The Truth - Adsense Click Fraud Can NOT be Stopped

Your probably reading this article because you use Google Adwords to bring traffic to your website, or your a click fraudster yourself, wanting to see what kind of information I have for you. Most of you click fraudsters will think that I have no idea what I am talking about, and that I do not know your methods. Well, trust me buddy, I KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU AND WHAT YOU DO.

If you are new to the click fraud scene, here is an example:

1. Scumbag puts Google Adsense ads on his website.

2. The scumbag then proceeds to cheat Google Adsense by creating false clickthroughs and impressions, in return earning him a pretty nice profit, because he isn't even working on his website, just generating false traffic.

All of you people that run campaigns through Google Adwords are thinking, "This guy has no idea what he is talking about, Google has everything under control and they even state so publicly!"

WOW! What kind of pay per click company would admit that they DO NOT have click fraud under control? I wonder what would happen to their business immediately following that statement.

Estimates say that nearly 20% of all clicks for Adsense are illegitimate. In my honest opinion I believe this number to be around 30-35% from some of the things I have seen.

Alrite, now the big question, how are they doing it?

There are a number of ways that people are cheating, including the 'click groups' from India that click on your ads for you and create big pay checks as long as you pay them their $0.50 an hour so they can buy bread for their family.

But I'm going to show you the technical way that Google Adsense is cheated, not poor people clicking ads. I'm talking about extremely smart programmers that create hitbots to cheat Adsense. And, NO, I'm not talking about that piece of garbage 'CACA' or Clicking Agent that you find on Google. I am talking about PRIVATE programs and scripts that are only used by private groups.

How do these scripts get away undetected you ask?

Simple, let's actually take a look at Google's click fraud protection (This is what I have summed up, I seriously don't believe they have anything other protection because people are still cheating using these methods as you read this article.)

If you actually take a look at Google's Adsense code when it is on your webpage you will find the URL that is used to retrieve ads. (Right-Clck your ad Iframe and click 'View Page Information' or something similar.)

Here is an example of the URL that you will find:

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-2521202633232871&dt=1124847235453&lmt=1124631699&format=468x60_as&output=html&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yoursite.com%2F&color_bg=ECF8FF&color_text=000000&color_link=0033FF&color_url=0033FF&color_border=DDAAAA&cc=59&u_h=768&u_w=1024&u_ah=738&u_aw=1024&u_cd=32&u_tz=-240&u_java=true

Now let's decode this up a little bit, shall we?

client=ca-pub-2521202633232871 - Your client code, this tells Google who to assign the click-through money to.

dt=1124847235453 - Javascript, if you use the command google_date = new Date(); document.write(google_date.getTime()) --- Which generates 1124847235453.

This shows you the number of milliseconds since midnite January 1, 1970. This is what seems to be Google's biggest automated proxy clicker fraud prevention. Doesn't seem too hard to generate with 2 lines of code now does it?

lmt=1124631699 - The last time your webpage was updated. LMT stands for Last Modified Time, pretty easy Javascript to generate this one too - document.write(document.lastModified); --- Which generates 1124631699.

(Notice I'm skipping a bunch, that's because they are just showing the type of ad, colors, and size that you are using.)

cc=59 - Seems to be some random number based on the screen width, height, and color scheme. I've seen this number go from 20 all the way up to 400. I'm sure they don't use this to reliably track click fraud.

u_h=768 - Height of your screen settings.

u_w=1024 - Width of your screen settings.

u_ah=738 - Your available screen height.

u_aw=1024 - Your available screen width.

u_cd=32 - Color scheme on windows, e.g. 32-bit.

u_tz=-240 - Your monitor refresh rate or something else that isn't important, I've never seen it not -240.

u_java=true - Just seeing if you have java enabled.

There are some other variables that are sometimes in the URL such as 'u_his=' this means how many pages you have visited since you started up your browser. There's also some MIME type checks and how many plugins you have installed, but these variables come up very rarely. I think they are only meant for Netscape/Firefox browsers.

Now that we have 'decoded' the supposed unbeatable Google Adsense code, what do you think about click fraud? You still think it is rare?

After randomizing all the data and sending an automated query to their Adsense URL, all the scumbag has to do is parse out all of Google's click URL's and click one of them, giving him a click through. This can all be easily faked with even a Visual Basic program. A newbie programmer could in-fact cheat Google Adsense without much knowledge.

Alrite you say, they beat the javascript code detection but doesn't Google use cookies so they can't do this?

No, Google does not use cookies for Adsense.

Well what about IP-tracking? Someone can't have that many proxies!

There are click groups that leave these programs running on their computer. They each randomly click each other's URL's automatically. The person running the program doesn't even have to do anything, but he is still contributing to the success of their group and himself.

Does that sound too far-fetched? I am telling you that there are click groups that do this now and have been since the old Linkshare PPC days in 1999. Yes, if you were an advertiser on Linkshare back around 1999-2002, you got RAPED.

And that isn't all. I have read on the internet that there is currently over 100,000 people infected in the United States alone with trojan proxy servers. These proxy servers run on random ports so that Google can't just do a simple port 8080 or 80 check on it to see if it's a proxy. The majority of these proxy servers are used for credit card fraud, but a lot of them are also used to cheat Google Adsense and other pay per click programs. These proxies are at-home users that look like normal dial-up, cable, and dsl users from all across the world, but mainly United States. There is NO WAY to prove that they are a proxy.

Random User-Agent strings is another tactic that is often used by click fraudsters. This makes Google think that a lot of different browsers are clicking the links, just keeping them further from finding out the truth.

On a side note, you may be thinking that the new Yahoo! pay per click program may be the way to go. I checked into their protection and guess what? They are only using ONE of Google's protections and that is the Javascript GetTime. They are still in Beta though and this may change, but who knows?

To the cheaters: The benefits of cheating are short. Eventually you will be caught for what you are doing and maybe even sued by Google. There is a ton of money to be made legally with Adsense and I suggest that you stop cheating. Who am I to tell you to stop? I use to be one of you! Back when I was 13-14 I was making programs like the ones you guys are using now. You guys probably used one of my programs at one time. I am happy to say that those days of mine are all in the past now, and I am making a good amount of money LEGALLY with Adsense and other affiliate programs. Work hard guys and you will reap the benefits 100 times what you make cheating.

To the advertisers: You people that use Google Adwords now see that it is actually not very hard to cheat you out of your money, so be careful and MAKE SURE that you use a click fraud protection script such as ClickDefense. To lower most of your click fraud, just don't put your ads in the Content Network, only stay on Google's sponsored search results. Only Google gets paid when someone clicks the search results sponsored ads and nobody wants to cheat to make Google anymore money do they? Check the stock, it's currently at 279.58 a share.

To summarize my article I just want to state that no one should use this information for cheating Adsense and I am not responsible for your actions if you choose to do so. You will be caught because Google will evolve and get smarter, eventually.

Joseph Tierney is the owner of Auction Fraud Protection A user-generated database of auction fraudsters. He is 2005 high school graduate and is currently studying for a computer science degree in college.

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18 step affiliate program

You joined an affiliate program. Here are the 18 steps to take next

(Please bookmark this affiliate tutorial. You'll want to return to it.)

This Affiliate Program Tutorial aims to give you a quick overview.

It's your road map to success as an affiliate.

I've been earning a good living from affiliate programs since 1998. Based on that experience, this tutorial tells you the 18 steps to take to generate a useful income from affiliate programs.

No tricks. No gimmicks. Just solid, reliable methods designed to work for years.

You have the choice of many different ways of earning affiliate commissions.

In my experience, you'll have your best chance of success if you do the following. Find a niche and create a useful, interesting, content-rich, keyword-rich website on one topic and weave in affiliate links and AdSense ads.

This method - with the more recent addition of AdSense ads - has worked beautifully for me since 1998.

I urge you to master this basic method. It's a bit like serving an apprenticeship.

As part of your apprenticeship you'll learn SEO (search engine optimization) skills, copywriting skills and various other Internet marketing skills which will prove to be invaluable, whatever route you choose next.

With any luck, you'll have a bit of fun, too! I do.

I include Google's AdSense in this tutorial. Strictly speaking, AdSense is an advertising network. However, in many ways it's similar to an affiliate program. I think AdSense is fantastic. It's free to join, free to use and easy to use.

It's often much easier to earn good money from AdSense than affiliate programs, so it's essential that you include AdSense in your plans.

OK. Let's get started...


STEP 1: Set a goal

If you want to go somewhere, you need to know where you're going.

Let's start with a modest goal. Say you aim to earn a total of $300 (US) a month in affiliate commissions and AdSense revenue. Imagine what you could do with that money. A holiday? A better lifestyle?

I've kept the amount low, because it's important that you believe you can do this. Achieve small successes first, see the money in your hands or in your bank account, and then increase your goals.

Perhaps you have much larger goals. That's OK. Whatever your goals, I strongly recommend that you serve your apprenticeship by taking these 18 steps. They'll give you solid knowledge and experience on which to build your affiliate business.



Find your niche

STEP 2: Find your niche

To help you find your niche topic, read Ken Evoy's free Affiliate Masters Course and use the excellent advice in it to find a niche that suits you and your interests.

Print out the Affiliate Masters Course, find a quiet, comfortable spot and read it several times.

Spend a lot of time thinking carefully about this and jotting down notes. You're planning a business, so don't rush it. It's very important.

You'll probably avoid Internet marketing topics because that field is so overcrowded and competitive. It's much easier to succeed if you locate a less competitive niche.

Choose a topic that is easy to write about.

Even if you've already chosen a niche, I urge you to read the Affiliate Masters Course. It might make you change your mind.

You can follow your passion or chase the money. With luck - and a bit of keyword research - you may be able to do both.




Examine your potential competitors

If you're considering building a site about hiking boots, type "hiking boots" (using quotation marks) into Google and Yahoo! and carefully examine the top 10 sites which appear in the search results.

They're your real competitors. Can you create a better, more interesting, more useful site? Can you think of a new angle, a new approach?

Do those top 10 sites all have high PageRank - say 6 or more? If so, you'll have to work really hard to get in the top 10.

Let's say the top 3 sites in Google are PageRank 8, 7 and 6. If so, you'll probably have to work hard for a couple of years or more to outrank them. I'm not saying it cannot be done, but it will require either a great deal of work, or a very innovative, eye-catching approach.

You can quickly check the PageRank of your potential competitors by using Seochat's free online tool - http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search . Type in "hiking boots" or whatever and you'll be able to see the PageRank of the top 10 sites.

Do those sites all have the phrase in the title? (The title is the words that appear at the very top of your screen when you visit a site.) If not, you may be able to beat them.


How many links do your potential competitors have?

Do your potential competitors all have thousands of links to them? This is important, because links are important to search engines. You need good, relevant links to your site. To find out how many sites are linking to a site, use the free Yahoo! Site Explorer. Go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com - and login (set up a free account if necessary).

Type the URL of the site you want to explore.

Click on "Explore URL".

Click on "Inlinks".

Modify your search to make it more useful. Select the options to show Inlinks "except from this domain" and "entire site". This will exclude internal links and show you all external links that Yahoo! knows about to ANY page of the website.

If your potential sites have thousands of links to them, they're likely to be very tough competitors.

Don't decide definitely on a niche topic until you've taken the next two steps...


STEP 3. Choose a profitable niche

Do some research on Google AdWords and Wordtracker to choose the most profitable niche from among the ones you're considering. Because you're planning to use AdSense, you want valuable keywords or key phrases, if possible ones that people are paying at least 50 cents per click for on Yahoo! Search Marketing (it used to be called Overture) and AdWords.

You're going to build a site the search engines love, so you also want to find key phrases that many people are typing into search engines. You don't rely on guesswork.

You must do this BEFORE you start building your web site. That's critically important.

Here's a useful free tool I like using for quick, rough keyword research: pixelfast.com/overture/ (Unfortunately, this free tool is based on the free Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool which Yahoo! doesn't bother maintaining properly. Sometimes it doesn't work.)

Type in a phrase, for example, "hiking boots", click "Go", follow the instructions, and you can see how much advertisers are paying per click for that phrase on the Overture network of web sites.

You can also see how many people searched for the phrase the previous month. For a number of reasons, this figure is often unreliable and can be grossly exaggerated. For example, it gives you the SAME results for "wool rug" and "rug wool", which is ridiculous. That's why I double check results using Wordtracker.

Wordtracker's free trial is fairly limited. Fortunately, they allow you to subscribe cheaply for a week at a time. It's very fast, so you can do an awful lot of keyword research in a week. I use the annual subscription now.

Go to Google's AdWords and find out how much advertisers are willing to pay for the keywords or key phrases you're interested in. Here's how.

Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and play around with the free Keyword Tool.

For example, try putting in a keyword or phrase, such as "recipe" and click on "Get More Keywords". Pretend you're willing to pay the maximum per click the tool allows - 100. (You can choose any currency. I chose US.)

Over on the right side of the page, make sure that "Cost and position estimates" is selected.

The tool will calculate for you the estimated average CPC (cost per click) for a whole lot of words and phrases.

Try entering a different word, say "debt" or "free", click on "Re-calculate" and watch how the CPC changes.

You don't HAVE to choose a topic which has expensive keywords. Often topics that have expensive keywords are very competitive. You may do better choosing a less competitive niche with cheaper keywords.

If you use Site Build It to build your site, you'll find the brainstorming tool in it awesome to help you come up with ideas and phrases you wouldn't have thought of without it.

Beware: If you choose certain topics, Google will not allow you to place AdSense ads on your site and you'll miss out on a very lucrative opportunity.

Such topics include gambling, firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles; beer or alcohol; tobacco or tobacco-related products; and prescription drugs.

For a full list of topics you may wish to avoid see: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

Advertisers can choose to have their ads displayed only on Google or also on a large network of sites. Will AdSense ads you see on Google appear on your pages? To get an idea, find web pages that have material similar to the content you're planning to create and look at their AdSense ads.

For more accurate research, you can also use the free AdSense preview tool to see which ads are being displayed to people in different countries.

Another niche-finding tool I'm very fond of is Myleena's NicheInspector. Using this powerful tool will save you a LOT of time, because it automates a great deal of the work. If you're going to get this tool, make sure you read her free report before you start using it, because her free report explains why she uses the methods she does.

Don't make any firm decision on your niche until you've taken the next step...



Research affiliate merchants

STEP: 4. Research affiliate merchants

Before you make a firm decision on a topic for your site, you'll need to do research to see if there are suitable affiliate products which match your topic.

You want affiliate merchants that have excellent products, excellent reputations and sites that look as though they're good at selling. You can search the AssociatePrograms.com affiliate directory for ideas.

Consider aiming for lifetime commissions.

If you're lucky, you'll manage to select a web site topic that has affiliate programs which pay lifetime commissions or residual commissions - the sort reviewed at LifetimeCommissions.com.

You'll earn repeat commissions when "your" customers make more purchases.




Build a useful, interesting web site on your niche

STEP 5: Build a useful, interesting web site on your niche

Here's an very important step. Many newcomer affiliates who fail do so because they have overlooked its importance.

Don't just build a website. Build a useful, interesting website on your niche.

One of the best ways is to build a site which solves people's problems. Useful sites also often help their visitors decide which products to buy.

Create a content rich, keyword-rich site, designed to be found in search engines.

Show your personality. Have a bit of fun. Be memorable. You need to connect with your visitors. Remember that people like buying from people they like.

There's no space in this affiliate program tutorial to describe how to build a website. For that, you'll need a good instruction manual.

If you're short of money, you can hunt for free information on sites such HTMLGoodies.

You'll save yourself an enormous amount of time and frustration if you take the plunge and buy a good instruction manual.

Here are the two best options:

(1.) For keen do-it-your-selfers, I recommend Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook.

Rosalind is a real been-there-done-that super affiliate.

Her instruction manual shows you how she builds very successful sites using web authoring software.

It starts right at the beginning, discussing topics such as myths about doing business online, mistakes to avoid, how to choose the best topic, how to choose the right domain name, etc.

The book, updated in May 2006, takes you step-by-step through the whole process.

One particularly useful feature is her explanation of how she achieves high conversion rates (visitor-to-sales ratios), achieving conversion rates of 4% or 6% while most affiliates are happy with 1%.

Another of the strengths of the book is her descriptions of a wide variety of ways to get traffic to your site. This is important - too many affiliates rely on just one or two traffic-generating methods. The more traffic-generating methods you have, the safer your business is.

Rosaland is genuinely successful, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Now she's also a very successful author, with sales of more $1 million from her book, which is excellent value.

When you learn from her, you're learning from a winner.

Learn more about Rosalind's Super Affiliate Handbook here.

(2.) For affiliates who want to simplify things as much as possible and automate the tedious techie stuff, I recommend Ken Evoy's Site Build It (SBI).

SBI is a site-building, site-hosting, site-promoting suite of tools, all in one place.

Once you have SBI, you don't have to go scurrying all over the Net adding more tools and software. You have almost all you need in one package, so you can concentrate on the fun part - creating useful, interesting content.

Here's what one happy SBI user says


SBI comes with a newly updated, truly comprehensive instruction manual, a step-by-step Action Guide, and a truly superb private forum where SBI users share information and help each other.

SBI is the tool I give my assistants. Take the free Video Tour and you'll understand why.

Ken Evoy's instruction manual is doing my work for me. First it taught Rupert and then Ros how to build a high quality, successful, revenue-generating site. Now it's being used by another assistant to whom I outsource website maintenance.

You could build a site without SBI, but using it saves you time and effort by simplifying the process. It provides a recipe for business success.

SBI teaches you how to optimize your web pages so they'll be found in search engines. After building a page, you click the "Analyze It" button and it tells you what you need to do to improve it.

The SBI technique really works. Two of the SBI sites that Rupert built are included in the case studies on the SBI site.

See the proof in the SBI case studies





Add affiliate links

STEP 6: Add affiliate links

As you write the articles for your site, weave affiliate links into them. Always have a typical visitor in mind as you write the articles. Speak to that visitor.

Your task as an affiliate is to help your visitor decide what to buy.

One successful technique is to gradually lead your visitor towards a purchase. Start by outlining a problem, discuss a good solution that has worked for you, and end the article with a link that is a call to action, such as a hyperlink that says, "Find out more here."

Your task as an affiliate is NOT to sell (that's the merchant's job) but to presell, to warm up your visitors. You want your visitors in a ready-to-buy frame of mind when they arrive at the merchant's site.

For superb advice on preselling, I strongly recommend you join Ken Evoy's 5 Pillar Affiliate Program. It's free to join.

Ken is an absolute whiz at preselling and he's renowned for working extremely hard to help his affiliates succeed. He has a superb program. It's been No.1 in my Top 10 for several years. I earn five-figure monthly commissions from this affiliate program.




STEP 7: Place AdSense ads on your site


If you have a good, popular site, it's remarkably easy to make good money with Google AdSense. AdSense is free to join.

Sign up for AdSense.
Here's an excellent free AdSense tutorial




Get good quality links to your site

STEP 8: Get good quality links to your site

Without links to your site, your site won't be found in the search engines. So you MUST get links to your site, if possible from "authority" sites - ones that have lots of links to them.

First, link to other sites. Choose sites that have similar or related themes, and invite those sites to link to you.

This is hugely important. Search engines love sites that have many links to them - especially if those links come from sites which are themselves popular.

Now you see why I said build a useful, interesting site. If you do that, people are more likely to link to your site.

Here's an article I wrote describing how to get reciprocal links.

Reciprocal links should be only a small part of your marketing strategy - not your whole marketing strategy.

Even better than reciprocal links are one-way links. Here's an article describing how to get one-way links.

Some of these one-way links techniques are fairly advanced and require considerable work. Most of your competitors will be too lazy to do them, so you'll have a big advantage if you do. They can make the difference between a hobby site and a serious, very profitable business.





STEP 9: Anchor text

You'll also need to understand the importance of anchor text, the words you use to link to pages on your site, the words people use when they link to your site.

To search engines, anchor text is very important.




STEP 10: List your site in major directories and niche directories in your industry.

You probably already know about Yahoo! (good but expensive) and DMOZ (often takes months to get into).

Here are some more directories (some charge a fee):

Gimpsy
Skaffe
Joeant
Business.com
GoGuides
SevenSeek
ThisIsOurYear
Looksmart (probably too expensive)
BlueFind
WowDirectory
Best of the Web
GeniusFind


Guides to web directories

David Mahler has a Guide to Web Directories. It's a good list of recommended web directories.

Here's another list: http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php


How to find niche directories:

Go to Search It! (It's a very handy free research tool.)
Scroll to the Search Category, "Specialty Hubs and Directories"
Choose one of the 4 options in STEP 2
Read the "Click Here for Information..." help before proceeding
Complete STEPS 3 and 4, and then click on Search It!
Read the tutorial. It tells you what to do with the search results
Get your search results. You should be able to find relevant, themed hub sites and directories which will list your site. Some charge a fee, some are free.





Place your articles on other websites

STEP 11: Place your articles on other websites

Write articles and distribute them to article directories (fairly easy) and try to persuade newsletters and other sites to publish them (more challenging.

This step isn't absolutely essential, but it helps enormously if you do it. Now you understand why it was so important that you chose a topic that was easy to write about.


STEP 12: Add more pages and get more links.

Keep adding useful, interesting, keyword-rich pages (you do research at Wordtracker for this) and keep encouraging more sites to link to your site.

Make friends with other web site owners, and more people will link to you...




STEP 13: Be patient.

If your new site is typical, nothing much will seem to happen for the first couple of months or so, and you'll probably become frustrated and find it hard to believe that this is going to work.

You're likely to feel annoyed, cheated and ready to quit. You're likely to be a prime target for people selling get-rich-quick junk.

Many affiliates give up at this stage. Stick with it. If you're persistent and get the details right, the process I'm describing works beautifully.

Learn something new every day. Do something to improve your business every day. If you do this, success is inevitable.




Expect to see signs of success

STEP 14: Expect to see signs of success.

Eventually, because of all the links to your site on other sites, Google, Yahoo! and MSN will find your site and start sending you traffic.

Perhaps around the three-month or four-month stage you'll be receiving 100 visitors a day. Visitors will like what they see and some site owners will start linking to you and asking you to link to them.

Keep at it. You're just getting warmed up.





STEP 15: The payoff...

About six months down the road, after little expense but quite a lot of hard work and research, you hit your magical $300 a month mark, from affiliate sales and from AdSense ads on your site.

Depending on the niche you've chosen and the skills you've learned, you might earn considerably more than $300.

Perhaps after 12 months, you'll be earning $500 to $1,000 a month from your site.

The checks keep coming in, month after month, even when you take a little vacation. You start telling friends how easy affiliate marketing is, and are puzzled when they're not convinced.

Of course, it's not really easy. It just seems easy after you've done the hard work.

...or the NON-payoff

If you've merely scanned the instruction manual and jumped right in without doing any research and built a "Make Money on the Internet" site, you'll probably earn very little. A search on Google for "make money" displays more than 4 million pages. If one of those is yours, you have a LOT of competition.

If you did this and it isn't working for you, go back to step 1 and start again.




Tweak your site

STEP 16: Tweak your site

To boost your conversion rate (your visitor-to-sales ratio), try little experiments, one thing at a time.

Try changing the heading on a page, the words, the colors, the placement of your links. With each change wait until about 1,000 visitors have seen the change, and monitor your affiliate commissions to see if they rise or fall.

You do this because you understand that if 1% of your visitors are buying and tiny changes boost your success rate to 2%, you'll DOUBLE your commissions.




STEP 17: The future

When you reach your goal of $300 a month, you wonder whether you should expand your site, perhaps adding a newsletter, an autoresponder course or two, a forum, RSS newsfeeds, a blog, a whitepaper, a report to sell ... and turn it into a portal. You dream big. Perhaps you even start dreaming of having your own affiliates promoting your reports for you...

Or perhaps you just research another little overlooked niche and start on your next simple little, low-maintenance money-generating site.

It can be done. The main ingredient needed is persistence. Been there, done that, and I have a very nice lifestyle to prove it.

The $300 a month target is very conservative. If that's all you earn, you've done something "wrong". You haven't chosen profitable keywords carefully enough, you haven't built enough attractive, keyword-rich pages, you haven't learned the basics of optimizing pages for search engines, or you haven't attracted enough good quality links to your site.

That's the wonderful thing about this business. You can make lots of mistakes and still earn useful money. Just don't make TOO many mistakes.




STEP 18: Take the first step

That's the one that matters most.

I suggest you go back and read through this affiliate program tutorial again.

Picture yourself owning a successful Internet business. Picture yourself opening letters and finding checks in them. Picture yourself going into your PayPal account and seeing the latest commissions you've been paid by affiliate merchants.

Imagine enjoying yourself spending the money, perhaps even giving up your day job so that you can concentrate on your own business.

Now take the first step.

And when you've quit your day job, please write and tell me. I love getting emails like that.

Read more!

How to boost your AdSense revenue

How to boost your AdSense revenue


Let's say you have a goal of earning $100,000 a year from AdSense. Is that possible?
Let's see ... $100,000 divided by 365 = $274 a day. So your goal is to produce either:
274 pages which earn $1 a day
OR
548 pages which earn 50 cents a day
OR
1096 pages which earn 25 cents a day
The following are hypothetical cases. To earn $1 a day per page, you need, per page...
400 visitors, 5% click-through rate (CTR) and average 5c payout.
Or 200 visitors, 10% CTR and an average 5c payout.
Or 100 visitors, 10% CTR, and an average 10c payout.
Or 100 visitors, 5% CTR, and an average 20c payout.
Or 50 visitors, 10% CTR and 20c average payout.
Or 25 visitors, 20% CTR and 20c average payout.
Or 20 visitors, 10% CTR and 50c average payout.
Or 10 visitors, 20% CTR and 50c average payout.
Or 5 visitors, 20% CTR and $1 average payout.
Let's assume you choose a goal somewhere around the middle, say aiming for 50 visitors per page and want 274 pages earning $1 a day. You'd need 274 x 50 = 13,700 pageviews a day.
Does that sound too tough? If so, you'd better look for more profitable keywords and ways to improve your click-through rates.
Let's try a different scenario. You choose more profitable keywords and make your $1 on average per page from, say, 10 visitors. 274 x 10 = 2740 pageviews a day.
That's looking easier to achieve. If your average visitor sees 3 pages, you now need 913 unique visitors a day.
Is that too tough to achieve in your niche? If so, create two sites, each attracting half that number, 456 unique visitors, a day.
Can't achieve those click-through rates and payouts? Then you'll either need more pages on your sites on more niche sites.
Some affiliates have a goal of writing one article a day and building one site a month.
Need a little more help reaching that $100,000 goal? Add affiliate commissions into the equation. Add a newsletter for repeat sales.
Choose the goal which best matches your site or sites.
Then start building keyword-rich pages containing well researched, profitable keywords, and get lots of high quality links to your site.
Please note, because of the AdSense rules, these are all hypothetical cases. I'm not allowed to give real cases. Real CTR rates and payouts vary hugely.

It's fast
Google usually approves web sites in less than a day.
After your site is approved, within a few hours a special Google spider will spider your site. Then it's time to paste the code into your site and the text ads will appear.
You can choose between either horizontal or skyscraper AdSense ads.


How AdSense matches ads to web pages


Google is doing a good job of finding ads that are highly relevant to the web pages.
Google says:
"We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on an algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page."
Occasionally Google gets it wrong. It places great importance on the file name. So be sure to use important keywords in the file name of each page, such as "contextual-advertising.html" for an article on contextual advertising.
Also, watch out for your anchor text - the words in the links on your page. We've found that sometimes if irrelevant ads are being served, you can fix the problem by rewriting anchor text.
You can check the relevance of the ads by looking at the text ads near the top-right of this page.
Generate revenue from your website. Google AdSense.






Will the AdSense ads appear on your page?


Publishers can choose to have their ads displayed only on Google or also on a large network of sites.
Will AdSense ads you see on Google appear your pages? To get an idea, find web pages that have material similar to the content you're planning to create and look at their AdSense ads.
You can also use AdSense's preview tool to see which ads are being displayed to people in different countries.
Beware: If you choose certain topics, Google will not allow you to place AdSense ads on your site and you'll miss out on a very lucrative opportunity.
Such topics include gambling, firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles; beer or alcohol; tobacco or tobacco-related products; and prescription drugs.
For a full list of topics you may wish to avoid see: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US





Why are the wrong AdSense ads being displayed?


Sometimes, Google seems to get it wrong. You create a page and ads you've seen elsewhere and were expecting to see on your page just don't turn up. Instead, you see vaguely relevant or totally irrelevant ads.
Here are four possibilities:
1. Your page isn't perfectly optimized for the keywords. It's very important to get the key phrase in the file name, for example "product-xyz.html", in the title, in the heading, in the first paragraph, in the body, at the end, and put it in the meta tag description, too.
2. Advertisers can choose to advertise just on Google's search engine. They can opt out of advertising on the AdSense content network. Perhaps the advertisers you're interested in have opted out. To check, type a few phrases into Google and try to find some sites that are displaying Google ads and see which ads appear.
3. Advertisers can choose which countries will see their ads. If you're in Canada, for example, you may not see an ad that people in the U.S. will see. To find out where ads are being displayed, download the free Adsense Preview Tool.
4. This is very rare, but weird stuff can happen for no apparent reason. If all else fails, contact AdSense support. I've always found them prompt and helpful.







Sites using AdSense

Sites using AdSense include large information sites, affiliate-driven sites, forums and blogs.
"Chat" sites are considered not suitable. Some blogs are being rejected, but information-rich blogs are being accepted.

GoogleGuy explains AdSense
GoogleGuy, an anonymous Google employee who contributes to discussions on the WebMasterWorld.com forums, explains how AdSense will help information sites:
"...sites that provide solid content, especially niche sites that don't want to hunt down their own advertisers, should really benefit ... there's a whole universe of people who ... mostly produce informational sites, and the chance to recoup their costs without much effort is nice. I hope AdSense does encourage more diversity and voices on the web, because now smaller sites can work on what they're interested in - the content of their sites - without worrying very much about the costs of self-publishing information."





How to choose sites to block
You'll probably want to block some of the AdSense ads from appearing on your site. As well as blocking rubbishy sites, you may want to block tough competitors.
The ability to block sites is especially important for sites that are not purely affiliate-income driven. For example, if you're selling a service or a product you won't want competitors' ads on your site.
You can find such competitors by doing some searches on Google for key phrases that are important on your site and looking at the AdWords ads that appear






Serious tracking to maximize AdSense profits


How do you find out which AdSense ads get the highest number of click-throughs? How do you find out which ads are best at generating clicks that pay?
AdSense provides what it calls channels, and you can experiment to find out which pages on your site are generating the most revenue, which colors work best, what ad placement works best, whether you should use borderless ads, etc.
However, if you have a large site, you'll find AdSense tracking via channels is seriously lacking.
AdSense Tracker is a powerful php script that keeps detailed logs of all impressions and clicks on AdSense ads on all your websites without altering the ad code itself. The data can then be used to analyze the effectiveness of your sites, track different ad sizes and styles, or even individual pages.
You can track every click-through so you'll know what your visitors are looking for. This makes it easy for you to build more perfectly targeted, profitable pages.
It can track unlimited domains and pages. It's resource intensive and should be hosted separately.
If you just have a small site you probably don't need it. AdSense Tracker is a tool for professionals






How to increase your AdSense earnings

If you hear about people achieving high payments per click with AdSense, remember that's only part of the story. for high total earnings, you also need lots of page views and a high click-through rate.
Here are some ideas on how to achieve those three things:
If you're starting afresh designing a site specifically for AdSense revenue, you'll want a simple design that makes it easy to paste Google's code into a horizontal or vertical space on the site. For experienced webmasters, that's easy.
To increase your click-throughs, design a simple, uncluttered page with the AdSense ads displayed prominently.
Use white space, so that the AdSense panel catches the eye.
Where possible, use ads high on the page. They catch visitors' attention.
Experiment with borderless ads high on the page. (You can create borderless ads by setting the border color to the same as the background color. Look in your AdSense control panel under "Ad settings".)
Try placing AdSense high in the left-hand column. That works well for super affiliate James Martell.
On very simple, one-column pages, making your article wrap around AdSense ads near the top-right of the page works remarkably well for me on a non-Internet marketing site.
Stick to only one topic per page - that makes it easier for Google to serve up highly relevant ads on your pages.
Plain, bland pages with few competing links result in higher click-through rates on the AdSense ads.
If you want to target certain high-priced keywords, use them in the file name, in the heading on the page, and in the first paragraph - in other words, use search engine optimization techniques.
If you change those keywords, Google will change the ads that appear on your page.
If you have trouble getting AdSense to serve relevant pages, check your anchor text - the words used in links on your page. Try changing some of those words.
Watch out for cases where Google has guessed wrong, and is displaying ads that won't interest your visitors. Figure out which words are involved, and rewrite those words. Help Google by sticking closely to the topic.
Don't worry about losing traffic via those clicks. If you can earn maybe 30 or 50 cents or more per click, you WANT to lose visitors!
You'll also want keyword-rich pages, optimized to rank highly in search engines, so you can serve lots of pages.
Try using ads at the top of the page and again at the bottom. At first, this wasn't allowed but AdSense changed the rules and it's now OK.
One of the beautiful things about AdSense is that you can generate revenue from informational sites even if there are no obvious related affiliate programs. With more than 100,000 advertisers, there's a good chance that Google will find ads that match your pages, better than the big ad networks can.
Don't be tempted into trying to create thousands of spammy computer-generated articles. Human beings review sites for AdSense. Build useful, interesting sites. Google likes them.
One way to create articles quickly is use Gary Antosh's approach. He pays people to write articles for him - by the truckload. So far he has bought hundreds of them and paid only $5 per article. See How to buy articles for $5 - the details
Another way is to use works that are copyright-free. Here's a book that describes how to find such articles: The Public Domain: How to Find and Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More
However, that technique isn't likely to be useful for long. At the very least, it would be wise to add your own introduction and conclusions to make your pages different from everyone else's.
Several websites now sell packages of articles on a wide variety of topics. I belong to several of these membership sites. It's an excellent way of saving time. It's so much easier to rewrite an article you've bought than do all the research and writing yourself.
These articles are often referred to as PLR articles or private label rights articles because you own the right to alter them in any way you wish. Here are some good sources of PLR articles.
You can use PLR articles to quickly add lots of keyword-rich articles to your site for the search engines to find.
For long-term success, write your own original articles on a topic you're passionate about. That way, you're writing for humans AND search engines.







You want profitable keywords: high demand, low supply


Keep in mind that some topics attract much higher payouts per click than others.
For example, if your site is about topics such as debt consolidation, web hosting or asbestos-related cancer, you'll earn much more per click than if it's about free things.
On the other hand, if you concentrate only on top-paying keywords, you'll face an awful lot of tough competition.
What you want are keywords that are high in demand and low in supply.
So do some careful keyword research before you build your pages



8 ways to do keyword research for AdSense pages


1. If you have a Google AdWords account, pretend you are planning to advertise using different keywords, and see how much you'd have to pay. That will give you a good indication of the popularity of the keywords.
Here's how. Follow these steps. In step 2, "Create Ad Group", click on "Calculate Estimates" and "Recalculate Estimates". These show you the maximum you would have to pay per click to advertise for particular keywords or key phrases.
For finding new key phrases, you can use Go to Google's AdWords and find out how much advertisers are willing to pay for the keywords or key phrases you're interested in. Here's how.
Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and play around with the free Keyword Tool.
For example, try putting in a keyword or phrase, such as "book" and click on "Get More Keywords". Pretend you're willing to pay the maximum per click the tool allows - 100. (You can choose any currency. I chose US.)
Over on the right side of the page, make sure that "Cost and position estimates" is selected.
The tool will calculate for you the estimated average CPC (cost per click) for a whole lot of words and phrases. Try entering a different word, say "debt" or "free", click on "Re-calculate" and watch how the CPC changes.
You don't HAVE to choose a topic which has expensive keywords. Often topics that have expensive keywords are very competitive. You may do better choosing a less competitive niche with cheaper keywords.
Sign up for AdWords.
2. Keywords Analyzer is a superb tool which can generate thousands of key phrases that people are typing into search engines. If you have a Wordtracker account, you can also import data from Wordtracker and analyze it. It shows you, for example, how many advertisers have ad campaigns at AdWords for each phrase. If you're using AdSense, the more advertisers the better!
3. Have a look at the top 100 keywords on 7search. This will give you a quick idea of keywords that people are willing to pay big money for. You can also type phrases into the 7Search Keyword Suggestion Tool. This is just step one of your keyword research. You'll want to dig deeper.
4. At FindWhat pay-per-click search engine you can do a search for any phrase and quickly see how much advertisers are paying per click.
5. You can experiment typing words into Yahoo! Search Marketing's View Bids Tool. Let's say you type in "asbestos cancer". The top three advertisers often pay about $12 per click. So that might be an good choice for a topic - provided you're a specialist on mesothelioma AND provided that your research shows that it's an in-demand topic.
For "debt consolidation", the top two advertisers often pay more than $9 per click.
6. The free Web Marketing Keyword Bid Research Tool speeds up your research at Yahoo! Search Marketing. Type in a keyword and learn how much advertisers are paying per click and also find out how many searches were done on that keyword last month.
However, you need to know that Yahoo! combines singular and plural phrases, and robots are used to check bids. Both of these factors tend to distort the results you'll see. Checking Yahoo! Search Marketing is good for quick, rough research, nothing more.
7. You can use Wordtracker to look for the 1,000 most popular keywords. You can also use it to compile a useful list of keywords relating to one topic. If you buy it for a day or a week, you can do a lot of research in that time. It's the tool the professionals use.
Wordtracker has a free trial, but it's fairly limited. You can subscribe for as little as one day and do an awful lot of keyword research in that time. I have an annual account because I use it so frequently for keyword research.
8. The brainstorming and research tools in Site Build It! are my favorite way to do brainstorming for keywords that are in high demand and low supply. SBI is a superb tool - actually, a suite of tools. It's an all-in-one web hosting, site-building and web marketing tool. Type in a keyword and SBI Manager will present you with dozens of profitable keywords - ones with high demand and low supply. It can present them in order of profitability. Drill down, and you'll get dozens more profitable keywords.
SBI also has an "Analyze It" tool that helps you build keyword-rich pages that rank highly in search engines. It's simply superb. I use it and love it.
Site Build It! is an excellent choice for quickly building large, simple sites designed to rank highly in search engines - which makes it perfect for generating lots of AdSense revenue. Check it out.
QUICK SUMMARY: Build useful, simple sites - one topic per page - using valuable key phrases that are high in demand and low in supply. For researching, building and promoting easy-to-build sites that rank high in search engines, there's one suite of tools that's head and shoulders above all the rest - Site Build It!
Site Build It! builds sites that work for ANY small business. See the proof...

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commissions you've been p

You joined an affiliate program. Here are the 18 steps to take next

(Please bookmark this affiliate tutorial. You'll want to return to it.)

This Affiliate Program Tutorial aims to give you a quick overview.

It's your road map to success as an affiliate.

I've been earning a good living from affiliate programs since 1998. Based on that experience, this tutorial tells you the 18 steps to take to generate a useful income from affiliate programs.

No tricks. No gimmicks. Just solid, reliable methods designed to work for years.

You have the choice of many different ways of earning affiliate commissions.

In my experience, you'll have your best chance of success if you do the following. Find a niche and create a useful, interesting, content-rich, keyword-rich website on one topic and weave in affiliate links and AdSense ads.

This method - with the more recent addition of AdSense ads - has worked beautifully for me since 1998.

I urge you to master this basic method. It's a bit like serving an apprenticeship.

As part of your apprenticeship you'll learn SEO (search engine optimization) skills, copywriting skills and various other Internet marketing skills which will prove to be invaluable, whatever route you choose next.

With any luck, you'll have a bit of fun, too! I do.

I include Google's AdSense in this tutorial. Strictly speaking, AdSense is an advertising network. However, in many ways it's similar to an affiliate program. I think AdSense is fantastic. It's free to join, free to use and easy to use.

It's often much easier to earn good money from AdSense than affiliate programs, so it's essential that you include AdSense in your plans.

OK. Let's get started...


STEP 1: Set a goal

If you want to go somewhere, you need to know where you're going.

Let's start with a modest goal. Say you aim to earn a total of $300 (US) a month in affiliate commissions and AdSense revenue. Imagine what you could do with that money. A holiday? A better lifestyle?

I've kept the amount low, because it's important that you believe you can do this. Achieve small successes first, see the money in your hands or in your bank account, and then increase your goals.

Perhaps you have much larger goals. That's OK. Whatever your goals, I strongly recommend that you serve your apprenticeship by taking these 18 steps. They'll give you solid knowledge and experience on which to build your affiliate business.


























Find your niche

STEP 2: Find your niche

To help you find your niche topic, read Ken Evoy's free Affiliate Masters Course and use the excellent advice in it to find a niche that suits you and your interests.

Print out the Affiliate Masters Course, find a quiet, comfortable spot and read it several times.

Spend a lot of time thinking carefully about this and jotting down notes. You're planning a business, so don't rush it. It's very important.

You'll probably avoid Internet marketing topics because that field is so overcrowded and competitive. It's much easier to succeed if you locate a less competitive niche.

Choose a topic that is easy to write about.

Even if you've already chosen a niche, I urge you to read the Affiliate Masters Course. It might make you change your mind.

You can follow your passion or chase the money. With luck - and a bit of keyword research - you may be able to do both.




Examine your potential competitors

If you're considering building a site about hiking boots, type "hiking boots" (using quotation marks) into Google and Yahoo! and carefully examine the top 10 sites which appear in the search results.

They're your real competitors. Can you create a better, more interesting, more useful site? Can you think of a new angle, a new approach?

Do those top 10 sites all have high PageRank - say 6 or more? If so, you'll have to work really hard to get in the top 10.

Let's say the top 3 sites in Google are PageRank 8, 7 and 6. If so, you'll probably have to work hard for a couple of years or more to outrank them. I'm not saying it cannot be done, but it will require either a great deal of work, or a very innovative, eye-catching approach.

You can quickly check the PageRank of your potential competitors by using Seochat's free online tool - http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search . Type in "hiking boots" or whatever and you'll be able to see the PageRank of the top 10 sites.

Do those sites all have the phrase in the title? (The title is the words that appear at the very top of your screen when you visit a site.) If not, you may be able to beat them.


How many links do your potential competitors have?

Do your potential competitors all have thousands of links to them? This is important, because links are important to search engines. You need good, relevant links to your site. To find out how many sites are linking to a site, use the free Yahoo! Site Explorer. Go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com - and login (set up a free account if necessary).

Type the URL of the site you want to explore.

Click on "Explore URL".

Click on "Inlinks".

Modify your search to make it more useful. Select the options to show Inlinks "except from this domain" and "entire site". This will exclude internal links and show you all external links that Yahoo! knows about to ANY page of the website.

If your potential sites have thousands of links to them, they're likely to be very tough competitors.

Don't decide definitely on a niche topic until you've taken the next two steps...


STEP 3. Choose a profitable niche

Do some research on Google AdWords and Wordtracker to choose the most profitable niche from among the ones you're considering. Because you're planning to use AdSense, you want valuable keywords or key phrases, if possible ones that people are paying at least 50 cents per click for on Yahoo! Search Marketing (it used to be called Overture) and AdWords.

You're going to build a site the search engines love, so you also want to find key phrases that many people are typing into search engines. You don't rely on guesswork.

You must do this BEFORE you start building your web site. That's critically important.

Here's a useful free tool I like using for quick, rough keyword research: pixelfast.com/overture/ (Unfortunately, this free tool is based on the free Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool which Yahoo! doesn't bother maintaining properly. Sometimes it doesn't work.)

Type in a phrase, for example, "hiking boots", click "Go", follow the instructions, and you can see how much advertisers are paying per click for that phrase on the Overture network of web sites.

You can also see how many people searched for the phrase the previous month. For a number of reasons, this figure is often unreliable and can be grossly exaggerated. For example, it gives you the SAME results for "wool rug" and "rug wool", which is ridiculous. That's why I double check results using Wordtracker.

Wordtracker's free trial is fairly limited. Fortunately, they allow you to subscribe cheaply for a week at a time. It's very fast, so you can do an awful lot of keyword research in a week. I use the annual subscription now.

Go to Google's AdWords and find out how much advertisers are willing to pay for the keywords or key phrases you're interested in. Here's how.

Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and play around with the free Keyword Tool.

For example, try putting in a keyword or phrase, such as "recipe" and click on "Get More Keywords". Pretend you're willing to pay the maximum per click the tool allows - 100. (You can choose any currency. I chose US.)

Over on the right side of the page, make sure that "Cost and position estimates" is selected.

The tool will calculate for you the estimated average CPC (cost per click) for a whole lot of words and phrases.

Try entering a different word, say "debt" or "free", click on "Re-calculate" and watch how the CPC changes.

You don't HAVE to choose a topic which has expensive keywords. Often topics that have expensive keywords are very competitive. You may do better choosing a less competitive niche with cheaper keywords.

If you use Site Build It to build your site, you'll find the brainstorming tool in it awesome to help you come up with ideas and phrases you wouldn't have thought of without it.

Beware: If you choose certain topics, Google will not allow you to place AdSense ads on your site and you'll miss out on a very lucrative opportunity.

Such topics include gambling, firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles; beer or alcohol; tobacco or tobacco-related products; and prescription drugs.

For a full list of topics you may wish to avoid see: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

Advertisers can choose to have their ads displayed only on Google or also on a large network of sites. Will AdSense ads you see on Google appear on your pages? To get an idea, find web pages that have material similar to the content you're planning to create and look at their AdSense ads.

For more accurate research, you can also use the free AdSense preview tool to see which ads are being displayed to people in different countries.

Another niche-finding tool I'm very fond of is Myleena's NicheInspector. Using this powerful tool will save you a LOT of time, because it automates a great deal of the work. If you're going to get this tool, make sure you read her free report before you start using it, because her free report explains why she uses the methods she does.

Don't make any firm decision on your niche until you've taken the next step...

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Research affiliate merchants

STEP: 4. Research affiliate merchants

Before you make a firm decision on a topic for your site, you'll need to do research to see if there are suitable affiliate products which match your topic.

You want affiliate merchants that have excellent products, excellent reputations and sites that look as though they're good at selling. You can search the AssociatePrograms.com affiliate directory for ideas.

Consider aiming for lifetime commissions.

If you're lucky, you'll manage to select a web site topic that has affiliate programs which pay lifetime commissions or residual commissions - the sort reviewed at LifetimeCommissions.com.

You'll earn repeat commissions when "your" customers make more purchases.

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Build a useful, interesting web site on your niche

STEP 5: Build a useful, interesting web site on your niche

Here's an very important step. Many newcomer affiliates who fail do so because they have overlooked its importance.

Don't just build a website. Build a useful, interesting website on your niche.

One of the best ways is to build a site which solves people's problems. Useful sites also often help their visitors decide which products to buy.

Create a content rich, keyword-rich site, designed to be found in search engines.

Show your personality. Have a bit of fun. Be memorable. You need to connect with your visitors. Remember that people like buying from people they like.

There's no space in this affiliate program tutorial to describe how to build a website. For that, you'll need a good instruction manual.

If you're short of money, you can hunt for free information on sites such HTMLGoodies.

You'll save yourself an enormous amount of time and frustration if you take the plunge and buy a good instruction manual.

Here are the two best options:

(1.) For keen do-it-your-selfers, I recommend Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook.

Rosalind is a real been-there-done-that super affiliate.

Her instruction manual shows you how she builds very successful sites using web authoring software.

It starts right at the beginning, discussing topics such as myths about doing business online, mistakes to avoid, how to choose the best topic, how to choose the right domain name, etc.

The book, updated in May 2006, takes you step-by-step through the whole process.

One particularly useful feature is her explanation of how she achieves high conversion rates (visitor-to-sales ratios), achieving conversion rates of 4% or 6% while most affiliates are happy with 1%.

Another of the strengths of the book is her descriptions of a wide variety of ways to get traffic to your site. This is important - too many affiliates rely on just one or two traffic-generating methods. The more traffic-generating methods you have, the safer your business is.

Rosaland is genuinely successful, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Now she's also a very successful author, with sales of more $1 million from her book, which is excellent value.

When you learn from her, you're learning from a winner.

Learn more about Rosalind's Super Affiliate Handbook here.

(2.) For affiliates who want to simplify things as much as possible and automate the tedious techie stuff, I recommend Ken Evoy's Site Build It (SBI).

SBI is a site-building, site-hosting, site-promoting suite of tools, all in one place.

Once you have SBI, you don't have to go scurrying all over the Net adding more tools and software. You have almost all you need in one package, so you can concentrate on the fun part - creating useful, interesting content.

Here's what one happy SBI user says


SBI comes with a newly updated, truly comprehensive instruction manual, a step-by-step Action Guide, and a truly superb private forum where SBI users share information and help each other.

SBI is the tool I give my assistants. Take the free Video Tour and you'll understand why.

Ken Evoy's instruction manual is doing my work for me. First it taught Rupert and then Ros how to build a high quality, successful, revenue-generating site. Now it's being used by another assistant to whom I outsource website maintenance.

You could build a site without SBI, but using it saves you time and effort by simplifying the process. It provides a recipe for business success.

SBI teaches you how to optimize your web pages so they'll be found in search engines. After building a page, you click the "Analyze It" button and it tells you what you need to do to improve it.

The SBI technique really works. Two of the SBI sites that Rupert built are included in the case studies on the SBI site.

See the proof in the SBI case studies

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Add affiliate links

STEP 6: Add affiliate links

As you write the articles for your site, weave affiliate links into them. Always have a typical visitor in mind as you write the articles. Speak to that visitor.

Your task as an affiliate is to help your visitor decide what to buy.

One successful technique is to gradually lead your visitor towards a purchase. Start by outlining a problem, discuss a good solution that has worked for you, and end the article with a link that is a call to action, such as a hyperlink that says, "Find out more here."

Your task as an affiliate is NOT to sell (that's the merchant's job) but to presell, to warm up your visitors. You want your visitors in a ready-to-buy frame of mind when they arrive at the merchant's site.

For superb advice on preselling, I strongly recommend you join Ken Evoy's 5 Pillar Affiliate Program. It's free to join.

Ken is an absolute whiz at preselling and he's renowned for working extremely hard to help his affiliates succeed. He has a superb program. It's been No.1 in my Top 10 for several years. I earn five-figure monthly commissions from this affiliate program.


STEP 7: Place AdSense ads on your site


If you have a good, popular site, it's remarkably easy to make good money with Google AdSense. AdSense is free to join.

Sign up for AdSense.
Here's an excellent free AdSense tutorial















Get good quality links to your site

STEP 8: Get good quality links to your site

Without links to your site, your site won't be found in the search engines. So you MUST get links to your site, if possible from "authority" sites - ones that have lots of links to them.

First, link to other sites. Choose sites that have similar or related themes, and invite those sites to link to you.

This is hugely important. Search engines love sites that have many links to them - especially if those links come from sites which are themselves popular.

Now you see why I said build a useful, interesting site. If you do that, people are more likely to link to your site.

Here's an article I wrote describing how to get reciprocal links.

Reciprocal links should be only a small part of your marketing strategy - not your whole marketing strategy.

Even better than reciprocal links are one-way links. Here's an article describing how to get one-way links.

Some of these one-way links techniques are fairly advanced and require considerable work. Most of your competitors will be too lazy to do them, so you'll have a big advantage if you do. They can make the difference between a hobby site and a serious, very profitable business.


STEP 9: Anchor text

You'll also need to understand the importance of anchor text, the words you use to link to pages on your site, the words people use when they link to your site.

To search engines, anchor text is very important.

STEP 10: List your site in major directories and niche directories in your industry.

You probably already know about Yahoo! (good but expensive) and DMOZ (often takes months to get into).

Here are some more directories (some charge a fee):

Gimpsy
Skaffe
Joeant
Business.com
GoGuides
SevenSeek
ThisIsOurYear
Looksmart (probably too expensive)
BlueFind
WowDirectory
Best of the Web
GeniusFind


Guides to web directories

David Mahler has a Guide to Web Directories. It's a good list of recommended web directories.

Here's another list: http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php


How to find niche directories:

Go to Search It! (It's a very handy free research tool.)
Scroll to the Search Category, "Specialty Hubs and Directories"
Choose one of the 4 options in STEP 2
Read the "Click Here for Information..." help before proceeding
Complete STEPS 3 and 4, and then click on Search It!
Read the tutorial. It tells you what to do with the search results
Get your search results. You should be able to find relevant, themed hub sites and directories which will list your site. Some charge a fee, some are free.
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Place your articles on other websites

STEP 11: Place your articles on other websites

Write articles and distribute them to article directories (fairly easy) and try to persuade newsletters and other sites to publish them (more challenging.

This step isn't absolutely essential, but it helps enormously if you do it. Now you understand why it was so important that you chose a topic that was easy to write about.


STEP 12: Add more pages and get more links.

Keep adding useful, interesting, keyword-rich pages (you do research at Wordtracker for this) and keep encouraging more sites to link to your site.

Make friends with other web site owners, and more people will link to you...


STEP 13: Be patient.

If your new site is typical, nothing much will seem to happen for the first couple of months or so, and you'll probably become frustrated and find it hard to believe that this is going to work.

You're likely to feel annoyed, cheated and ready to quit. You're likely to be a prime target for people selling get-rich-quick junk.

Many affiliates give up at this stage. Stick with it. If you're persistent and get the details right, the process I'm describing works beautifully.

Learn something new every day. Do something to improve your business every day. If you do this, success is inevitable.

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Expect to see signs of success

STEP 14: Expect to see signs of success.

Eventually, because of all the links to your site on other sites, Google, Yahoo! and MSN will find your site and start sending you traffic.

Perhaps around the three-month or four-month stage you'll be receiving 100 visitors a day. Visitors will like what they see and some site owners will start linking to you and asking you to link to them.

Keep at it. You're just getting warmed up.


STEP 15: The payoff...

About six months down the road, after little expense but quite a lot of hard work and research, you hit your magical $300 a month mark, from affiliate sales and from AdSense ads on your site.

Depending on the niche you've chosen and the skills you've learned, you might earn considerably more than $300.

Perhaps after 12 months, you'll be earning $500 to $1,000 a month from your site.

The checks keep coming in, month after month, even when you take a little vacation. You start telling friends how easy affiliate marketing is, and are puzzled when they're not convinced.

Of course, it's not really easy. It just seems easy after you've done the hard work.

...or the NON-payoff

If you've merely scanned the instruction manual and jumped right in without doing any research and built a "Make Money on the Internet" site, you'll probably earn very little. A search on Google for "make money" displays more than 4 million pages. If one of those is yours, you have a LOT of competition.

If you did this and it isn't working for you, go back to step 1 and start again.


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Tweak your site

STEP 16: Tweak your site

To boost your conversion rate (your visitor-to-sales ratio), try little experiments, one thing at a time.

Try changing the heading on a page, the words, the colors, the placement of your links. With each change wait until about 1,000 visitors have seen the change, and monitor your affiliate commissions to see if they rise or fall.

You do this because you understand that if 1% of your visitors are buying and tiny changes boost your success rate to 2%, you'll DOUBLE your commissions.


STEP 17: The future

When you reach your goal of $300 a month, you wonder whether you should expand your site, perhaps adding a newsletter, an autoresponder course or two, a forum, RSS newsfeeds, a blog, a whitepaper, a report to sell ... and turn it into a portal. You dream big. Perhaps you even start dreaming of having your own affiliates promoting your reports for you...

Or perhaps you just research another little overlooked niche and start on your next simple little, low-maintenance money-generating site.

It can be done. The main ingredient needed is persistence. Been there, done that, and I have a very nice lifestyle to prove it.

The $300 a month target is very conservative. If that's all you earn, you've done something "wrong". You haven't chosen profitable keywords carefully enough, you haven't built enough attractive, keyword-rich pages, you haven't learned the basics of optimizing pages for search engines, or you haven't attracted enough good quality links to your site.

That's the wonderful thing about this business. You can make lots of mistakes and still earn useful money. Just don't make TOO many mistakes.


STEP 18: Take the first step

That's the one that matters most.

I suggest you go back and read through this affiliate program tutorial again.

Picture yourself owning a successful Internet business. Picture yourself opening letters and finding checks in them. Picture yourself going into your PayPal account and seeing the latest commissions you've been paid by affiliate merchants.

Imagine enjoying yourself spending the money, perhaps even giving up your day job so that you can concentrate on your own business.

Now take the first step.

And when you've quit your day job, please write and tell me. I love getting emails like that.

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