Category Archives for Online Marketing

Affiliate Marketing Using Commission Junction

Affiliate Marketing is currently one of the most financially rewarding and popular company opportunities online. It is a contract in between the merchant, or the one with the product to sell, and the website owner or the affiliate, or the one who allows the use of his website to promote the merchant’s product or service.

Hence, affiliate marketing is a relationship in between the affiliate and the merchant.

In such affiliate marketing networks, affiliates can select from thousands of products to advertise. The merchants can proffer their items and look for affiliates who will promote their products.

The Commission Junction Affiliate Program is one of, if not the biggest affiliate marketing networks in the web today. It is a leader in efficiency based internet marketing offering exceptional opportunities for both affiliates and merchants. The company serves millions of customers making it among the biggest advertisement networks today.

It facilitates the relationship between affiliates and marketers and leverages its knowledge in the affiliate marketing service to ensure the best outcomes for its customers. Commission Junction has affiliate programs mainly for physical goods. The company excels in niche markets, as many niche markets require physical goods as affiliate items.

Advantages

As the market leader in affiliate marketing services, Commission Junction provides many advantages for both affiliates and merchants. As a Commission Junction merchant, you only need to sign up and have your affiliate program offered to thousands of prospective affiliates. In this way, the merchant has the opportunity to attract the best affiliates to carry his item or service.

Another advantage that Commission Junction uses to merchants is the promo to the Commission Junction affiliate network upon sign up by means of the Commission Junction e-mail newsletter. Remaining in the Commission Junction affiliate network supplies exceptional chance for the merchant to find quality affiliates who can generate more clients and more sales.

Considering that the secret to affiliate marketing success for merchants is discovering the best affiliates, Commission Junction uses the very best way for merchants to succeed, by bringing merchants and affiliates together. The merchant’s affiliate program will likewise be noted in the Commission Junction Account Manager for life offering you more exposure. You can likewise purchase special listing for greater affiliate exposure.

Commission Junction likewise has numerous benefits for affiliates. An affiliate of Commission Junction has access to the largest directory site of affiliate programs encompassing thousands of products and services.

Commission Junction has an outstanding record of accomplishment in the affiliate marketing organization, so it makes good sense for any affiliate to be a Commission Junction affiliate. The business uses a big variety of affiliate programs in every category of services and products. In addition, affiliates of Commission Junction receive notifications by means of email whenever brand-new affiliate programs are included.

Commission Junction provides the best opportunities to make a revenue for both affiliates and merchants. It integrates resources to advance the sales or revenue of each party.

Drawbacks

Commission Junction likewise has its drawbacks. For one, the commissions are relatively lower, being in the 7% to 20% bracket. Yet, despite the lower earnings potential, Commission Junction is still among the very best alternatives for affiliate marketers. Because of the hike in rates, Commission junction has also had its share of obstacles such as during the early part of 2002 when merchants dropped out.

Conclusion

All the same, Commission Junction stays as one of the best options when it pertains to affiliate marketing. It uses the best features and opportunities for merchants and affiliates. Its marketing options help online marketers increase their profits. There are numerous reasons why any affiliate or merchant who desires to succeed must sign up with Commission Junction.

The Commission Junction Affiliate Program is one of, if not the biggest affiliate marketing networks in the web today. As the market leader in affiliate marketing solutions, Commission Junction offers numerous advantages for both merchants and affiliates.

As a Commission Junction merchant, you only need to sign up and have your affiliate program offered to thousands of potential affiliates. Because the secret to affiliate marketing success for merchants is finding the best affiliates, Commission Junction uses the best way for merchants to prosper, by bringing affiliates and merchants together. Commission Junction has an exceptional record of achievement in the affiliate marketing business, so it makes sense for any affiliate to be a Commission Junction affiliate.

Click here to join the Commission Junction Affiliate network

Do you already use Commission Junction? What do you think about it?

Different Types Of Affiliate Marketing

The advantages of affiliate marketing are more noticeable today than before. This is one of the primary reason for the tremendous popularity of affiliate marketing programs among so many thousands of internet marketers.

Most current web innovation has allowed the affiliate marketers to obtain their data and earnings figures the minute they make an affiliate sale. It is now possible to utilize business like PayPal for payment and receipt processing. This has highly cut the time that an affiliate online marketer has to wait on his payments to be gathered from the merchants.

Both the affiliates and the merchants have now understood that affiliate marketing is effective for both of them. The merchants view affiliate marketing as a chance to market their products at a much lesser expense. On the other hand, the affiliates see affiliate marketing as a straightforward method of earning revenues online by doing something which they like most, and that is web publishing.

Just as the popularity of affiliate marketing has gone into overdrive, likewise the outlook of individuals has changed for the better about affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is no longer thought about as a secondary technique of marketing by the merchants, or as an extra income source by an affiliate marketer. For merchants and affiliates alike, affiliate marketing is now considered as a primary source of earnings and revenues.

Do we need to evaluate what type of affiliate marketing will work best for any person? Are there any differences in affiliate marketing programs? Are the paybacks from these programs the same? Which are those affiliate marketing programs that work much better than the others?

There are actually varieties of affiliate marketing, and the types will depend upon how you are going to categorize them. The main classification of affiliate marketing programs falls under 2 categories: pay-per-click (Pay Per Click), and pay-per-performance (PPP).

Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing for affiliates with small sites, and most likely the easiest way for them to earn loan. In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his website, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant’s banner or text advertisements.

Pay Per Efficiency (PPP)

PPP affiliate marketing is well liked among merchants and is likewise the most satisfying type for the affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant pays the affiliate only when his recommendation converts into an action – that is whenever the visitor he has actually referred in fact buys something from the merchant’s site or when the visitor ends up being a lead. On the other hand, this type of affiliate marketing becomes financially most fulfilling for the devoted affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing generally comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the real product sales.

Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can, even more, be categorized into two types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL). Both these are extremely popular.

a) Pay Per Sale (PPS) – In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant’s site, in fact, buys something from the merchant’s site. Affiliates are frequently paid on commission basis, although other merchants would choose to pay a repaired cost. But no matter what the basis of the charge is, it is usually higher than the charge paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.

b) Pay Per Lead (PPL) – The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a small variation of the PPS type and is frequently utilized by insurance and financing companies and other companies who rely on leads for their business to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant’s website fills an application form or any similar kind related to business of the business. Payment for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a repaired charge whose rates approximate that of the repaired fee in the PPS type. Normally, the sales conversion rate is the greatest in the case of PPL, because, the visitor is not needed to acquire anything however only complete a non-financial transaction, like, filling an application form, registering for a newsletter, and so on.

Aside from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a great deal of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing. There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the consumer he has referred purchases something from the merchant’s website.

Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing

These types of affiliate marketing are based on the various levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made.

A) Single Tier – In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are just paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant. All the previously pointed out affiliate marketing types (i.e. PPS, PPL, and PPC) fall under the single-tier category.

B) Two Tier – In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliates are not just spent for the direct traffic or sales that he brings to the merchant’s website, but also on every traffic or sales referred by other affiliates who signed up with as sub-affiliate of the above affiliate marketer.

C) Multi-Tier – Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for more variety of levels of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

D) Residual Earnings Affiliate Marketing – In this type, apart from the affiliate earning money for every consumer he has actually referred to the merchant’s site, the affiliate is likewise paid whenever the customer he has actually referred returns to the merchant’s site and purchases another item. Commission for such kind of affiliate marketing is based on either percentage of sales or based on fixed cost.

Every affiliate online marketer discovers that these various affiliate marketing techniques work in a different way for each of them. Multi-tier affiliate marketing, also called Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is a highly tough type of internet marketing and it does not work for everybody. As a matter of fact, numerous genuine online marketers consider MLM as illegal or something which is unwanted.

An affiliate online marketer needs to try out different methods and choose which will work best for him or her. He or she must then focus on those affiliate marketing techniques which are suitable for his/her design of online marketing service.

What is your favorite way of affiliate marketing? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

How To Find Your Perfect Niche In 5 Steps

The biggest struggle that a beginner in online marketing face is choosing a niche. But what is a niche and how can you find a niche that fits you and the market?

What is a niche?

Before we dive deep into finding a niche we have to understand what a niche is and why it is important to choose a niche.

A niche is a distinct segmented of a market, in other words, an audience.

 

That sounds really complicated but is in reality not. Let’s have a look at the market fitness.

Inside the market fitness, there are many different niches, like weightlifting, bodyweight training, running, swimming, etc.

Sometimes even the niches itself can have sub-niches like bodybuilding, cross-fit, etc. inside the weightlifting niche.

Each of these niches has their own audience and their own topics.

Why should you choose a niche?

As I already mentioned, each niche has its own audience and topics. That is important to know so you can really address the interests of an audience. The more specific your blog is the higher will be the engagement rate on your blog.

If you have a blog about running and somebody comes to your blog as a runner he will be really interested in your articles. And if you can solve a problem he has (e.g. finding new running shoes) he will be happy to click on your affiliate link.

The more you know about your audience and their problems/interests the easier it will be to create new content and build a follower base.

Now that we know what a niche is and why we need to choose a niche, let’s have a look at how to find the perfect niche for you!

The 5 steps of finding a niche

Step 1: Brainstorming

At first, we have to collect a lot of different ideas. At this point, it is important to know that there aren’t good or bad ideas.

I say that because I often see people only thinking about very good ideas and they come up with nothing. That’s why you should write down every idea you have.

Take a piece of paper and answer yourself these questions:

• What am I interested in?
• About what topics I love to read books or read blogs?
• What are the topics I can talk about for hours?
• What would I do if I had one million dollars in my bank account? (That sounds really stupid but it can really help finding hobbies you are passionate about)

Don’t judge yourself. Just write down every single idea. As I said, there are no good and bad ideas in the beginning.

Step 2: Get specific

Usually, you have now a lot of generic ideas like sports or technology (like in my case). Now you have to get more specific for every idea. Here you can ask yourself the following questions:

• What makes this topic interesting to you?
• How far are you an expert in this niche?
• Who is usually asking you for advice on this topic?
• How old are they?

For example, you wrote down technology as a topic but what does this mean? Let’s assume you are very good at assembling computers. You build together a lot of computers for your friends and family. Usually, you help people who need a lot of power but don’t have a lot of budgets.

That can be gamer for example or spare time cutters. And usually, they are in the age between 25 and 35.

That has to be made with every idea you had.

Step 3: Eliminate ideas

While thinking more about all your ideas you usually find a lot of ideas that are not that good. In this step, you can eliminate all the “bad” ideas you had.

Step 4: Chose your niche

At this step, you should have a list of different niches that you are interested in and you could start a business with.

This step can be one of the hardest of all. Now you have to choose one topic you want to start with. That can be really tough because these are all topics you are very interested in.

However, the great thing is that every idea you have now will allow you to work more with your interest. You’ll find people that are also interested in your interests and you’ll connect with new people.

And the best part of all: You’ll be paid for it. You’ll be paid for talking about one of your favorite hobbies.

And that’s how you do work you love. I think work is in this context the wrong word because it doesn’t feel like work. And that’s the most amazing part about starting a blog!

 

Step 5: Start

Now that you have chosen your niche you only have to start. It is more important to start imperfect than to never start perfectly.

Maybe you aren’t an expert in your niche. However, investing time and energy in your niche makes you one. Don’t believe that you can only start as an expert.

Every expert started once as a beginner.

Maybe your blog doesn’t look as perfect as you would love to. Maybe your articles as good as you thought. Maybe you’ll make some mistakes. That’s no problem! 

Creating a profitable blog is a process. On your way, you’ll learn more and more and someday you’ll make a living from your blog. It will not happen overnight.

Put in the work and be patient. No one was able to run a marathon in 2 weeks.

Your next steps will be:

1. Register for a domain and web hosting (start here)
2. Install WordPress
3. Write your first 5 articles and launch your blog
4. Start building different traffic sources

As I said it is important to start! Start within the next 72 hours because if you don’t start within the next 3 days you’ll start never.

Conclusion

There isn’t the one perfect blog topic. There is only one perfect blog topic for you!

Maybe you have to change your niche a little bit by the time. But that’s normal and no problem at all.

That’s all part of the process. You start as a beginner and work your way up to an expert. Don’t let yourself encourage by the mistakes you make. Mistakes are the foundation of success.

You’ll never find a successful person who hasn’t made any mistake at all.

However, the most important thing you need is fun. If you have fun working in your niche it will be much easier to create a successful business.

Now I want to hear more from you!

Have you already found a niche you are interested in? And how have you found your niche? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

The 5 Best Free Keyword Tools

If you want to be successful with SEO you need to know which keywords are easy to rank on and write articles that target these keywords.

However, how can you find such keywords? The goal is to find keywords that are easy to rank (low competition) and still have enough traffic so it is worth to work on.

To easily find these keywords it is wise to use a keyword tool. I’m sure there are much more than the five I mention. However, these are the tools that I use and I can recommend.

The title says that the keywords are all free and that is correct. However, there are usually paid plans for each keyword tool. With the paid membership you get usually more keywords, more searches or more data.

Should I pay for a keyword tool?

I wouldn’t see it as cost and more as an investment. Because if you find keywords that your competitor doesn’t you can easily rank faster and higher than your competitor and have a big advantage.

That’s why I am paying for some keyword tools and I can recommend to you to do the same!

So here is my list of my favorite keyword tools 🙂

Jaaxy

Jaaxy is one of my favorite tools when it comes to keywords research. You enter a keyword and within seconds you can see whether a keyword is easy to rank on or not.

What really helps are the “traffic lights” that show you if a keyword is good (green), average (yellow) or poor (red). However, the disadvantage of Jaaxy is that they don’t have any information about paid traffic.

If you are only interested in free traffic than this tool is great but if you are searching for good keywords for your PPC campaign I would use another keyword tool.

Keyword.io

When I need new ideas I’m using Keyword.io. You enter a keyword and you get a huge list of long tail keywords.

That has two advantages. On the one side, it is much easier to rank on long tail keywords as it is on short keywords. So, for example, it is much easier to rank on “how to do affiliate marketing for beginners” than on “affiliate marketing beginners”.

On the other side, it is easy to find new ideas. So, for example, if you enter “affiliate marketing” you get a list of 450 keywords. I’m sure you’ll find at least one new keyword you have an idea you could write about.

SemRush

SemRush is also a great keyword tool to get a lot of information about a specific keyword. The functionality is very similar to Jaaxy.

However, the advantage of SemRush is that they also offer information about PPC campaigns. That means you get information about how much you need to pay for a specific keyword, ect..

SpyFu

SpyFu is another great tool with a lot of functionality. One the one side SpyFu is a great tool to spy on your competitors’ website. You can easily see the keywords they are ranking on and for what keywords they are paying.

On the other side, you can get a lot of information about specific keywords. You get information about traffic volumes, competitors, cost per click (PPC), and the ranking history.

Google’s Keyword Planner

If you have been working with Google Adwords I’m sure you already know the keyword planner from Google.

It is not as detailed as the other tools, but you can still get data about the search volume and the competitors. However, the data is only very rough data. For example, for the keyword “affiliate marketing” you get a search volume of 10,000 to 100,000 searches per month and the competition is medium.

Of course, you can use that data but I would recommend using the other tools to find specific data. However, this tool is also great to find ideas. You can use the function “find similar keywords” to find new ideas for new posts.

Conclusion

As you can see there are many very good keyword tools out there. Together with these tools, I can always find new keywords and ideas I can realize.

Now I want to hear more from you! What is your favorite keyword tool and why?

SEO – Advantages and Disadvantages

There are a lot of discussions about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

The one side thinks that SEO is the best strategy to build an online business while the other side thinks that SEO is a waste of time.

But who is right?

What is SEO?

The goal of Search Engine Optimization is to rank your website high on search engines like Google.

That is achieved by creating valuable content for specific keywords. The more content you have the more websites Google can index and the more traffic you can have.

Advantages

Let’s at first have a look at the advantages of SEO.

Free source traffic

I believe that is one of the best arguments for SEO. You don’t have to pay anything for your traffic.

That’s also a reason why so many people try to succeed with SEO at the beginning of their online marketing career. You don’t have to invest any money (besides website hosting) and you can already earn your first money.

If you think about it that can be a very effective method. Let’s say you pay $50 per year for website hosting and you earn $500 the first year. That doesn’t sound like a lot but compared to your input you 10X your investment!

Compared to the return on investments in the stock marketing (usually between 5-10%) that’s more than 10 times more effective than investing in stocks!

Targeted traffic

Another great benefit of SEO traffic is that the traffic is highly targeted. As the user is already searching for a specific keyword on Google they show interest in a specific topic.

If you now can provide value and show them that you are an expert in your niche you can convert these people into your buyers.

High potential

There are over 3.5 billion searches on Google every day! That is a huge potential for traffic.

Of course, not everyone is searching for information in your niche, but there is more than enough traffic in your niche! If you want to you can use the free Google Keyword Planner and search for the volume of keywords.

For example, the keyword “banana cake recipes” has between 10,000 and 100,000 searches every month! And believe me, the people on the first site of Google for this keyword don’t have a problem earning money 😉

Disadvantages

Besides all these great benefits there are also some disadvantages of SEO we want to have a look at.

Takes a lot of time

The common mistakes people do at SEO is that they think that they can get a lot of traffic within the first month. However, if you have a brand new website it can take between 3-6 months to get your first traffic.

And that really depends on your niche! If you are in a niche with a lot of competition (like earning money online or weight loss) it can take much longer to get a good amount of traffic.

That’s also one of the reasons why people quit early. They set up a website, write posts for 2 months, they don’t see any results and they quit before even Google recognizes their website.

This is compared to paid traffic where you can get your first traffic within minutes a very long and demanding road.

The reason why this process takes that long is very obvious. Google needs to know if your content is valuable and helpful before they help you getting traffic.

Takes a lot of work

As I said it takes minimum 3-6 months to get the first results of Google. In this time you have to stay active and post new posts regularly.

Only if you keep updating your website Google will give you more and more traffic.

As I said, one of the advantages is that the traffic of Google is free. However, you have to put in a lot of work to get that free traffic. That means you don’t have to invest any money but a lot of time.

You could hire a writer to outsource the content creation but that questions the advantage of the free traffic. Maybe it would be more effective to pay for traffic instead of paying a writer but that is a decision you have to make as an online entrepreneur.

Controllability

One of the biggest disadvantages of SEO is the controllability. You can’t control the amount of traffic you get from Google. That may be 10 clicks today and 50 clicks tomorrow.

That makes it really hard to build a reliable business if your only focus is on SEO. There are stories about online businesses that crashed with a Google update.

I heard from one business that went from $10,000/month to $400/ month within one month. The reason for that was a Google update that destroyed the ranking of that website.

I believe that you can’t say you have a successful online business if your only traffic source is SEO. As I said from one day to another it can happen that your earnings shrink.

A good way to avoid that problem is to build other traffic sources. This can be paid sources like Google Adwords or Facebook Ads or other free traffic sources like Facebook or Pinterest.

I believe that the best way is to try to convert the SEO traffic into email marketing leads. That way you can create a huge email list and be independent of Google updates. If you want to know how to start with email marketing you can check out this post with 8 steps to email marketing.

Conclusion

I believe that SEO can be a great way to build a huge source of free traffic. However, you should be careful to also build on other traffic sources so you’ll be independent of Google updates.

Also always you should have a look at the big picture and not think that 30 posts will give you a huge amount of traffic. Have a look at website with a lot of SEO traffic. They usually have more than 150-200 posts and create new content every day!

If you want to learn more about SEO I can recommend the Wealthy Affiliate. In this training program, you’ll learn how to build a website based on SEO and how to earn money with it! (Click here to check it out)

What has been your experience with SEO? Do you think SEO is great or do you think otherwise? I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment below!

10 Tips To Find More Ideas You Can Write About

If you have a blog you should regularly post new content. At the beginning that can be very easy because there are many topics you can write about. However, after some time it can get really hard to find new topics you can write about.

I’m sure you know all that feeling sitting in front of your computer having no idea what you could write about. It always feels like you’re wasting a lot of time. And you are.

When I started with blogging I had the same problems. However, with the time I found different methods how I could find new ideas and I want to share my methods with you:

Tip #1: Inspiration from other blogs

It’s always a good idea to have a look at other blogs in your niche. What are they writing about? What posts have the most engagement (comments)?

However, you should never copy any content from other blogs. It may seem like a good idea, but that really hurts your ranking in SEO. Google always checks if your content is already posted somewhere and lowers your ranking if you are copying content.

Tip #2: Current topics – news

Is there a product of a topic everyone is talking about in your niche? Are there maybe exhibitions that your audience could be interested in?

The news channel is always a good source of new ideas and information. However, here it is important to write about news that is relevant to your niche!

Tip #3: Learn from your newsletters

I hope you already signed in for many newsletters in your niche? If not, you should do that right now! Why?

Because that’s an easy way to get information about new product launches or other news. You also get a lot of content and information you can use to write your own article 🙂

Tip #4: Learn more about the problems from your niche

What are the biggest problems in your niche? Search for the problems in forums of your niche and write down all the problems they have.

That way you can easily find ideas for new content. In addition, that makes you content highly relevant to your audience and that makes your blog even better!

That way also more people start reading your blog and leave your link in forums or other blogs.

You can also find problems in Facebook groups or in the comments of your own blog.

Tip #5: Remember yourself

How was it when you started in your niche? What has been your problems in the beginning? And how did you solve them? Write down your problem and how you solved it and make a post out of it.

With that method, you can find many ideas for tips and instructions, especially for beginners.

Tip #6: Learn, learn, learn

You should always keep growing. Invest time in reading books, visiting seminars, watching webinars or buy digital info products. The more you know the more you can write about. All these things lead you to an expert status in your niche.

And that will give you more readers, more trust, and more income.

Tip #7: Variety on your blog

Mix up different topics like reviews, competitions, surveys, etc. to get a variety of different blog posts. Nobody wants to read only product reviews.

If they only read about product reviews they soon will think: “he only wants to sell something” and they will never come back. The biggest part of your blog should be helpful content.

From time to time you can post a product review but the main part shouldn’t.

Tip #8: Stunning visuals

Your blog shouldn’t be only text. Add some visuals to make your blog more beautiful and worth looking. If you have great content and beautiful images your blog posts will be shared more often on your social networks.

Tip #9: Change your environment

Sometimes it really helps to change your environment. Instead of sitting in front of your desk all the time change your environment and go to a coffee shop instead.

Or go to the park with your laptop if the weather is great. Or maybe it helps to leave your desk and writing your blog post on the kitchen table. This can help you to boost your productivity and idea finding. I stopped planning on my laptop. Instead, I go outside and write down my weekly plan on a piece of paper.

That way I much more relaxed and I have much more ideas.

Tip #10: Don’t make this mistake

The biggest mistake you can make is to get stuck in front of your laptop. If you have no idea what you could write about and sit down for hours thinking you are wasting your time.

Especially when you pressure yourself to write that article. In the end, your article is not written very well and your reader doesn’t get a lot of value. And they notice that.

Sometimes you notice that yourself and throw your article away 😀

I hope that my tips help you to get ideas what you can write about 🙂

How do you find new ideas? How do you find new topics you can write about? I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment below 🙂

Online Sales Pro review – Scam or Opportunity?

Online Sales Pro is a lead generation, marketing automation, and direct sales software tool. They say that with their help you are able to grow your leads, your sales, and your cash flow (check it out here).

Let’s see if that’s true and dig into this tool a little more.

How does it work?

Online Sales Pro has different features we want to have a look at.

Landing Page Creator

Online Sales Pro offers nine different landing page templates you can choose from. The templates look very professional and they are all fully responsive.

This is very important since more and more traffic is coming from mobile phones.

You can change the headline, the background, the button, and the colors. However, the problem is that you can’t edit the format of the landing pages. So for example, you can’t add text labels, other buttons or anything like that.

If you want to focus on short landing pages with a video, for example, the templates are good but nothing special.

Lead generation

One of the greatest features of Online Sales Pro is the Online Sales app. Every time you get a lead you get a notification on your phone. That means you can instantly write them a personalized email or give them a call (if they give you their number).

This can really boost your conversion. Especially if you work in a business where you need to spend more time with your lead like multi-level marketing or coaching.

Email Integration

Of course, you can also integrate your favorite autoresponders. The integration is very easy and works very well. You can integrate AWeber, GetResponse, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, and NowLifestyle.com

3rd Party Funnels

Online Sales Pro also offers a variety of different pre-built funnels for other services like DigitalAltitude, MCA, Reverse Commissions, and much more.

That feature really takes out a lot of work if you work with the programs. Just fill on your affiliate links and you already have a funnel. I don’t think it can get much easier 🙂

Training

Online Sales Pro offers a variety of lessons about affiliate marketing. The focus of this training is on list building. I think the training is easy to understand and has a lot of good and valuable content.

However, if you check out the guides they deliver you can see that these pdf guides are not from Online Sales Pro but rather from another source. However, that doesn’t mean that the quality is bad.

If you are already an experienced marketer I don’t think you’ll learn a lot of new stuff but still, you’ll find one or two strategies you can use.

However, if you are a beginner to affiliate marketing maybe this free guide can help you out.

Cost

Online Sales Pro costs $37/month. Within this package, you get as many landing pages and funnels you want to create. This also includes the hosting of all your landing pages.

Besides the basic package, there is also the MVP upgrade. The MVP upgrade costs $97/month. By upgrading your account you get more advanced training and early access to new templates and sales pages.

In addition, you can create a customized MVP store with your affiliate links which your referrals will see. That way, you can easily create different income streams.

Does it work?

The templates are very basic and the app works well.

The integration with the autoresponders are working very good and the training is very basic.

You can’t integrate your landing pages within WordPress that means that can be a huge turn off for many bloggers.

If you want to have a landing page tool together with an integrated autoresponse I would recommend to check out ClickFunnels (check out here my review) or Builderall (check out the review here).

These tools are much more flexible and they also offer an autoresponder integration and much more features that Online Sales Pro can’t deliver.

 

Conclusion

Online Sales Pro is a great lead generation tool for coaches and multi-level marketers. The notification feature really helps you to build up trust and boost your conversion.

If you have a WordPress blog I can’t recommend you this tool as you can’t integrate it with your blog. Here I would choose a different tool like OptimizePress or ThriveThemes.

As I already mentioned, if you are really interested in building an landing page I would recommend using other tools.

Now I want to hear more from you!

What do you think about Online Sales Pro? Are you using it to generate leads?

Earning money with the Amazon Affiliate Program

Blog vs. Landing page – what do you need?

“You need a blog!” – “No, all you need is a landing page!”

This could be a real conversation of two people discussing who is right.

But who is right?

What do you really need?

Today I’ll show you this.

But before that, I’ll explain more in detail what a “blog” and a “landing page” is.

What is the difference between a blog and a landing page?

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a single site on a website. It is a static page that doesn’t change regularly.

It will be used to either promote a product or to generate leads for email marketing.

Usually, a landing page for lead generation is very short while a sales page can be much longer. However, it can also happen that the sales page contains only a video.

Also, there is no navigation on a landing page.

You can also create a landing page with your CMS (e.g. WordPress). There are some themes which enable you to create landing pages. If your theme doesn’t have this feature you can use a plugin for that.

There is usually one single goal of a landing page. Either to create a lead or a sale. That’s why a landing page doesn’t have a navigation or a sidebar because the user should only focus on the landing page.

What is a blog?

A blog is a website which will be refreshed with new content regularly. Usually, there is a view with the newest posts on the top.

The length of these posts can vary. In an info niche, the length can be between 800-1500 words, in news niches there can also be short posts with 250-500 words.

In addition, a blog contains a navigation and a sidebar, sometimes two and sometimes none at all.

You can set up a blog with different CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress, Joomla, Drupa, etc. and you can code it yourself if you want to 😉

The goal of a blog is to generate readers and build trust to potential customers. In addition, you can generate leads for email marketing. Also, you position yourself as an expert in your niche.

So what do you need – Landing Page or Blog?

I think maybe you already know the right answer 😉

You should… wait for it 😉

… use both!

Use Landing Pages and a blog!

And that has several reasons.

3 Reasons for a Landing Page

Reason #1: You want to earn money online and for that, you need email marketing

Email marketing is your most important asset of your online business. So it really makes sense to start right away building your email list.

To get leads for your newsletter you need sign up forms. Of course, you can place sign up forms on the sidebar of your blog but the conversion rates of landing pages are much higher.

That means you can have more leads with the same amount of traffic on your landing page than on your blog.

Reason #2: The sales rate is higher on a Landing Page

In most of the niches, it is possible to create a digital product and sell it.

Of course, you can try to promote this on your blog but not many people will find your article and buy your product.

Also with the sidebar and the navigation, it is easy the user gets distracted.

On a landing page, it is much easier to explain the product and why it will help your visitor.

In addition, if you buy traffic (Google AdWords/Facebook PPC) it is much easier to measure the conversion rate of your product, as there is less distraction.

Reason #3: The signup rate is higher

Reason #2 also applies if you want to generate leads.

These are very good reasons for a landing page. So why should you use a blog?

3 Reasons for using a blog

Reason #4: Google loves blogs

With a blog, it is usually much easier to rank high on Google than with a landing page. One the one side, Google loves content. And on the other side, if you publish content regularly you have after some time a lot of content.

You wouldn’t find so much content on a long sales page.

That means, Google has more to index and you get better rankings with your keywords.

And that means more free traffic for you. Who doesn’t want to have that?

Reason #5: Nobody likes ads

If you publish helpful and interesting content on social networks it doesn’t look like an ad. If you publish instructions, tips, and ideas they will be seen as helpful content.

On the other side, landing pages are usually not welcome.

Reason #6: Trust is everything

With the help of a blog, you can position yourself as an expert in your niche and build trust to your reader (and potential customer). Your reader gets a lot of content from you and gets to know you and your brand better.

Think about it. When was the last time you bought an expensive digital product and from who? Have you found yourself a sales page without knowing the creator behind?

Or is it someone you already know longer and you visit his blog regularly?

Conclusion

Yes, you can live without a landing page. And yes you can live only with a landing page.

However, you are missing on some huge opportunities.

If you use landing pages and a blog you can have all the advantages of both!

Now I want to hear from you:

Do you use both, landing pages and a blog? Or maybe only one of it?

Or do you use nothing?

Let me know it by leaving a comment 🙂

Morfix Review – Scam or Opportunity?

Auto-liking, auto-commenting, auto-direct messaging, and auto-scheduling. These are only some of the great features Morfix promises on their website (see here).

But how good are the features working in reality? I tested this Instagram automation tool and in the following, you can see my results.

How does it work?

Morfix works very similar to Leadfriend. They help you grow your profile by engaging with other members in your niche. Before the algorithm can work you need to set up your account.

Setting up your account

Before you do anything else you need to pick a niche. Morfix has already predefined niches like:

• Entrepreneurship
• Make money online
• Food
• Health and Fitness
• etc.

You can also choose “custom” if your niche is different. Now you need to choose which options you want to use. Here is a screenshot of my account where you can see more details:

As you can see you can turn on and of automated liking, comments, following and unfollowing. So for example, if you don’t want to auto-comment you can turn that off.

Next, you can set up advanced auto follow/unfollow options. The screenshot below shows you all the options:

There are many different options you can set. If you have a rather new account you want to turn down the follow/unfollow speed so your Instagram account won’t be blocked.

In the next step, you can set up comments you want to be posted. This really depends on your goal. This can be for example “Great post! Be sure to check out our profile!”.

Now you can also set up hashtags and profiles you want to target.

Lastly, you can set up direct messages that should be sent out to new followers. Here you can vary with different versions.

One the one side this is great for split testing and on the other side, this needed to “trick” the Instagram algorithm. If you only have one version and this message gets sound out 50 times a day the algorithm thinks you are using a tool and will maybe block your account.

However, to avoid this you can create many different variations of one message.

Schedule posts

Another great feature of Morfix is auto-scheduling posts. You can either choose your own content or already created content from Morfix. They already give you access to hundreds of pictures in the Lifestyle, Entrepreneurship and Fitness niche. So if you don’t want to

So if you don’t want to create content you can use this content.

The idea of the scheduling feature is pretty good. However, I think it can be improved. At first, you have to schedule pictures in a different time zone (GMT +8) what can be very confusing.

Also, there is no option to see only pictures you haven’t posted, yet. So you always have to know which pictures you have posted and which you haven’t.

With a little practice, it gets easier but at the beginning, it can be really frustrating.

After scheduling your posts you can see in the logs if there has been a problem with posting your pictures. Unfortunately, there are sometimes errors and your picture couldn’t be posted.

I also have noticed that scheduled pictures have a much lower engagement rate than manually posted pictures. I think the Instagram algorithm notices if you schedule a lot of posts and lowers your engagement but that is just my opinion. (If you need a tool to schedule check out this tool)

Cost

Morfix offers different packages with different features.

Free account: You can start Morfix as a free member and use some of their features. You can automatically send out DMs to your new followers and activate the auto-like feature.

However, the messages and your scheduled posts are branded by Morfix. If you want to remove the branding you have to upgrade to the premium package.

Premium account: The premium account costs $37/month and has all the automation features for one account. That includes auto-liking, auto-commenting access to the affiliate program and training and much more.

If you want to use Morfix with more than one account you have to upgrade your account to Business.

Business account: The business account costs $97/month and includes up to 5 different Instagram accounts. In addition, you get invited to the auto engagement group which will help you boost your account.

Who is it for?

Morfix can be a great tool for

• People who want to easily get more followers
• Business owners who want to sell with Instagram
• Affiliates who want to earn money with the Morfix affiliate program

Does it work?

I already had one account using Leadfriend but I wanted to test Morfix and created a second account. It all seemed very great until I started scheduling some posts.

As I already mentioned, you have to schedule the posts in a different time zone. That was really confusing at the beginning. But after the first 10 posts, it worked out pretty well.

They say that if you have a very new account you have to turn down the follow/unfollow speed so you won’t get blocked. However, I had my speed on the lowest level but I still had problems with it.

My account didn’t get banned but in the Morfix dashboard, it said that the Instagram algorithm throttled my account. That isn’t something bad, it just means that in the next 4-5 days the Morfix algorithm doesn’t work.

That is something completely different to Leadfriend where I never had any problems. However, when the algorithm is working the growth is very good.

Also, as I already described, the scheduled posts have a lower engagement rate than manually posted pictures.

Besides, these small problems the algorithm works out very good and I get new followers and leads every day.

The affiliate program

Morfix offers a very great affiliate program. Here are the two reasons for it that I liked the most:

Reason #1: Commission structure

For every referral in the premium package, you get $20/month recurring commissions. That means if you only refer two new members you account is free! For every business referral, you get $50/month recurring commissions.

This is a great opportunity to build a passive income stream!

Reason #2: Step-by-step training

Inside the Morfix backend, you get step-by-step affiliate training that really helps you to become a successful affiliate. The training is very detailed and should be enough to make money on Instagram.

Conclusion

Morfix is a very good tool for Instagram automation but it is not perfect. It has a great backend with many different settings and a great affiliate program.

However, there are some small problem with the tool but if you can live with these you’ll have access to a great tool. If you want to start your free trial check click here.

If you want to download a free ebook how you can earn your first $1.000 with Instagram and Morfix click here.

Have you made any experiences with Morfix? Or maybe you are using another tool? Let me know by leaving a comment below 🙂