The last time I posted the IM world was buzzing with eBay confirming that we would no longer be able to post eBay affiliate links on sites not owned by us. This news was announced in May, but I think many of us were taking a “wait and see” approach to see if Squidoo, Blogger, Hubpages, and other similar sites would be included. Unfortunately, this was confirmed and many of us were left scrambling to get our eBay RSS feeds and links changed on many Lenses, Hubs, and blogs.

I had been trying to work out a way to use Wordpress and some plugins to offer feeds from a site that I owned to use on my Squidoo lenses. I found a way that worked in theory, but I found myself editing the feed.php file as well as adding many other things to the core code of Wordpress. I don’t mind doing this, but remembering what I added manually to the code is always a project for me when it comes to upgrading and then things tend to break which isn’t good.

In the end, the idea is working and I am using some of these feeds from a site that I own to power the RSS feeds offered on Squidoo, but everytime I pull from eBay to my Wordpress site it is counting as a click which I’m sure eBay won’t be happy with. What I really need is to develop a plugin to do this or suck it up and buy PHPBay, but both of these are out of the question right now as my time and funds are limited. I will be adding something like this to my list of future projects though because it would be a great learning experience for me.

After I realized what was happening with the feeds I was using, I finally just went back to basics and started using the eBay Squidoo module that is offered for lenses. It’s not the best way to go as far as my affiliate revenue goes, but I’ll just have to build more similar lenses to make up for the difference. Besides, using my method will also cause more problems in the near future with a bloated database forming as well as a huge cache that I’ll have set up a cron job to empty automatically. My method would have also possibly caused some server overload if I had continued to use it for every lens that I had built.

In the end the best way for me to change all of my eBay links on Squidoo was to just get back to basics and use the Squidoo eBay module provided. Not that I worry a ton about lensrank, but my lenses will benefit from using the Squidoo eBay module because the clickouts and purchases will be registered through Squidoo and my lensrank on these lenses should get a boost over time. This is probably my way of putting a positive spin on something that could be a negative which my friends tell me is one of my best qualities.

Did you use a different method for your lenses and sites? If you feel comfortable enough, please share it here.

Originally posted 2009-08-05 11:28:16. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

If you want to be successful with your online business, you must be able to adapt. If you are not able to adapt, your business will die. I can understand the fear that many people go through when things change because I have been there.

As you know, I have been selling on eBay since 2004. Over the years they have made many changes forcing sellers to change their business model, websites, listing template, about me pages, and many other things. Every time a change was announced I went to the Powersellers forum to see if I could find information to lead me in the right direction. All I ever found in that forum was a bunch of people complaining about the change and how it was going to kill their business. Reading information like this is like a cancer for someone just starting out online and even for someone with a lot of experience. Many times reading all of these negative posts would make me anxious and I wouldn’t do anything but the bare minimum to run my business for days or even weeks. I’m sure you can imagine how this affected me.

Even if you don’t sell physical products, you can experience this anxiety. Recently, there was the recent Squidoo announcement and now this week there was an announcement at EPN. If you use direct eBay RSS feeds on your lenses linking directly to eBay, you will no longer be able to use this method of monetization on your lenses. This is a huge blow for me because the lenses where I link directly to eBay have been my main source of affiliate income recently.

As far as I can tell, you will still be able to use the eBay module on Squidoo to link to eBay because EPN has considered them a social networking model and not a revenue sharing module. You will still lose about half of your earnings because you will have to share them with Squidoo, but it’s better than losing a whole revenue source.

I am currently working on another option for those looking to build their own site, but still have eBay RSS feeds available on their Squidoo lenses. It will take a little front end setup, but you will be on your way to building your own website where you will own your own content.  I will be posting more on this method later this week once I am sure any bugs are worked out.

Meanwhile, I’d like to advise you not to freak out and keep working on your campaigns or making changes to keep you in compliance with all of the changes we’ve had to keep up with on Squidoo and other sites recently. Stay away from forum posts where there is a lot of negative energy because you will catch this bad energy. If you feel yourself getting anxious, just go do something else for the time being to get your mind off of things then come back to the computer once your mind has cleared.

I’d like to wish all of you a successful week.

Originally posted 2009-07-19 11:59:40. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Even if you are new to affiliate marketing, you are probably aware at how lucrative using PPC for driving traffic to your website can be. You also know that if you don’t know what you are doing, you will get your butt kicked. I once thought I had known what I was doing, but instead I lost $1500 on a 6 week campaign.

I would recommend going the article marketing route to start getting some cash flow in and to start learning how keywords and Google work together, but if you have a little bit of bankroll and time for research, then getting started with Pay-per-click affiliate marketing may be right for you.

Whatever you do, please don’t just dive into Adwords thinking you have it all figured out right away, you will need some help first so you don’t make the same mistake that I did. You will need as much help as you can get for the money and I found a way that you can get Beating Adwords for only $39 when it usually retails for $77.

What you will want to do is try out Wealthy Affiliate for just one month at their monthly rate of $39 and you will be able to download Beating Adwords for free. Not only will you be receiving a great guide about PPC affiliate marketing, but you will have a whole month of support where you can have your questions answered without being laughed at or feeling like a fool for not knowing something. You will also have saved yourself $38 which would be only $1 shy of another one month membership fee at Wealthy Affiliate.

Before you go out and buy another make money online course, I would really like you to consider this route. I do not want to see you throw any more money down the drain at false promises and hopes.

Until later.

Originally posted 2009-07-17 07:16:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

I no longer make New Year’s Resolutions because in the past I have always failed and I feel that making a resolution is only setting myself up for failure. Looking back at 2009, the whole year was a setup for failure brought on by myself and myself alone.

I allowed my video gaming core business to go by the wayside and fall to the back burner because I decided that I wanted to start building websites and web properties for affiliate marketing purposes instead. This was all well and good, but I didn’t have focus for anything I was working on. I started feeling the pressure of having way too many domains and not having any developed, then I would get another case of IMADD and I started article marketing. Moving into these directions wasn’t a bad thing, but I failed to focus on selling down the inventory I have in our storage room which is like money sitting right in the bank.

I don’t know about you, but when I get way too overwhelmed with my own projects, I totally shut down. Then I don’t do anything. Add on top of this all of the changes that eBay made along with the FTC regulations and for a while I was just a total lump on a log when I got home from work. I have to say that this is not the way to make money online successfully and move towards my ultimate goal of being able to afford to quit my day job.

2010 brought in the start of a new decade and a new beginning for me. I’m not resolving to do anything different, but I can already tell that I have a new found life for my online business. My new life has come with my new interim goals that I have set for myself. I subscribe to a few blogs and they have talked about huge goals that they have set for themselves, but these huge goals don’t always work for everyone. Now let me explain for myself.

I set a goal at the beginning of 2009 to eventually be making $100,000 a year. That’s a great goal, but when you are in the hole, it is very difficult to imagine that. I still have this ultimate goal, but I have also set an interim goal of getting at least one credit card paid off this year with my income from internet marketing. I have the tools in place and I know what I should be doing, but now I just need to suck it up and do it. If I get the tools in place for this first goal, I will be well on my way to making it to my ultimate goal where I really want to be.

So, what am I really changing for 2010? Nothing and everything. The biggest change I will be making is to finish the projects that I start. No longer will I be littering the internet with the waste of my failed projects. Doing this along should get me well on my way to my goal. In fact, I am almost finished with my first project; I will be posting details here once everything is up and running.

Until later,

Don’t give up on your dream of making money online if you are not creative. The creativity I am talking about is not the ability to draw or write the next best fantasy novel, but it is the ability to understand how things work and change something up just one little bit in order to differentiate yourself.

You just bought the next latest and greatest ebook that has been released on the market; what you need to understand is that 1,000’s of others have also bought this ebook so you are going to be competing with a lot of other people using the same techniques. This happened when PotPieGirl started selling One Week Marketing; everyone started putting up lenses promoting clickbank products and they all looked the same. I’m sure this is a big reason behind why Squidoo changed their policies regarding certain niches and products.

Take a step back and think about what OWM is really teaching you; she is teaching you how to get a page to the top of the SERPS and even dominate the SERPS for a certain keyword. If done correctly, you could in theory own the first page of Google if you play your cards right.

Here’s where you need to think outside of the box; what else have I learned along the way can I add to my toolbox of knowledge to really stand out and not look like everyone else? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just tweak something. Don’t worry if someone said you should do it or not, just feel free to experiment and mix things up a little. If it works, great, you have a little secret trick to get your page ranked or get that extra sale, if it doesn’t work make a note to delete this idea from your head because it’s not right for what you are trying to do at this point in time.

Getting creative and adding more knowledge for yourself is how you will get ahead in IM and avoid IMADD. Today take some time to really think of what you have learned and try to find one thing you can do differently from everyone else. Then implement it and see what happens.

Originally posted 2009-07-10 07:19:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter