Last time I wrote to you all it was just before Christmas and I was announcing my one-on-one coaching opportunity. The response to the program was unbelievable and I've been
insanely busy trying to keep up with this very active, very energetic group of students - and loving every second of it!
However, I don't want you to think I've completely fallen off the map and I have a whole list of tidbits to share with you so please keep reading - I'm sure there's a bit of something for
everyone.
How to Make Money with Facebook
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Affiliate marketing, t-shirts, fan pages - there are lots of ways to make money through Facebook and one new book covers SIX different ways you can profit from Facebook (plus some extra tips and techniques).
Months ago a guy named AJ Montoya came out with a WSO
about affiliate marketing on Facebook. I'd never heard of him but I'd been heavily testing Facebook ads for a variety of projects and his material looked like it might contain some material I needed. It did, I learned a great deal and - best of all - I profited. (Although it did take some time and testing but he did say it would!)
A couple of days ago AJ put out a new course and I was
able to go through it today. This time he's outlined 6 different ways you could use Facebook to make money including an improvement on the method outlined in the last course I purchased.
I like to write but I know that not everyone does or has the time to write lots of content. AJ's methods don't require a lot of writing at all which is why I think his course would appeal to a number of you.He's covered:- How to build fan pages
- How to make money with TeeSpring (the you-design-it, they-create-and-mail-it T-shirt site)
- How to set up Facebook ads
- How to use Facebook ads to promote WSO and JVZoo products (which is what worked for me - he calls this his $50/day system)
- Using Facebook for CPA offers
- How to build a list with Facebook
- How
to make a monthly income as a Facebook consultant (and where to find clients)
- How to retarget your existing email list through Facebook
His course is very reasonably priced for the material inside, available in both PDF and video, and detailed enough that I didn't feel I was left hanging about
what to do next.I did not buy his upsell (there's only one) but I did last time. It was a collection of case studies, swipes, and images that I was able to immediately use to carry out the strategy and he's offering something similar this time, too, however, I felt confident doing those things on my own
now since I'd learned from his tactics in the previous course.
NOTE: This is not for everyone. If you don't like the idea of using Facebook, don't like strategies where you have to spend money to make money, or are actively working on a strategy that works for you and don't really need anything new at the moment then avoid this course.
TIP: AJ has one tip in his course for how to get around the $50 voucher per member Facebook limit that is legit and not the standard "Just get another FB account" that others recommend (which is a violation of FB terms of service) however, there's one a way to do it for even less than he suggests.
He recommends buying vouchers from others (people sell them on various sites) and then using them on your friends' and family member's Facebook accounts to run ads for your own stuff.
Instead, if your friend or family member goes into
Facebook, starts to set up an ad and then leaves before completing the transaction, they will (or used to, anyway) receive an email from Facebook with a free $50 voucher attached - no need to buy them.
Your friends and family can run certain ad types
for Facebook Pages they do not own or for which they do not have administration rights. I was able to do this for my dad's charity organization's Facebook page this past summer. As long as your friend or family member isn't going to use their voucher for themselves they may be willing to help use it for your own campaigns so you can test some ads for free.
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Future Coaching Programs
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I've so enjoyed working with the current group of coaching students that I've decided to offer the program again for March/April and May/June. The program is eight weeks long and I will coach you one-on-one to build a solid review site using the Extreme Review strategy. The coaching is done through email and the steps are broken out into
manageable assignments. The cost is $597 and I will only be able to take a limited number of students for each session.
I had to turn away a number of people who were interested last time and will make sure those people have a spot if they still want it in the next session. I will also send another email closer to the end of February taking sign ups.
However, if you're interested
and want to reserve your spot now for the March/April session with a down payment rather than wait until the end of month email notification then please contact me at erica@extremereviewer.com.
As a reminder the requirements for the course are that you must be able to get hosting and buy a domain name, must have some WordPress experience, and must be able to write proper English.
I've received a number of testimonials even though we're only half way through the course and wanted to share this one with you (before Antoinette gets her next round of assignments and runs screaming...I'm kidding!) ;)
Hi Erica,
I just wanted to take a moment to let you know how much I am enjoying this course with you. I am learning soooooooooo much from you!
It's the best thing I've ever done! I signed up for other coaching courses (though not on a personal level like yours) that were about $200 even though I was on a tight budget (as in no money!). Most of them I panicked and felt sick after and 2 of them I asked for a refund which I really hate doing. But when I signed up for your course which was 3 times the cost, I felt ecstatic and thrilled and at peace. I knew I had done the right
thing. I just want to thank you and let you know how great I think your coaching is.
Back to work!
Antoinette
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Some Google Rel Author Images Disappear
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Google must have wised up and they've recently reduced the percentage of sites for which the rel=author code causes the author's Google+ image to appear next to the result in search result pages. This was a great benefit to affiliates because it made our listings stand out when stacked on a page against sites like Amazon and Walmart which did not
have a nice, personal photo next to the listing.
They've essentially raised the bar so that your profile has to achieve what amounts to a certain degree of popularity before they'll show your picture. Your Google circle information will still show next to your list but not your image unless your profile qualifies. This seems to have impacted many affiliate marketers so if you've
noticed that your Google+ image disappeared next to your pages in search result listings this is probably why. Oh, Google! *sigh*
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Coming Thursday - Writing POWERFUL Reviews
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My time Thursday morning (I'm in Arizona, US) I believe I'll be launching a new product. This book is designed for anyone who wants to write product reviews - whether for their own site or on web 2.0 sites.
I've struggled for a long time with
being able to put how I write my reviews into words that others could follow and be assured that what they created was in line with my personal approach but I think I've finally got it!
If you've ever been frustrated with how to create a compelling, thorough, and high quality review that can earn you money year after year then you will want this book. I'll send another email when the product
launches.
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Cloak Links? Hide Links?
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I've had conversations left and right lately about whether or not one should cloak their Amazon affiliate links and how to use cloaking to hide links from Google if, in fact, Google is penalizing a site's rankings for having a large number of affiliate links. The issue is that "cloaking" is not the same as "hiding".
Cloaking links disguises the domain name to which the link leads. Cloaking would change an
Amazon affiliate link to http://yourdomain.com/something. To the person hovering over your link it looks like the link will take them to another page of your site. Instead, there's code behind the scenes that redirects that link to your affiliate link on Amazon. Google can still see the link and they can
tell it redirects to an affiliate link. In my opinion, there are only a couple of reasons to cloak links: - You want to make an ugly affiliate link look "prettier" so your visitor isn't afraid to click on it
- You want to prevent too many affiliate links in an email triggering some sort of spam filter
- You want to be able to change your affiliate link on the fly through a redirect plug-in in case you need to link to a different product
None of these
really applies to Amazon. The links don't look suspicious to consumers, you can't email your affiliate links, and our sites usually have so many affiliate links that changing them through a redirect plug-in probably isn't all that much faster than updating them through a find and replace plug-in.
Hiding links refers to the use of javascript to produce a link on your site in a way that Google cannot see the link in your code. To the person hovering over the link on the page everything looks normal. The domain name of the link is not
disguised and they can see the link leads to Amazon. The benefit is that Google doesn't see an affiliate link and, therefore, may not penalize your rankings for having them on your site. At least that's the current thinking. Most link cloaking tools do not "hide" affiliate links so do not think that just cloaking your links will "hide" them.
So, should you "hide" Amazon affiliate links? I have sites and pages that do not hide links and still rank just fine but those are usually content-rich posts so the link to content ratio is very favorable. I do know several people who have seen improved rankings when they reduced the number of affiliate links on their site and I did actively reduce the number of affiliate links on the site I built to house my Squidoo lenses and saw some improved rankings. I do think that you can outweigh the possible Google negative impact of having affiliate links on your site by making sure to have a good ratio of content to affiliate links. I see lots of authority sites that rank very well and do not cloak or hide their affiliate links.
I also think Google will eventually figure out how to read the javascript that
hides links. Tools like AdBlocker may also block the display of javascript-hidden links so you have to be careful in using them. At this time I am not hiding links other than through the use of the Contextazon plug-in because it not only hides them but also makes a great banner/call-to-action for Amazon review posts. I still have regular affiliate links in the same content as my Contextazon links, though, to account for those who won't see the Contextazon links because of things like AdBlocker. |
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