Demographic Stats. They can make or break your next affiliate campaign.

How can you use this data on Who Is Filing Bankruptcy?

1. Bankruptcy Campaigns 2. Payday Loans 3. Low/No Credit Credit Card Offers

and a lot more. Think about it!

Highest Converters:

Education: High School/GED Followed By Some College
Gender: Slight edge for males.
Income: Less than 20k. 60% make less than 30k
Employment: 63% are employed.
Age: 35-44 is the sweet spot.
Ethnicity: 73% are white.

So try a test to those with only a High School GED who are employed white males between 35-44 making less than 20k-30k and see what happens.

Who Is Filing Bankruptcy Stats. Click On Image For A Full Size From FancyStats.com

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What do you think is going to be harder to rank for in the search engines, “Web Hosting” or “Web Hosting Orlando FL?”

The answer to that is easy and pretty obvious. In most cases, the shorter the keyword phrase you are targeting the harder it will be to rank well for.

Doing a phrase match search for “web hosting” shows that there are 297,000,000 Google results. But doing a phrase match search for “web hosting orlando FL” only shows 314 results! Granted that people usually don’t search with quotes this can still give you a glimpse at the competitiveness of the specific keyword phrase.

Long-tail keywords are the hundreds of keyword phrases people search for but are often over looked in marketing. They generally are not your main target keywords but instead longer, specific keyword phrases. A lot of times you will hear how important long-tail keywords can be with PPC marketing but it can be equally as important for natural search engine rankings.

You can find great long-tail keywords using these keyword research tools I previously wrote about. Another way is by just looking through your web stats program such as Google Analytics and looking at what keywords people are using to find your website. Using your stats program, look at the other ways visitors are arriving on your website which are not already the main keywords you are targeting on your website.

If you only focus on a small set of the most popular keywords for your website, you could be missing out on a lot of traffic in your market (not to forget quicker, easier, natural search engine rankings).

To Your Success!

The growth of the new TNX text link ads network is pretty amazing. Within a couple short months their Alexa rating is currently at 13,236 but even more impressive is their current 32,636 users. It’s clear that their timing was right and that those buying and selling text links were looking for a better system.

TNX FOR ADVERTISERS:

Registering with TNX as an Advertiser or Publisher literally only take a couple minutes. I’m going to start my first advertising campaign at the same time as writing this post.

Step 1: The first step is to simply give my new campaign a name.

Step 2: Next I choose a a few relevant categories.

They recommend you choose 5 to 7 different categories but if you want to be on the most relevant websites then that number seems a little high. Categories to choose from include E-Commerce, Directories, Automotive, Real Estate, Games, SEO, etc… Then next to each category it lists the total number of websites within that category in addition to “$” signs. A category with one $ sign would cost you less points than a category with three $$$. The total number of websites showing TNX links appears to be 11,649 at this time.

One cool feature is the ability to only advertise on websites with a minimum number of backlinks. For example, you can choose to advertise on websites that have a least 500 backlinks, at least 5,000 backlink, or least 50,000 etc…

You can also choose to advertise on websites based on their PageRank from 0 and up to a PR7. Ultimately, your cost per link increases if you require links on higher Page Rank websites. For example, for 20,000 points you can purchase up to 20,000 links from pages with PR 0 or up to 100 from pages with PR 3. Depending on what categories you choose, 20,000 points would cost you approximately $25.00 a month.

I ultimately chose buy 20,000 points which will put my link on 1866 PR0 pages. Note that I’m not pointing to these links to eMonetized but rather to a fairly new website of mine which I don’t mine experimenting with.

Step 3: Add Your Text Links.

In this section they have a default “simple setup” option, an option to upload a text file with your links or a new advanced link generator option. I chose the advanced link generator. This tool allows you to create a variety of link anchors to make your links look natural.

Step 4: Choosing The Number of Links.

This step requires you to choose the number of links that will be placed within each of the categories you chose. They suggest you order 30-100 links for each category and to order more links in those categories that are more relevant to the content of your website.

So that’s it and I’m waiting for my campaign to be approved.

You can read more FAQ about the TNX advertiser program here

** IMPORTANT: Ultimately if you are going to purchase text link ads you are going to want them to appear as natural as possible. These means varying your anchor text and NOT adding too many backlinks at one time. Buying hundreds or thousands of links with the same anchor text and all at the same time is probably just going to get your website penalized.

The TNX system allows you to easily create different text ads with varying anchor text. You could also only purchase a few text links every week or month to increase your chances of not raising any flags with Google. However, I wish TNX had a feature that would automatically limit how fast new links are placed. For example, if I was to order 100 new backlinks, the system could place 10 each week until the order is filled (or even better, varying the amount of links each week up to a certain amount).

The TNX network looks like a good program worth experimenting with but I’d recommend TNX hire a professional copywriter to review their website because I found a few spelling and grammatical errors. It’s not a big deal because I make plenty of those types of errors myself but it would help to clean up their copy.

TNX FOR PUBLISHERS:

The main advantage of the TNX system for publishers is that you are able to sell links on every page of your websites, instead of just the main page. As a publisher, you can only choose relevant ads to show on your website. This is a good move for both TNX, the publisher and the advertiser.

The TNX network takes just 12.5% in commission which is a whole lot better than the other popular text link ad services.

When you display TNX advertisers text link on your website, you will build up points which can be used to create your own ad campaigns or to sell them.

The setup is a quick and easy three step process.

Step 1: Install the TNX code on your site.
Step 2: Add your site into the TNX system (approval takes 1-2 days).
Step 3: Raise the number of links displayed on pages of your website. The maximum is 4 links.

You can read more FAQ about the TNX publisher program here.

THE TNX AFFILIATE PROGRAM:

When you refer a new webmaster to the TNX system, you will receive 13.3% of all “TNX-points” they earn. The cool part is that interest is paid for the lifetime of the member. I love lifetime commission programs. You can read more about the TNX affiliate program here.

What Can You Do With These Points?

1. You can use them to advertise your own websites within the TNX network.
2. You can just let them “accumulate” in your account and observe how they grow in value as the system becomes more efficient due to increasing number of participating websites.
3. You can sell your “TNX-points” to the network, or send them to another participant of the network. Each participant has the right to transfer their “TNX-points” to any other participant (without commission) and set your own price.

WANT 5000 IN FREE TNX POINTS?

For a limited time, TNX is also giving away up to 5000 free points to new advertisers. These points will allow you to get free text link ads on up to 5,000 websites. If you have not joined TNX you can do so by clicking here (my aff link). Then all you have to do to get the free credits is reply in this thread with your new TNX ID.

I’d be curious to hear from those already using TNX as an advertiser or publisher. How is it going for you?

I keep getting those Special Advertising Bonus emails sent by Bidvertiser to current Publishers.

$20 FREE advertising credit for current publishers!
We are so confident that BidVertiser will work well for you also as an advertiser that we will immediately credit your advertiser account with $20 worth of funds, no deposit on your part needed!

Clicking “Become An Advertiser” below will automatically create an advertiser account for you, using the same information you provided during your signup as a publisher.

You know that saying that says “On average, a shopper has to see an ad 7 times before they make the decision to buy.” Well it must have been the 7th time I received that email because this time I TOOK THE BAIT.

I ended up choosing their “Webmasters & Blogging Resources” category which includes 242 sites on which the ad might be displayed.

Once in the Bids Section it showed that the bid range for this category appear to be between .40 – .90

I also clicked the “Show All” link which lets you see what other advertisers are advertising in this category. I noticed a few of the advertisers didn’t appear very relevant to the category but I guess the majority of them were. They might need to work on category ad relevancy a bit more if they want to keep publishers placing the ads on their websites.

Anyhow, in the next section, I put my max bid at .71 for no particular good reason.

Then I created my ad as the following:

Make Money Online
Learn How to Make Money Online With
Tim Schroeder of eMonetized Blog.
www.emonetized.com

I probably could have come up with something a little more creative and clickable had I taken the time. Maybe some “I love You” type ads although I wonder if that would have been approved.

Set My daily budget at $5.

After proceeding I got:

Alert
Your account is currently offline.
In order to start displaying your ads and get your $ 20.00 FREE Credit please activate your account.

and

Your credit card information is only required to activate your account but YOU WILL NOT BE CHARGED ANY FEES as long as you do not exceed your $ 20.00 credit.

If you do not wish to be charged, simply pause your ads before your $ 20.00 credit is exhausted. In case you do not pause your ads before this limit is reached, you will be charged weekly, per your Daily Budget ($ 5.00) until the ads are paused.

So the only catch with the $20 in free clicks is that you must remember to monitor your account and pause it before your funds run out if you choose not to continue. Since I set my daily budget at $5, I won’t need to check the account for about 4 days after approval.

My ad is currently pending approval and should be live within two days.

The whole process took literally took less than 10 minutes. I’ll share with you how the ad did in one of my monthly eMonetized Traffic updates.

If you are interested in testing out Bidvertiser with $20 in free clicks you can follow this link.

Best of the Web is offering free Premium Sponsorships for 60 days. When you sign up for a premium sponsorship you will be able to feature your website or blog at the top of a relevant category and alongside BOTW search results.

So this got me thinking, How about a new small Best of The Web Advertising Case Study!

As you know I’ve done a few advertising Case Studies here on eMonetized in the past and shared those results. I thought a Best of the Web advertising case study could be interesting and what I really like about this case study is that it’s going to be FREE!

At the end of the 60 day free Best of the Web Premium sponsorship I’ll share my traffic numbers and IF it will be worth continuing. One cool thing about this sponsorship link is that it’s NOT a redirect. This means you get the traffic AND a high quality direct link. Of course I’m just placing the ad for traffic.

Some of the specific categories I really wanted had already been taken such as:

http://botw.org/top/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/
Authoring/Webmaster_Resources/Affiliate_Programs/

http://botw.org/top/Computers/Internet/

http://blogs.botw.org/Computers/Internet/Blogging/

But believe me when I say that there are still hundreds of really good available categories to choose from. In the end I ended up placing my free sponsorship ad here:

http://botw.org/top/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/
Authoring/Webmaster_Resources/Affiliate_Programs/

That category happens to be a PR4 but it was one of the more relevant categories for this blog. If you personally are after higher PageRank pages they are still some really great PR5 pages available.

http://botw.org/top/Business/Business_to_Business/
Marketing_and_Advertising/Internet_Marketing/

Note to Google: I’m not placing that text ad for PageRank nor am I purchasing it to manipulate your search engine results. I’m placing an ad on Best of the Web in a relevant category for clickthrough traffic and NO other reason. (is this what things have come to?) It won’t be long until we have to place ad disclaimers next to our ads!

About Best of The Web:

When finding links to your website links from high quality authority directories such as Best of the Web are key.

“Best of the Web” was started over 13 years ago back in 1994. To rank among the Best of the Web, a site must adhere to the strict criteria of editors who ensure that it contains substantive unique content, navigates in a user-friendly manner, contains no broken links or pictures, is up and running 24/7, and conforms to universally accepted web standards. It’s the kind of web directory Google likes! At the time of this post, Best of the Web ranks #6 in Google for the extremely competitive keyword, “web directory.”

Sign-up for your Free Premium Advertisement on Best of Web here.

Looks like we have the highly anticipated PageRank update finally underway.

At the moment eMonetized still does not appear to have its PageRank updated but I’m hoping that will change over the course of the next few days. I don’t want to have to wait another 4 to 6 freakin months!

On most websites I visit PageRank has either dropped or stayed the same. PageRank is becoming less important than it was in the past and I’m more interested in links from relevant authority websites than the little green number in the toolbar. Nevertheless, PageRank still plays an important part in what many advertisers can charge for ads on their websites. When I’m personally looking to do some advertising on other blogs I look at RSS subscribers and number of comments being left.

Will Google eventually abandon their PageRank system all together? Only time will tell but I would not be surprised if they eventually remove the little green number from the toolbar.

A Couple Noteable PageRank Drops:

John Chow – PR6 to PR5

Andy Beard – PR5? to PR4

Entrepreneurs Journey – PR6 to PR5

And if you want to read more about what the hell might be going on, read this: Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On Google

Here is an huge thread on Digital Point which talks about some of the recent PageRank changes and a thread on Webmaster-Talk.com about if Google’s Guidelines are Going Too Far.

It still looks like this update may have a way to go and the drops mentioned above could very well go back up.

Has your PageRank dropped, stayed the same or increased?

Why is BlogRush having such a huge amount of immediate success?

One common answer I’ve read is that BlogRush is about the power of HYPE.

This is certainly true but “Hype” is often not the first part of the equation. It’s about building RELATIONSHIPS!

Lets face it, BlogRush really isn’t anything revolutionary and it’s NOT going to send a flood of traffic to the average blog. It simply can’t live up to the hype and promises plastered all over the web. Nevertheless, the network’s growth has exploded in just a few days. If the average John Doe created the same network, the success of it would likely have been much different.

John Reese, founder of BlogRush, is an internet and affiliate marketing legend. He is in the elite few that make millions of dollars a year doing so. He has been online marketing since 1990. And how about this:

On August 17, 2004, John Reese shocked the Internet marketing world and pulled in over $1,000,000 in sales in less than 24 hours (18 to be exact) for the launch of a new product — and he did it without spending one penny on advertising!

One million dollars in less than 24 hours! I suspect this was done with a mixture of gigantic email lists and viral marketing but I’m sure a huge part of it had to also do with the thousands of relationships he has forged through his years of success online.

Now there is more than one way to forge these relationships. Sometimes you can BUY a relationship. For example, the “million dollar wiki” basically purchased a relationship with John Chow via a review but it’s been beneficially successful for both of them. ShoeMoney later ended up writing a post and buying a page about the wiki after reading about it on John Chow. ShoeMoney helped make this guy an extra $40,000 over the course of a few days.

My relationship with John Chow started with some Google Adwords Site Targeted advertising on his website which he blogged about on his website but we have continued to work together in a few ways up to this day. I may write a new post about different ways to build relationships and it certainly does not always have to involve money (leaving comments, leaving pingbacks, blogrolls etc.)

I have to admit that it’s often tough to create good relationships with A-List bloggers. I think many times you have to prove yourself in some ways but other times it just takes some luck. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems like I never heard a mention of John Chow by ShoeMoney until his RSS really started booming and he was making more and more money online. ShoeMoney just recently allowed John Chow to guest host his radio show. A-Listers cater to A-Listers because they can help each other make even more money than they already do (and lots of it). It makes sense.

On the other hand don’t neglect building relationships with those on the D-List. Just because someone is not on the A-List of bloggers yet does not mean they are not in the A-List of affiliate or internet marketers and highly successful. You can usually figure this out on your own.

John Reese has a lot of friends in high (and low) places and these relationships are, in part, a huge reason for the Hype with BlogRush. Lets use the highly successful ShoeMoney as an example. In his initial post about BlogRush he starts with “Earlier this week internet marketing superstar (and also my good friend) John Reese launched Blog Rush. ”

BlogRush’s long term success is still unknown and I have mixed feelings about the program. Hype does not always = Success.

Take Agloco for example. While it still might be a little early to declare Agloco a failure, right now it’s beginning to look like a million member flop. I’m not saying BlogRush won’t be a long term success or that it was a bad idea but the real success of the network is what happens when that hype wears off. For those that don’t like the referral downline aspect of the BlogRush program, I guarantee the network would not have been successful without it.

Ultimately, BlogRush’s long term success comes down to one thing:

The Clickthrough Ratio

Blogs that have managed to build a huge downline don’t have to worry about this much. They can just remove the widget and still continue to get traffic without doing anything. They won’t need to use there own blog’s impressions to gain thousands of daily credits.

However, what about blogs with low to mid-level traffic or those with a small referral network?

Will adding another widget and giving up valuable real estate on your blog be worth it?

I’m certainly NOT counting BlogRush out and it would be premature and dumb to do so. The network is still in the Hype phase and brand new. The “My BlogRush CTR is abysmal” posts are already starting to appear throughout the blogosphere.

I do think they will have some tough times ahead of them but I think they will make the changes that need to be made to pull through these tough times. Keep in mind that your own CTR may have a lot to do with your post title among other things. Andy Beard has written several great articles about Blogrush that you might want to read through.

Click Here to Visit BlogRush

Chances are that you have already heard about the new traffic exchange program content syndication network, BlogRush, pioneered by internet marketing legend John Reese. I didn’t rush on over to this network as fast as I should have but after reading so much hype about BlogRush I was feeling a little left out. I can’t be the only blog NOT to mention BlogRush! Ok, so maybe that’s an exaggeration but it’s no exaggeration to say that BlogRush’s growth rate in just a few short days is amazing. I joined today and added the BlogRush widget to the eMonetized sidebar for testing.

Here is a list of a few BlogRush Reviews from around the Blogosphere.

Positive and/or Neutral Reviews:

Increase Your Blog Traffic with BlogRush – John Chow was one of the first big time bloggers to talk about BlogRush so I have no doubt he is already building a massive downline. Just remember how well he did building his Agloco network. His post is just a short review and introduction on the network.

BlogRush Review: Using Widgets to Get Traffic to Your Blog – Maki of Dosh Dosh does a little bit more indepth review of BlogRush but refrains from completely recommending it because of lack of data at this point.

Great New System to Get Free Traffic – This is a very short review and he lets the video do the explaining but he does mention about the widget using javascript so you don’t have to “worry about reciprocal links or even linking to people or nofollow tags.” John Reese told him that given his current downline network he can expect about 45,000 impressions per day on the blog rush network in the business/marketing category. That’s no surprise given the popularity of ShoeMoney’s blog and it didn’t hurt that he was one of the first to announce BlogRush.

BlogRush Offers Free Syndicated Traffic Exchange - Andy Beal gives a brief overview of BlogRush. It’s not really a review but I like his quote “While it’s always nice to earn additional traffic, you can trust that if the widget spews nothing but spam, it will be removed faster than you can say “BlogRush”.”

BlogRush – Free Blog Traffic – Indepth Review – A well written and indepth review of BlogRush by Andy Beard.

Yes, BlogRush Does Work – The Cow talks about how he has received 40 unique visitors since joining the program. He also states that he signed up John Chow in his referral downline. If that is the truth then I would expect he should be getting a whole lot more traffic than that.

Dissenting Opinions:

I have not found very many negative reviews of BlogRush at this point but here is one:

Don’t Waste Your Time With BlogRush Jim Kukral makes a lot of valid points and concerns. The gist of his argument against BlogRush is that it will only benefit mid-sized blogs (those in the 1000s RSS range). The biggest of the blogs are not going to use it. Those mid-size blogs will gain by far the vast majority of the referrals leaving the average blogger with little traffic or reason to use the widget. He also had some concerns about BlogRush’s collection of your stats but John Reese added a reply to clear up those concerns a bit. The jury is still out so it’s to early to know what the long term success of BlogRush will be.

What I Like About BlogRush:

I think BlogRush offers an attractive widget that will fit in well on most blogs. The widget needs to be customizable but I know they are working on that. So far the links shown seem to be fairly relevant although I wish they used some sub categories since an affiliate marketing blog might not want to show up on a SEO blog and vice versa. It’s to early to tell how well BlogRush will work in terms of traffic but it’s worth a shot. Now is the time to try it.

Click Here to Join BlogRush.

I emailed John Chow yesterday mentioning how I was thinking about some different creative ways I could use my 125 x 125 ad banner his website. Here are a few of the ideas I thought of:

1. The “Hot Spots” Banner.

This was one of my favorite ideas but unfortunetley John didn’t want to add hotspots to the banner. I can understand that because he would have to make updates to banner often as new advertisers signup etc.

With this idea, I would split the banner into 5 separate ads (each space would be 125 x 18). I’d then sell each spot for $125 a piece. One of the spots would be mine but the other four would be paying my ad costs + $100 extra. Here is an example banner I might have used:

2. A John Chow Ad Raffle.

This is another idea I mentioned to John Chow and the one I decided to go with. However, I didn’t realize that “raffles” are technically only allowed for charities and non-profit organizations unless they are free. Since the contest had only started for a few hours and there had not been a lot of entries yet, I thought it would be best to cancel this one.

With this idea, entries would cost just $10 each. I would select two winners and those winners would both get their banner Ad shown on John Chow for one week. I think this idea had the potential to do fairly well.

3. Free Ad on John Chow.

Basically this would be a contest where I would give away a free one day 125 x 125 banner ad on John Chow to five winners. To qualify, you would simply need to leave a comment into the thread and link back to the contest. Have not worked on the full details but this would be a quick and easy contest.

4. Share an Ad.

With this idea I would create a generic ad for the banner and then sell ad spots on the landing page. I’m not sure if this would work though because I would have to keep the total number of ads on the landing page to a minimum (maybe 6 to 10) and sell them for like $65 a piece to break even.

5. Sell Redirected traffic. I just thought of this idea. I could create a generic ad using the text something like “Click Here for the Cool Site of the Day.” Then I could sell redirected traffic. Because I could change where the traffic redirects to on my end, once setup it would not require any updates John would need to make.

6. Flip the Ad Spot. This is not a new idea used on JohnChow.com but I could always try to resell the spot for a higher price than I paid for it. I’d probably break it up into selling weeks such as $150 for a one week banner spot on John Chow.

What would you do? I’m leaning at just started with the third idea and doing something else when that ends. This would give 5 people the opporunity to get a one day banner ad on John Chow for FREE.

1. Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends

Google trends is a nice little tool by Google that lets you take a sneak peak at the day’s hottest searches.

Google Trends highlights searches that have sudden surges in popularity rather than showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms like “weather.” The algorithm analyzes millions of web searches performed on Google and displays those searches that deviate the most from their historic traffic pattern.

Google Trends, which is updated hourly shows a search-volume graph, the top cities, and news results to help give context about why a search may be appearing on the Google Trends list today.

You can also compare up to five trends by putting comments in between the keywords. For example, the ipod vs zune.

2. Yahoo Buzz: http://buzz.yahoo.com/

Yahoo buzz, which is updated weekly, is another great tool when searching for the latest hot trends or when searching for new niches.

A subject’s buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read.

Categories include, Overall | Actors | Movies | Music | Sports | TV | Video Games.

I personally could see the Video Games section being very useful. (hint: PPC, Direct Linking, Amazon). Or maybe the hottest lyrics section (hint: ringtones?).

3. AOL Hot Searches: http://hotsearches.aol.com

With AOL Hot Searches you can find out what are the most popular AOL searches among various categories. You can view the current top electronics and gadget searches, popular auto searches, top music searches, vacation searches, personal finance searches and many more. Think outside the box! There are many great ways to use this kind of data.

4. eBay Pulse: http://pulse.ebay.com

This is one my favorite new tools that I recently discovered and plan to use often. eBay Pulse shows a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay. This tool can be particularly useful when brainstorming new affiliate marketing niches. Once you choose a main category be sure to click on the category dropdown menu again on the results page to narrow down you nice even further. For example:

eBay Pulse > Baby > Car Safety Seats

1. britax
2. graco
3. eddie bauer
4. britax marathon
5. evenflo
6. car seat
7. cosco
8. peg perego
9. century
10. britax boulevard

Now you have found a list of the most popular searched for “car safety seat” brands on eBay which also is fairly likely also the most popular on Google Search as well. Pretty cool huh!