once you have this up and running you will inevitably use one of your other internet identities to report yourself in a bizarre Tyler-Durden-like-you-hit-me-in-the-ear twist. And so I say, pull up your rosary beads and write yourself a firefox plugin. What the software does “front of house” is irrelevant.  All that you really need is for it to be downloaded. A Lot (yes it is two words!!). So maybe you do a page 3 girl of the day thumbnail that would sit in the top corner of firefox instead of the little whirly circle that tells you when you are loading a page. Now listen closely. Here is the devil in your ear. You code up that plugin so that every time someone visits amazon or other affiliate of your choice using the now infected firefox, you stuff their cookie* with your affiliate code, or rewrite the url dynamically to use your aff code.  (I’ve not looked into writing firefox extensions, but I imagine you could do this – someone correct me if I’m wrong?)

The evil plan unfolds as all those horny little desk jockeys who think they are bucking the system and shoving it to the man by looking at page 3 girls embedded in their browser’s skin while they are at work now earn you a tidy piece of pie when they order from amazon. And they are bound to order from amazon at some point. O yes they are. But you won’t stop there will you? You are an evil internet marketing whore and you want more.

more.

more.

You have no scruples. You are the kind of marketer who would sell your own grandma’s cookies if you could only get her to bloody well bake them up, the lazy cow. So you infiltrate your family and friends’ computers with this nasty little piece of code under the guise of

“oh, I’m a computer geek, why don’t I tune your computer for you….you know give it a defrag, speed up your browsing, fix the old flux capacitor.”
“Nonono don’t worry, I love doing it…….(mwahahaha f’ing simpletons)……”
“Eh? Wassat you say? O, no nothing, Um I said I would love a cup of tea, ta very much. Hey…..have you seen amazon’s new christmas home page?”.

The evil is more insidious because the first time you walk the path of no-scruples, it erodes the little scrupulous cogs in your mind that would act as a brake just a little. Every time you perpetuate a little online wrong doing, the cogs get ground down a little more until they no longer touch and cannot brake the evil internet marketing monkey in your head who can spin his wheels as fast as he likes. And spin he does. As fast as his monkey legs can pedal. The voices come so fast now, you almost can’t type the ideas down fast enough.  So you buy a bunch of usb keys on the cheap and you make a custom firefox install which you autorun on the usb keys. Then one day, while you are out shopping, you just happen to drop a bunch of them in the parking lot by accident. O what tired and weary christmas shopper can resist the lure of free storage as they sneakily pretend to tie their yowling snot faced younger-one’s shoelace and pocket the scattered treasure? And how many of them have disabled autorun?

The moral of the story is……be careful what plugins you install.

* Let us teach grandma about affiliate codes.  An affiliate is simply someone who earns commission for recommending a product. A middle man if you like. How do they do this? Well say you click a link on my website that takes you to amazon. That link has information stored in it. One of those pieces of information is an affiliate id which is the tracking code which will tell amazon that I referred you to them. If you purchase something from amazon through my link, I get a percentage of the sale.

Wow you say. My nan never knew that!

It gets more interesting because most affiliate links include a time period so anytime you purchase anything from amazon for x days after you’ve clicked my link, I still get commission.

Wow you say, My nan definitely never knew that! How do they do it?

Most affiliate programs use cookies to store an affiliate’s id on your computer. So say you click on my link because you really need some website hosting, a cookie is stored on your computer by said hosting company. This cookie is timed and includes my affiliate id. If you go back to the hosting company (through my link or directly, it doesn’t matter) any time within a specific period, my affiliate id is still there and if you chose to sign up with them, I will still get commission. The cookie expires eventually though, so I don’t get commission indefinitely.

So now the moral of this story is twofold. Be careful what extensions and plugins you install, and be careful what links you click.

See a tinyurl link? You think it is there simply for your convenience so you don’t have to see a long-ass url? Ha! The cunning and suspicious among you will immediately think “affiliate link”. So, why would anyone click an affiliate link? Well, many people don’t know what they are and are oblivious to the fact that such things exist. I’m sure at some point in my browsing history, I’ve inadvertently scored an internet marketer some commission. Some people do know what affiliate links are though (like your nan for instance because she has read this brilliant scree on what your grandma doesn’t know about internet marketing) and they chose to click anyway, to reward the website owner, you know because they appreciate the rather eloquent writing and all.

Now go tell your nan all about affiliate links and plugins. And if she doesn’t understand, well I’m happy to come round and explain it to her while I give her computer a tune up……..ooh a cup of tea? yes please! ta very much.

“down mighty internet marketing devil”

What your grandma doesn’t know about internet list building

(or where I tell you how I like to sign up to free “spam free” ebooks everyone offers to build their list)

Yearg – I forgot to add my aside into my post about having food in my fridge yesterday that turned out to be more about a fable than anything else.  Bad me.  I won’t do it again.

Oh well.  Never ye mind.

So you know how every blog and his dog has a little “sign up to our newsletter” or “give us your email and get a free ebook” type of thing?  They always say “don’t worry, 100% spam free”.  But you just know they will email you with “special offer” after “special offer” jiminy-jam packed with affiliate links.  Well, here’s what your grandma doesn’t know about THE LIST……They are all completely automated.  I bet most so called web-entreupreneurs who are faking it till the make it never even look through their list to see who has signed up.  I bet most of them just leave it on autopilot.  You know what I like to do?  I lke to sign up with strange names.  I like to see if anyone checks and weeds me out.  On blogs I really don’t like, I’ll put in something mildly offensive – just because I can be an asshole sometimes.  On blogs that I feel ambivalent towards, I’ll use something like Detective Van Halen,  or Humpty Dumpty.  Sometimes I like to put my name in as “just another sucker waiting for your marketing crap”, but that gets scuppered now and then when people put a limit on the length of your name.  On blogs I actually like to read, I don’t usually sign up

Obviously I’m using a spam email addy for all this.  But I check it now and then for fun.  I’m still waiting for the savvy marketer to look through his sign ups, notice me and send a humourous email back signed with an equally crazy name.  See, if that happened, then I would know 2 things:

1. That dude/lady has a sense of humour
2. They actually check their list from time to time

The presence of 1 means I might actually like the person and that they might not be full of shit like most make money bloggers trying to build a “money is in the list” list out there.  The presence of 2 means they might actually try to personalise something towards their readers.  You know what though?  I’m still waiting.  So far, nadda, nothing, zip…….If you find me in your list – send me an email.  I ain’t gonna buy your snake oil, but what the heck, maybe you’ll make a friend.  A cynical friend……but hey I’ve been know to give backlinks to my friends

Now, you know what, I think we need a series of “What your nan doesn’t know about the internet“.

Anchor text is the most important thing

(or where I tell you how to get more hits for keywords by using it in your anchor text)

It’s no secret that I think organic search results are the way to go for making money online.  The social web is great, and fun, but I don’t think social traffic converts well.  I mean, you guys are reading this right?  Most of you browse here from other blogs that I’ve left a comment on.  How many of you feel like throwing me a little affiliate bone and buying some cool web hosting?  yeah…..none of you?  Hmmm that’s my point entirely.  See now if I ranked really well for the search phrase “where can I buy cool web hosting”, then I bet I would make a lot more money, even if my traffic halved.  Why?  Because people browsing this page would already want to buy something.  They would be looking for a product.  You lot are just looking.  Buncha of tire kickers, the lot of you (but I still love you all, please leave a nice comment….I will bribe you if I have to….what do you want? ).

Yeah, so how to get all important organic search traffic?  Backlinks.  That’s the way you get up in the ranks of the old backrub search engine….erm I mean google.  You know, I offered a link to someone a while ago, asked them what anchor text they wanted.  Their reply was “I don’t care what anchor text you use”.  Really?  I mean really?  you don’t care?  You should care!  you should care a lot!!!  What if I link to you with the phrase “cunty the sardine”?  You going be happy with that?  Is that what you want the big G to associate your site with?  Really?  That’s an anchor text you want?  Man, sometimes I wonder…….tell you what, someone offers me a backlink with my choice of anchor text, I thank them profusely and consider carefully what I want to rank for.  That’s what I do.

With that in mind, it’s always interesting to see what organic search phrases you are ranking for.  Take them, analyse them a little and decide which ones you want to rank better for.  I mean, might as well capitalise on traffic right?  So, what have people searched on to get to me?  Well, some phrase are just bizzare.  I mean someone actually found me with the phrase pavlov vodka. lol…..have to chuckle at that one. Another reader hit me from using wealthiest adsense. Wow. That one I wouldn’t mind more of. That one and a few related searches could bring in a tidy profit if handled correctly. How about wordpress theme. Woooooosh……that could bring a rush of traffic. Might not be profitable given the vast expanse of free wordpress themes out there, but still. My favourite so far: the best and worst way to make money online. That’s the money baby! Give me that one. Then I paste up a thin affiliate site with a bunch of reviews of some cool products….give a few “editors picks” and hey presto.  That would really turn this puppy into a cash blog.

Pay attention to you anchor text. If someone offers you a choice…..grab it with both hands!

Write right

(or my take on article marketing)

Meh, most mmo blogs aren’t really giving stuff away anymore are they?  I mean internet marketers out there are simply turning a profit from rebranding the same old tired shit again and again and again and creating false demand based on fear alone.  It’s getting about as bland as Article marketing isn’t it?  But it does get you some backlinks and it does get you some more exposure.  And even if you get sandboxed, you can still pull in some daily traffic from your articles alone…….like what has happened to my site on Georgina Baillie…..coded, up, running, article submitted, indexed in a flash and sandboxed two days later….. lol  meh, someone’s gotta get a little link love from that whole festering arse-up of a publicity stunt.  And it might as well be me.  I’m not in this one for the money, cause I have no idea how to monetise a celeb site, even one that has the added allure of kink in it.  But it will give me another farm blog to play with and link from.  See what I mean?  Why is nobody talking about farm blogs?  Why I ask you?

Anyhoo…..article marketing is a bit of a pain in the arse.  It gets soooooo dull: browse, login, cut, paste, submit, browse, login, cut, paste, submit, browse, login, cut, paste, submit.  You know how it goes, because you’ve done it haven’t you?  Of course you have.  The underbelly of internet marketing practically forces you to use ezinearticles or goarticles or a host of other directories.  And the thing is, they get tons of content.  So much so, that I’m thinking I need my own article directory.  Shit.  Did I just give away an idea.  I mean talk about a bucket load of content for free.  Damn it.  Not since I gave away the best free internet marketing experiment of all time has such an idea been put forth.

Anyhoo, I got bored with submitting articles, so I thought I would take some time off my rabid link building of the past week to do 2 things:

1) Start coding up a wordpress theme.  Always wanted to do this so I thought I would give it a go.  Seems like fun, and it falls into a master plan I have for mid next year.

2) Write an article submitter.  Shit, I don’t want to pay someone else for a glorified browser with a few automated bits.  How hard can it be to code up one of these puppies?  Not very as it happens.  I’m writing a small and very basic submitter in c# at the moment, and I am genuinely surprised at how easy it is.  Maybe when I’m done, I’ll release it   and charge for it or alternatively, just inject links to my sites ever 50th article or so.  Woulth that be immoral? But hey, think about it, you purchase an article submitter to whack out your hand crafted puppy to however many gazzilion article directories.  Do you ever check that the article got submitted properly?  Do you ever validate the links?  Do you ever think that maybe the guys who coded that little beast might inject their own links randomly?  No?  you bunch are very trusting aren’t you?  (As an aside, and at the same time, /* begin slightly shady section */ I looked into Markov chains a bit, but it looked too bloody booooooooooring to code one up so I think I’ll just hack something together from other bits and bobs floating around there.  There must be a Markov chain wordpress plugin somewhere with a cron job to automate the process, but I haven’t bothered to look for it /* end slightly shady section */.  And again I ask, why is nobody talking about farm blogs? hmmm?).

By the time I’m finished writing it, though I expect article marketing will be so passe that no-one will be doing it any more.

oh well.