How To Split Testing: More Sales

Every marketer knows tricks to generate more sale is to do split testing. How does one do it and what does it involve. Here we will take a look at the 3 steps to generate more sales by split testing and how to steps.  Email marketing it finest when it done right.

eMail Marketing: 3 Steps to More Sales By Split Testing

By Amanda Gagnon

Take a look at that last promotion you sent. Go ahead, open it up.

How is your subject? Interesting enough to open? How about your call to action? So intriguing that you want to click it?

Good! But opens and clicks only measure interest. They’re not your end goal.

Your goal is to make sales. It’s the revenue from customer purchases that keeps you afloat. So a broadcast’s true worth can be measured in the sales it generates.

The trick is finding out how to put the message together in a way that prompts the most purchases. With a little setup, you can do this right in your AWeber account.

Step 1: Set Up Sales Tracking

First, you’ll need to make sure you’re tracking the purchases subscribers are making in response to each broadcast.

You can do this with sales tracking. If you’ve already set this up, skip to step 2. If you haven’t yet, head over to our Knowledge Base and follow these steps.

Once you’re ready, it’s time for…

Step 2: Tweak Your Promotional Broadcast

Start with your original broadcast design. The goal is to see if a different version will sell more, so you’ll need to create that other version.

To get started, take a look at:

  • Your call to action. Is your design eye-catching enough? Would different words be more compelling? Should it move above the fold (the point where readers need to scroll to see more)?
  • Your text-to-image ratio. Experts recommend a blend of 60% text to 40% images to illustrate your message while avoiding spam traps.
  • Your preheader. Do you have a whitelisting request? A link to your newsletter online? An unsubscribe link?
  • Your format. Are you using the best layout for your content? Or should you try one of these options instead?
  • Your images and copy. Are you presenting your product or service in the best possible light? Or would your readers respond better to something else?

Step 3: Split Test For the Winning Design

To figure out which design will generate more sales, use the broadcast split testing feature in your account. This sends each version to a randomly selected, equally sized audience so you’ll get the most accurate results.

After the broadcasts go out, follow the QuickStats for each version to keep track of sales. (Just click on the subject on the Broadcast page to see how they’re doing.)

Once you have the winning version, you know what design to use for future promotions!

How Likely Are You to Follow These Steps?

Does setting up sales tracking and a split test sound like something you’re likely to do?

If it does, what changes do you think you’ll test? We’d love to hear about your results!

If not, what’s standing in your way?

Want to try email marketing: Try Aweber for $1 right now.

Does Commision Junction Affiliate Work For You?

Today as I was talking with a friend who recently got started with internet marketing, she told me that she started with Commision Junction (CJ) and she hardly makes any sales. While, I am doing IM for a few years, I have yet to make good money with CJ.

I do better with Amazon (not this site) and adsense (again not this site) but I use CJ primarily with this site except for a few exception but my CJ affiliate income is nothing to write home about. I think 1 to 3% is return on affiliate is reasonable but it is not the case with CJ. So, I could not tell my friend what to do to improve the percentage as I am stumped myself. I have called CJ and vendors without much help.

Very few people I know who are in IM are in same boat as my friend or have crazy traffic in order for them to work. Do you work with CJ? Are you getting good earning from it? How to improve your affiliates from it?

I am curious for those of you who are good at earning from CJ, do you have any recommendation on how to work best with Commision Junction Affiliates?

How To Set Up a Blog: Part 9 – More Monetizing Tips

This article is part 9 in series of how to set up a blog series. In part 1 of the series,we learned how to set up a blog,in part 2 of the series,we looked at how to write to attract readers,in part 3 of the series,we looked at where and how to get ideas for what to write on your blog,part 4 of the series we looked at how to optimize on page SEO to attract traffic to your blog. In Part 5 of the series, we looked at how to optimized off page (outside your blog SEO for increasing traffic to your blog). In part 6 of the series, we looked at how to set up an off page SEO and Google Page rank. In part 7 of the series, we saw on how to get more traffic to your blog website. In part 8 of the series, we looked at two popular ways to monetize your blog. In part 9, we will look at more ways to monetize your website, blog and make money from it.

See previous post on how to set up blog series: How to Set Up Blog:Part 8- How To Monetize Your Blog

Part 9 – More Monetizing Options

We’ve discussed about using Google Adsense program and other merchants’ affiliate programs to generate profits from your blog. However, we have a lot of other options of monetize your blog, so we’re going to look into that today. Here are a few more ways to monetize your blog and make money from home.

Chitika Program

The first option we’ll be looking at is Chitika (www.chitika.com). Chitika is a very innovative contextual advertising program because it can serve very detailed advertisements. For example, on your technological gadget blog, Chitika will show advertisements for tech gadgets such as iPods. The way they show it is in different tabs: one for “Best deals”, another for “details”, another for “reviews” and so on. This way, it is more of an informational section for your visitor rather than an advertisement, and naturally the click-through will be higher. You can apply here: https://chitika.com/application.php?type=mm

Amazon Affiliate Program:

You can also be an affiliate for Amazon.com. Amazon offers a wide range of products but its predominant domain is in books. Whatever your niche is about, you can probably find a book about it on Amazon.com. Join their Associate programme here: https://associates.amazon.com/gp/flex/associates/apply-login.html/

Once you join them, you can refer visitors to them and earn up to 8% commission. It’s not a lot but if you can manage to refer big volumes of visitors, Amazon is for you. This program really shines when it comes to the ways you can refer visitors: you can use their predefined templates to pull up recent items that match a certain criteria you set, you can target your ad to show a specific item on sale or you can just simply weave your referral links into your blog posts.

Sell Ad Space on Your Blog:

Last but definitely not least, you can sell advertising space on your blog if your blog is truly popular. Just take a look at any popular blog with high page rank and traffic.Any blog that receives over 10,000 page views every day and naturally merchants will want to strike a deal with the blog’s owner to post their advertisements there. If you manage to pull in huge amounts of traffic like that blog, you can definitely get people to buy ad space on your blog for prices from $150/month upwards, depending on your blog popularity.

How to Know Your Pageviews and Visitors:

One way to know your page view and daily traffic is through free tool, called  Google Analytic at http://www.google.com/analytics/. Sign up with your Google account and add your site to it. Another way to gauge how much pageviews and visitors you get everyday, just use the free tool available at www.statcounter.com. They have a very detailed setup guide there so I won’t go into it.

If your blog has not acquired large amount of visitors yet, you can still sell ad space on your blog on a per click or per impression basis. Just visit sites like www.adbrite.com. For a complete list of these sites, visit http://performancing.com/node/60.

Hopefully, that will help you maximize earnings and profits from your blog! Keep working and with time, your blog will be making money in every day consistently.

Stay tuned for next and last in How to set up a blog series: How to Set Up Blog:Part 10:Build Relationship for Success

You Might also be Interested in;

Also,You can learn more about favorite blogging resources and tools reviews for further details.

There are also reasonably priced web design,template and blog transfer services, if you are interested, you can use them as they have done great job with out web design.

See Complete How To Set Up Blog Series

How To Set Up a Blog: Part 8 – Monetize Your Blog

This article is part 5 in series of how to set up a blog series. In part 1 of the series,we learned how to set up a blog,in part 2 of the series,we looked at how to write to attract readers,in part 3 of the series,we looked at where and how to get ideas for what to write on your blog,part 4 of the series we looked at how to optimize on page SEO to attract traffic to your blog. In Part 5 of the series, we looked at how to optimized off page (outside your blog SEO for increasing traffic to your blog). In part 6 of the series, we looked at how to set up an off page SEO and Google Page rank. In part 7 of the series, we saw on how to get more traffic to your blog website. In part 8, we will look at how to monetize your site to make money from your blog, writing and visitors.

See previous post in how to set up blog series: How to Set Up Blog:Part 7- Get Traffic to Your Blog

Part 8 – Monetizing Your Blog

Now that you have great content that readers likes and traffic to your site, it is time to monetize your blog so that you can make money from it. You can monetize your site from before, but it will be futile as you will have little content and little traffic to make any impact. However it is personal choice. Whenever you are ready to monetize, here are some great tips that I have learned.

You have been working hard to produce good-quality, original content on your blog and you have attracted a decent amount of traffic by doing so. However, money is not going to appear out of thin air just because you have traffic. You have to turn your traffic into money.

Make Money With Google Adsense:

There are several ways to generate profits from the visitors of your blog, and Google’s Adsense program allows you to do so with ultimate ease. First, visit their website at http://adsense.google.com/. You’ll find out more about their advertising program there, but here are some extra bits I’d like to tell you.

First, Google’s Adsense program is a really useful way to monetize your blog because when users finish reading your newest post, chances are they want to leave your blog because they have nothing else to do on your blog. If your Adsense advertisement block is visible on your blog, they might see advertisements relevant to them and click on them to exit your blog. Ka-ching! You’ve just cashed in on your first virtual cents!

But yes, your profits will only be cents if you don’t “do it right”. This involves placing your Google ads in the right places and ensuring they blend in to your site so that they appear more like links rather than advertisements to your visitors. Consult the page https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html to see the “heat map” of your blog. The “hotter” a certain area, the greater the chances of someone looking at your blog.

Once you get a Google Adsense account, you can change the color of your advertisement text and links. You will want them to match the colors on your blog. If your blog’s text is black and the links are red, do the same for the ad blocks too! It’s that simple. One thing to keep in mind that some keyword will pay higher compared to other so, make sure you do your search on free keyword tool to know if your niche is profitable or not.

One thing that most blogger like about adsense is, people do not have to buy a product, if they simply clicked on product links, you will make some money. However, Google is notorious for canceling the fraud links so make sure you do not click on your own ads or ask your family or friends to do it, according to Adseense TOS or you will risk losing your adsense account.

 Make Money With An Affiliate Products:

Another way to earn profits from your blog is to recommend products to your readers. When your visitors buy from the merchants you recommend, you get to keep a little commission too. This is known as affiliate marketing and it is very easy to start because you don’t have to create your own products or services.

Anyway, let’s refer back to our technological gadgets blog example. Let’s say you discover this Gadget X on a merchant’s website, and they offer an affiliate program. What you would do is to create a post in your blog and do a mini-review on this Gadget X. Rip it apart and point out its benefits and bad points, if any, and include a link (which is given by the merchant) for the visitor to purchase the Gadget X online.

If your visitor clicks and purchases the gadget, the merchant will track from the link that the purchase is referred by you, so they will send you your share of the profits. Imagine if 1 out of every 100 visitors you get purchases this product, and you earn $27.00 commission from each purchase! If you get 10,000 visitors in a month that would be a $2,700.00 pay check for you just for writing about ONE product.

How to Find Affiliate Program for Your Blog Niche:

Now, affiliate programs are very nice ways to generate profit, but how do you find affiliate programs that are related to your blog’s theme? Easy, just go to Google and search for <your niche> +”affiliate programs”. Another slightly better way is to go to http://www.associateprograms.com/search to look for affiliate programs in your niche.

The two ways mentioned above are basic ways to generate profits from your blog. We’ll be discussing other great, profitable ways, so keep your eyes peeled!

Stay tuned for next part in How to Set up a Blog Part 9 : How to Set Up Blog:Part 9:More monetizing Blog Ideas and Tips

You Might also be Interested in;

Also,You can learn more about favorite blogging resources and tools reviews for further details.

There are also reasonably priced web design,template and blog transfer services, if you are interested, you can use them as they have done great job with out web design.

See Complete How To Set Up Blog Series

 

Make Money With Affiliate Program

One of the easiest way for to make money online is via make money with an affiliate programs. What is an affiliate program? An affiliate program is for example you recommend someone a product you really like and share it with your friends, if person buy it from your affiliate links, then you will make some percentage of sale. You will not have to create a product, ship it, or take customer calls for questions and return issues. It is simple enough once you understand the concept. You know what is best thing about promoting an affiliate, most of the affiliate programs are free to join, costing you nothing when you are starting out and short on cash.

All you have to get started is to sign up for these 100% free affiliates and you will receive a special affiliate id that is unique to you or your business. Most affiliates will also show you how to attach a special ID to a product and place it on your site or facebook page. So, if anyone will click on that link and buys something you will get commission.

Another thing I like about an affiliate program is that most affiliate program will pay you for other stuff people may buy through your affiliate link. For example, let’s say you have special product link about cannon g12 camera, someone clicked on the link and did not purchase the camera but purchased books, or kids toys, you will still get commission for the things bought. Isn’t that cool? I think so too.

One of the popular affiliates are amazon.com, walmart.com, target.com, bestbuy.com and so on. Some people make money via facebook or free blogger websites, and that is good for starting out. But if you want to make serious money and make sure your links and writings does not get deleted by facebook or blogger host, you should buy and host your own domain and hosting.  You can see how to start a website for step by step guide for details.

If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email, I am in process of creating a free eBook which you can download, so if you get a chance subscribe to website via email, so you will get news about it.

I also want to share all affiliate programs, I personally use in my online business and share with you one that are successful for me. All of these affiliate programs are 100% free to join. Many of these programs are internationally available, that means you can be China, Africa, Australia, Canada, US or Mexico and you will be able to join and make money with it.

3 Common PPC Marketing Mistakes

I am not PPC expert by any means but before jumping in anything 100%, doing right research helps and these are a few things I have learned which I want to share with you all.  PPC, Pay per Click, marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools that are available on the internet today. But just like any other advertising campaign it needs to be done with careful planning and consideration in order to avoid certain pitfalls that may occur while you are creating your marketing campaign.  If you begin your PPC marketing plan without careful planning first you have set yourself up to lose thousands of dollars and tons of wasted hours.  There are books available that you can read that will help you put a great plan into place for your PPC Marketing plan.

Putting a successful PPC marketing plan is easy though without books if you avoid a few of the more common mistakes that most people make. Note though even if you have discovered that you have made one of the following errors that can be easily fixed quickly and get your campaign back on track.

1. Mistake 1

The most common mistake people find themselves doing in creating their PPC marketing plan is using their homepage as the landing strip.  While to most business owners it may seem logical to have your visitors brought to your homepage there are reasons why this should not be done.
• People who will click on your advertisement are most generally looking for a specific item. Instead of bringing them to the home page, create a landing strip for your ad to bring them too.  This will allow you to bring your customers exactly the right spot that they are searching for. This will make them happy because you saved them time and as a result they are more than likely to visit again.  Each of your landing page should be keyword specific relating to your add. It should also not contain any other links or distractions.

2. Mistake 2

If your landing page is confusing to your reader you will lose sales as a result.  If you create a PPC that is targeted to the visitors key word it will result in sales almost every time as long as it easy for them to read and understand.  Your landing page should also be part of the keyword that they are searching for.  Make sure that it easy for the reader to find. You should also have several different landing pages if you have several different keywords or topics.

3. Mistake 3

Every search engine that is available on the internet today will use its own methods as to where to place your ad.  One of the biggest mistakes that people who are new to PPC marketing make is that they do not tightly target their keywords well enough to get considered for optimum placement on the search engines.  Over 85% of all search engine results are based on the top three ads.  If you are not able to focus your keywords well enough you will not make the top three and have the potential to lose a lot of money as a result.

As you can see the more common mistakes made by new users to the PPC Marketing world are fairly easy for anyone to make. Knowing how to fix them is the key to a great PPC marketing campaign.

Guide To How To Become A Super Affiliate

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money. Finding a niche market with products and services you trust and believe in is the first step to success. There are tremendous affiliate programs which offer you an abundance of tools and materials to promote and market their products. However, what you do with those tools and materials is entirely up to you. You can be just another affiliate or a super affiliate.

What Is A Super Affiliate?

Technically speaking a super affiliate is someone who generates a significant amount of profits for the products or services they represent. A super affiliate can make a healthy living from their affiliate business alone while a standard every day affiliate may need to supplement their affiliate income with, gasp…a 9-5 job!

Benefits To Being A Super Affiliate

The most significant benefit to being a super affiliate is the income. Many super affiliates make six figures simply promoting the products and services of others.

Additionally, if you’re one of the main contributors to a company’s affiliate program they’re going to pay attention to you and your needs. You may receive a higher percentage of sales you may receive first shot with new marketing materials and programs and you’ll get the support you need when you need it.

Here Are A Few Steps To Become A Super Affiliate:

Step One – Commit to publishing content every single day. Content has proven time and again to be the best sales tool available to affiliate marketers. Nothing, not even strategically placed ad copy works as well as providing quality content that pre-sells any product that you’re promoting on your website.

Possible content includes:

* Autoresponders.
* E-newsletters.
* Blogs posts
* Social networking via forums, social networking sites, and chat rooms
* Articles
* Press releases

Step Two – Track and test. Make sure you know where your prospects are coming from, what motivates them to click through and what information they read and respond to – then give them what they need. Tracking and testing is the only way to hone your affiliate program into a smooth running, money making machine.

Step Three – Use the provided marketing materials and be willing to take it a step further. Many affiliate programs do a great job of providing their affiliate with ready to marketing materials including:

1. Banner ads
2. Buttons
3. Email copy
4. Articles
5. Free promotional reports

Use the materials your affiliate manager has provided. It’s been tested and developed for results. That being said, be sure to create your own content too. Even as an affiliate you are your own company and your website needs to reflect your personality and brand. Building a community around your website and providing valuable content is a sure way to create a following that trusts you and your credibility – which will result in click throughs and affiliate sales.

Step Four – Pre-sell. The good news is that your job as an affiliate is to pre-sell products and services. Pre-selling means your content, whether it is a review, article, tutorial, course, or blog post, speaks honestly about the products and services you promote. Pre-selling is about providing value to your website visitors and prospects, making them comfortable with you and your authority to generate interest and a click through to the company website, where the selling happens.

Step Five – Follow up. Just like your affiliate manager follows up with you to see how you’re doing and what you need, follow up with your prospects. A great way to do this unobtrusively is to create a lead list by providing a newsletter visitors can subscribe, a free report, or any number of products in exchange for an email address and the permission to contact them with valuable information and special promotions.

Conclusion: –

Being a Super Affiliate is the only way to go if you want to build a successful affiliate marketing business. Find products and services you trust and believe in and then create a strategy to share information to your target audience. Test and track your efforts, focus on providing value to your prospects and leave the selling to the companies you represent. Helping others live better lives, without having to provide the products or services personally, is a great way to make a living.

Amazon Reinstates California Affiliates: (For Now)

There have been rumors flying around that amazon may reinstate the California affiliates, but nothing is certain, until it happens. It happened! Amazon just reinstated California affiliates on Monday, Oct 3, 2011, since leaving them on July 30th, 2011 all of sudden, check my previous post here about it: Amazon Alternative and Solutions. Here what I found on my email today!

As you may have heard, California Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation repealing the law that had forced us to terminate our California Associates. We are pleased to invite all California Associates whose accounts were closed due to the prior legislation to re-enroll in the Associates Program.

If you haven’t already re-enrolled, please click here:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com…ment/main.html

When asked to sign in, please use the same email address and password that were previously associated with your Associates account. To make your return to the Program as seamless as possible, when you re-enroll, your account settings (login, Associates ID, payment information, etc.) will be the same as they were previously. Traffic you referred while your account was closed won’t be eligible for advertising fees.

Amazon have made it easier for ex affiliates to rejoin. Many are happy and others are cautious to see what and how long this will stay, as Amazon has dropped affiliates at drop of hat, and now they might be losing large revenue they have negotiated.

At the end of July, Amazon dropped a bomb on California affiliates by dropping them over evening due to tax laws. Many of the California affiliates who have worked hard sending traffic and sales to amazon, did not even get day to remove their links.

Amazon have done this in other states such as Illinois and a few other States, but what makes difference case with California is that California (speculated?) over 25K affiliates who were sending bunch of sales to amazon, which amazon lost. The move certainly made many loyal affiliate very angry, as one blogger wrote that he had Amazon links going over 10 years in his site. Some are pure Internet marketers, some were stay at home moms making little money on side, they all lost income and hope. Some who had special amazon niche sites created, some had bought special amazon plugins, coaching and ebooks to help them, investing, time and money to make Amazon rich.

And you know what was the worst part? Amazon Kindle has physical presence in North California, so Amazon would have to pay taxes (as Subsidiary being locally present here!) but they still chose to ax the hard working affiliates. Many lost their large income, many lost some. Another important part is, that Amazon reinstated account will open with zero amount (as in new account), as if you had links and those made sales, you lost it. It was free for Amazon, they are not going to pay for it.

I know people tried to open up LLC or Corporations in other Amazon friendly states to keep the accounts and links going. I certainly did not do that, as my income from Amazon was little to make a huge changes and spend money. Some of my blog friends, turned in to vigilink and skimlink for retaining Amazon links (at 25% commission to them).

My Take: While I am happy that Amazon has reinstated the affiliates back, I know they have done it as they were losing large chunk of income due to California affiliates, it is purely business profit decision for them. I am going to use Amazon with caution and with other links from CJ or Linkshare Vendors such as walmart, target, best buy, barns and noble, borders and so on, just to be on safe side.

I would suggested a few tips to make sure your online business’s sake:

1. Do not put your all eggs in one basket. Be cautious.

2. Use Amazon with other back up vendors (give choice to your reader where to buy from such as amazon, target or walmart, wherever it is cheaper)

3. I wish all affiliates in other states, get Amazon back, but meanwhile, use vigilink and skimlinks.

4. Create your own products to make money.

5. Open up service to make money online and offline. No can take that away from you.

Good luck.

450 Paid Surveys Companies for you

Can I make Money through Paid Surveys?

Many of you must have heard of making money doing online surveys. However, finding the right company that pays well can be very confusing and time consuming. There are lot of scams out there and some companies ask to pay fees to do surveys.

One should not have to pay fees, or monthly memberships to do online surveys. One may not become rich doing online surveys but how about making $50-$250 extra for month? Imagine you can have extra money to spend on dinners, movies or anything you wanted to spend or save on.

How about having a bunch of survey companies that pays well and does not cost you anything to join? Someone has done all the research to find not few but over 400 companies that you can use for doing online survey to earn extra cash.

Many of these companies are worldwide so you can be anywhere in the world, even small city, you will be able to do paid surveys and make money online doing surveys. Here are some of the benefits;

  • Do surveys to make $5 to $75 for each surveys
  • Choose to participate in focus group that pays up to $150 an hour
  • Don’t have internet at home? Make phone surveys for up to $120 an hour
  • Get to test out new products and (you can get to keep some)
  • How to preview movie trailers for money?

There are much more ideas and choices that can fit everyone’s taste. Many of of these surveys can take a few minutes to hours and you will get paid. You will be able to enjoy extra money and able to spend more time with your family and kids. You will find many ideas for surveys and money making in this digital e-book which is instantly downloaded with easy paying. If nothing else, download their free tips for surveys in to your email box.

For more information, check out:450 Paid Online Survey Companies! No Membership Required. Cost 50% Less Than The Competition.LegitPaidOnlineSurveys.com – 450 Paid Surveys Companies.

Amazon Terminates California Affiliates: Finding Solutions

I have been blogging for some times and I used only amazon as an affiliates to share books I love to read and other minor products that I used, not a major income through it but enough to take a notice when it is gone. A few days ago though Amazon dropped a bomb on all its California Affiliates without much warning.

On June 29th, Evening I just checked my email and I saw this notice;

Hello,

Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

Effect on California Affiliates and how it was handled:

  • There has been speculated that there are about 25,000 affiliates in California who promoted Amazon. Now, they will be affected as they no longer will be getting paid for giving sales to Amazon.
  • Affiliates did not get much warning (It has been happening in a few other states such as Illinois, Colorado and others) but it was quick notice within a day for California affiliates. That did not gave anyone chance to react or prepare for this news.
  • Some expert bloggers made a lot of money from amazon and now that resource has been taken from them.
  • The biggest thing is Amazon still has kindle research center and other subsidiary companies in California, so they may have to still pay taxes and all affiliates are screwed for nothing.

Regardless of how politics, taxes and corporation deals with it, many online bloggers needs to find an alternative to Amazon to make money. While, I am last person to teach people about making money, we all need some money to keep site going, keep writing and manage the cost of running website. I thought of sharing a few alternatives to amazon for those who might be affected such as California residents right now.

Solution: Amazon Alternative:

The best thing about Amazon is that it has every type of product you can imagine, digital, physical, for men, women and children for every ages, books to gadgets and even someone told me you can even buy car or 2% Milk there too. I am not sure how shipping works with milk to keep it fresh! There are some weird products there, there is something for everyone there.

The best bet would be ebay and overstock but ebay has made it hard for people to join now and overstock has made a same action as Amazon by cutting off California affiliates. So, one needs to get various affiliates to replace the amazon’s wide variety of product choices.

  1. If you promoted books, movies then best bet would be borders and barns and noble affiliates.
  2. For other products, Walmart, Target, Sears would work.
  3. For computer and electronic, best buy, office depot would work. Babierus and Toysrus are good for toys products.
  4. Some people has suggested, setting up an LLC or Corporation in other state and set up amazon account there. It may not be easy, viable for some. I am not sure about legality of it too, so if you choose to do it, ask lawyer or expert before doing it.
  5. You can sell your amazon center website to someone as Pat suggested.
  6. You can re use your amazon product articles in squidoo legally and get paid from squidoo for any partial sales from Amazon.
  7. I find the best solution while searching online is Viglinks, where also you can use their system for Amazon and other affiliates and get paid 75% of amazon pay and they take 25% cut. There is another one called skimlinks a few people I know seemed to have trouble with them. You can certainly check both out and choose what works for you.
  8. Think about making money from other resources, do not put all of your eggs in one affiliate basket.

Do you have any other suggestions? If you were in other states where Amazon terminated the affiliate relationship, what did you do that is working for you? I think other states in US might be next in line sooner or later so it may affect many people.