Affiliate Marketing Tips from Super Affiliate Zac Johnson

My Blog Readers have Earned Over ONE MILLION with Neverblue

Over the past decade I've had the task of working with many different affiliate networks. Some thrived, died, went out of business and a few also went on to be acquired and become parts of larger companies. One of the few successful and very … Read More

Breakdown of a Profitable Facebook Ads Campaign

With the latest backlash of articles coming up on TechCrunch about deceptive and scammy ways to make money on Facebook, I wanted to provide you with a full breakdown on how to create a successful CPA Facebook ads campaign. Step and step details on a … Read More

Create Killer Landing Pages – Free Template

I get questions all the time about landing pages and what are the best ways to create them. Instead of writing a post on what you should focus on, I will simply take an existing ad campaign from MarketLeverage, and made a real landing page out of. … Read More

Insider Secrets to a Making a Million Dollar Web Site!

A few days ago I released my first post on "How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months!", along with the picture of my $306,373.24 check. Due to the massive exposure and questions generated from the post, I thought I'd bring you the second … Read More

How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months!

First off, I would like to make it clear that this post is NOT to impress you, but to impress upon you what's possible! This is a quick review on how I went from one of my worst years of making money online to my best year, and all it took was one … Read More

Staree – Make Money Sharing Photos and Videos

In the world of social networking, posting pictures and videos online, and anything to do with celebrities… you simply can’t go wrong. So what happens when you combine the power of all three of these mega attractions? Then you get Staree!

Staree is the latest project behind the team at Izea, and their goal is to make a one stop resource for everyone who is already using Twitter, Facebook and Klout, but also enjoy having their own profile pages and getting paid to share their updates and photos/videos with friends. One of the main attractions at Staree is their connections with the entertainment world and all of the celebrities that they will soon have flowing through the new social network. With mega celebrities like Kenda Wilkinson, Bethenny Frankel, Khloe Kardashian already working with Izea, I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before Staree has a powerful celebrity user base.

Staree is Now Open for Everyone to Join

For now, Staree has closed the doors on their beta launch and have now opened registration for everyone else who would like to get active on their site. You can see my profile page in the screen shot below. Staree has a mobile application that makes it extremely easy for you to share pictures and videos from your phone, then instantly post them to your Staree page. Anyone who visits a Staree profile page will also be able to easily contact the person through their Twitter, Facebook, Ask Form or leave a comment below any updates.

How Staree is Different from Other Social & Sharing Networks

In addition to being another social networking site where people can post and share content with friends, Staree stands out from the crowd by not only allowing members to have a custom look and feel to their profile pages, but also that you can earn money in the process. As mentioned, Staree also has a mobile app, which allows you to update with text posts, photos and videos… something many other apps like Instagram don’t currently offer.

Getting back to the money part…

Yes, just like all of the other component of Izea (Social Spark and Sponsored Tweets), Staree is also focused on creating an excellent user experience while also rewarding their users with compensation. John Chow also wrote up a post on Staree and he has already earned money in his account, just from posting a few pictures over the past three days.

You can see a screenshot below of Ted Murphy’s account area and how earnings and profile settings are setup. You can also upload photos and videos through their web site in addition to using their mobile app.

Join Staree and Start Sharing Updates with Your Friends

With the official launch of Staree today, they are sure to be flooded with new signups and feedback on how to make their site and service better. It will be great to see how many new celebrities and users sign up to use the service and see how they will compete and grow along side Facebook, Twitter and Klout in the coming months. I recommend you go and setup a free account with Staree.com today.

Create Your Staree Page.

17 May, 2012 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Blogging 3 Comments

How Hotel Gyms are Very Much Like Landing Pages

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to stay at a few different hotel locations. Many of them had their gyms, pools and spas. While at the Marriott Newport in Rhode Island this past weekend, I started to think about how the way hotels present and advertise their gyms and spa areas are a lot like how marketers promote and generate leads through online landing pages.

Hotel Gyms and Landing Pages Sell Dreams

When was the last time you went looking for a hotel online. There is a very good chance that you went through picture galleries of their hotel and the various areas they may offer, which includes the gym and pool area. Most people will look at these pictures and see the gym and say to themselves, “Wow, that’s a nice gym, I think I’ll work out while I’m there“… but in the end we know 99% of the people at the hotel will never use the gym.

This is exactly what I saw an experienced while at the gym in the Marriott Newport, and this was a really high quality gym! Inside they had around 20-30 different machines and all of them are high end Precor machines. Definitely a $100,000+ investment alone.

Now what’s the return on investment for this gym area? Very hard to tell… but still, it’s all about selling the dream (experience) and adding it as one of the benefits to staying at their high end hotel.

Take this same concept and apply it to any landing page and how marketers are selling the dream of weight loss, dating or any other service or product out there. How many products and services that are actually bought through landing pages are actually used by the customer… probably not too many… it’s about selling the experience and dream, not the end product.

Visualization is Everything

As mentioned earlier, the majority of hotels are now booked through online web sites and having a photo gallery to demonstrate the best features of a hotel or destination is everything. Just like a hotel puts a lot of money and work into their gym area setups and experience, marketers and designers are busy working on their landing page call to actions and trying to display the benefits of their service or product in the few seconds they have.

Just like you wouldn’t want to promote a quality product or service that you believe in with a unappealing or cheap looking landing page, hotels aren’t going to want to post pictures of old exercise machines and scummy looking work out rooms. In the end, no matter if you are promotion a weight loss offer or something as simplistic as a gym at a hotel, it all comes down to selling the experience and quality of that experience.

Learning from Marriott’s Web Site

The Marriott company is very well at what they do, and that is getting people into their hotels and providing a quality experience. My stay at the Marriott Newport in Rhode Island was excellent. With that said, I am even more impressed with how their run their web sites and setup for each of their hotels.

There is nothing worse than looking to book a stay at a hotel, then they have a generic hotel web site that doesn’t provide location specific information and pictures for each hotel location. In the screenshot below you will see a screenshot of the actual site for the specific Marriott Newport in Rhode Island location.

As you can see, the photo in the screenshot on the “Fitness & Recreation” of the gym area is quite similar to the same picture I took myself. The pool photo on the web site is also the same pool that is in the hotel… my point is that Marriott is awesome at building web sites that are specific to every one of their main hotels and highlight the individual features and selling points of each… exactly what marketers have learned works best, keyword/topic/product specific landing pages.

While we are on the topic of landing pages… here are some other great resources I have previously written about.

Create Killer Landing Pages: Free Template – One of my most popular and most appreciated and commented on blog posts, is the one where I give away a free landing page for anyone to download and start using right away. If you are new to landing pages or don’t want to spend any money on a custom designed landing page, this is a great place to start.

7 Kick Ass Landing Page Tips for the Dating Niche – It’s quite hard to find a niche more competitive than the dating niche. Take a look at the many different landing pages out there and see what you can learn from how others are marketing their pages and increasing conversions with very smart and attractive call to actions.

How to Easily Split Test Landing Pages and Traffic Sources – There are many different solutions out there for split testing your creatives and landing pages, but LinkTrackr makes the process a lot easier by using their already built and hosted platform.

16 May, 2012 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Marketing 2 Comments

Improving Search Rankings with Sheer SEO Software

With Google playing mind games with SEO masters, blog owners and webmasters around the world… no one is safe from recent changes in the search results. While we can’t change how Google fluctuates web site rankings, we can make sure that we are ready for future updates and make our web sites and blogs ready for any future changes. No matter what Google does, in the end quality links and content are king. With this concept and model in mind, using the proper software to monitor and manage your sites rankings and back links are key. Today we are going to take a look at Sheer SEO Software Suite and how it can help you in the search engine rankings war!

“Research shows that 60-70% of the users of search engines will only use the results in the first page. This means that getting to the top 10 results of the search engine is critical for your business.” – Sheer SEO

Breaking Down the Features of Sheer SEO Software

As wonderful as it would be to just buy software or click a button to have our web sites ready and optimized for search engines, it just doesn’t work that way. SEO and site optimization is a continuing mission, which never seems to end. With Google updating their algorithm and rankings all of the time, having the necessary software to track these changes and monitor your sites makes the whole process a lot easier.

Let’s now take a look at the many different features of Sheer SEO and how it can help you win the war against competing sites in the search engines.

Many SEO software packages specialize in only offering a few different features and reporting options, Sheer SEO has a massive list of tools and features that can all be run through their software. You can check out the screenshot below for a few examples, but the list on their site includes many more, such as tracking rankings, site pagerank, traffic estimation, directory submissions, blog reviews, keyword density and so much more. With so many tracking features available, Sheer SEO offers a 60 day free trial to test out their software so you can fully understand it’s power and features before joining as a premium member.

Why are all of these tools and features necessary? Simply because the way web sites rank in the search engines is not a one trick formula, but a collection of many different factors. Being able to pull reports and view your previous activity and performance in directories, blog reviews / guest posting, incoming links and much more, all contributes to your overall rankings in the search engines. We can’t all become SEO masters, but through the use of seo software, we can better understand how to improve our web sites and rankings.

Sheer SEO Live Demo

We can talk about the benefits and features of software all day, but one of the best ways to see how something truly works, is through the use of a live demo.

Through the use of Sheer SEO Software Suite and it’s seo tools we can pull up rankings and traffic reports for any web sites and keywords one desires. The reports are quite simple and easy to read and understand. Using the tabs on the top of the reports you can scroll through the various reporting sections and sorting abilities. One of the problems many people have when using SEO software is that they are confused with all of the reporting and miscellaneous stats and tracking, as you can see in the screenshot above, Sheer SEO makes all of their reports very easy to understand and learn from.

The Cost of Sheer SEO Software

Just like all web sites and traffic are different, so are the ways we can track and report web sites rankings and keywords. Sheer SEO understands this all too well and have a pricing plan and membership level that is built specifically for sites and marketers of all sites. Most importantly, Sheer SEO is offering a two month free trial that lets you monitor a single domain name and up to 40 keywords. Once your trial is over, you can select from any of their premium membership plans, which range from $7 to $199 a month, based on the number of domain names and keywords you might want to track, along with other advanced features.

Try Sheer SEO Software Suite for 60 Days Free

15 May, 2012 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Get Reviewed 7 Comments

How To Increase Affiliate Income By Ranking On Google’s First Page

The almighty “G” has released the Penguin and the effect on blogs especially affiliate review blogs are huge.

It’s like affiliate marketers are confused. They’ve a lot of questions traveling through their clouded minds – what’s Google really up to. How do I position my affiliate niche sites to rank better, generate income and make me happy? I need to pay some bills and Google just wouldn’t understand.

They don’t care about me, despite all my efforts to please them. I wish Google would fall in love with my niche blog – all these plights will be gone in a hurry – Oh God, help me!

I’m I speaking to you – sure, I know someone out there is lamenting over the drop in his blog. Google Penguin updates really smashed a lot of blogs and the money they were earning virtually dropped by several multiples. Are you on of such persons?

You’re not alone. I’m an affiliate marketer too. I own 2 affiliate review blogs. I visualized what Google is up to about 5 months ago, and I began to take the right steps. Fortunately, my affiliate blogs are still hot, generating gasping commissions and taking me to the bank monthly. I want to show you how to position your blog to rank higher in search engines – it doesn’t matter whether the Panda is at the gate or the Penguin in the room (I wonder why Google chooses to use weird animal names for updates).

There are 2 steps to take your affiliate money making blog to the top. It’s not going to be easy, and it won’t happen overnight. But I’m confident that when you give it a shot, you’ll bounce back fast. Let’s dive in:

1. Start Acting Like a Middleman

Every affiliate marketer is a middle man. Do you agree with me?

Unfortunately, a lot of affiliate marketers acts like the manufacturer. I mean, they literally review affiliate offers as if they own it. Their affiliate blog doesn’t sound like a resourceful site. An affiliate is expected to behave, review, and answer questions with a backup. Middlemen don’t pride themselves as the product owner; they simply lead target audience through the buying phases without sounding like the CEO.

And guess what? If you consistently review affiliate offers as if you own it, you’ll start operating with a different mindset. This mindset will be controlled by what it sees. Making money by all means becomes the meat and blood of your business – how pathetic.

The first stage of affiliate success is to recognize you’re in the ‘middle.’ Giving instructions and directing interested prospects to take action. No, you’re not pushing or pulling them to buy; you’re only doing the work you were called to do – sharing information. The sales page or store should do the selling, you’re to presell.

Several sites were penalized for over-optimizing. And the #1 reason is obvious, money-conscious thinking caused the webmaster to stuff keywords, emphasize every keyword and acquire links unnecessarily.

What You Should Be Doing Instead

Position your blog with in-depth and well-researched contents. Making money is good, we all want to but you don’t have to be controlled by it. Focus on what retailers and consumers want (helpful information) and the money will trail you like an angry shadow.

To rank highly on Google first page, you’ve to put the end-user (buyers, prospects, consumers, shoppers) in front – Once you can engage readers on your blog, Google will ‘assume’ that your blog is great and reward you with RICH, TARGETED AND READY-TO-BUY ORGANIC TRAFFIC.

2. Build Contextual Links Naturally

“Links are the currency of the web” – Brain Clark

We can’t deny the fact that outbound links are one of the factors Google looks for. But all links are not created equal. Recently, I discovered that when I link from authority and active blogs, my review pages starts ranking highly. It’s no longer the amount of links you build, but how relevant, how specific and where you’re linking to.

You see a lot of people build good links to a wrong page. Some folks employ search engine optimization tricks to deceive Google spider, and one of such is linking to a regurgitated page or a page that has no rich contents. Have you been doing this, stop today?

If you want to rank and enjoy organic traffic and targeted buyers, then, prepare your articles. The pages you’re linking to are important, not just the authority blog that allows you to place two links. Getting external links to your blog pages is easy – guest posting is the best way. But the problem is – how juicy is the page you’re linking to. Is it exceptional, engaging and helpful to the reader?

And secondly, contextual linking is the key to strengthening your blog pages. When you link to a certain page in the article body, you’ve done a mighty work and Google will definitely reward it. Make it flow. Don’t try to squeeze in keywords because you want a contextual link. Write naturally and from your heart. A contextual link speaks volumes to search engines. It tells them that you’re citing to a more relevant page.

If your posts are inspiring, people would share it, link and recommend it. And these activities are bringing rich links and targeted traffic from organic sources.

Take This Home

“Your blog is by you, not for you” – Michael Chibuzor

Anyone can make money promoting affiliate offers; it doesn’t matter if you’re a School Dropout or holds MBA from Cambridge. What matters is the zeal to see other people fulfill their business goals. Channel your entire energy in helping someone, a group of persons come closer to meeting their needs in life and there will be so much money coming your way.

There you’ve it, the only 2 steps needed to boost your affiliate earnings by positioning your blog to rank on Google’s first page. The tips are not tedious, I’m so confident you can do it.

Leave a comment below and meet me at the top!

This guest post was written by Michael Chibuzor, who is a Freelance Writer and founded Passive income ideas blog to help you achieve your affiliate marketing goals. Hire Michael to write guest posts, blog posts and copy to boost your sales, leads and web presence.

13 May, 2012 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing 14 Comments

How Blogging Has Changed My Life

Running your own blog is easy… creating an authority blog and one that makes money is another! Yes, everyone talks about the power of blogging and how it can make you rich or how it can provide you with exposure to people all over the world and even create a new life and business of it’s own. Yes… all of this is possible through blogging, but only if you live, eat and breath it!

With millions of new blogs going live every day, the odds of your blog standing out from the crowd is pretty slim to none. You need to find a niche and simply kill it! Keep generating amazing content, give quality stuff away for free that others would charge you for, and show that you know what you are talking about and put yourself out there to help others… all of these efforts combined, and you may become one of the next top brands and authorities in blogging.

Not to brag, but I’ve put everything into my business and online marketing efforts for over the past 15 years. When I launched my own blog, usually my own name, I had to do the same exact thing. Now five years later and the blog is still killing it and my brand is growing more and more everything.

Please don’t take this post as a means to brag, but instead to impress upon you the sheer power of what is possible through your determined efforts when combined with blogging. Whether you are looking to make money from blogging or just want to create awareness around your passion or even become a voice within your community… it’s all possible through blogging. In this post I’m going to cover just a small fraction of what I’ve been able to accomplish since launching my own blog back in 2007.

I’ve Created a Brand of My Own

For anyone that has been following the blog for a while now, you know that the design and concept is always focused on the “Zac Johnson” toon, which has been great for branding over the years. With the dollar sign shirt, the crown and the personalization of the toon, it’s the perfect way to brand myself and make a lasting impression. Even though the blog has had several blog redesigns over the past five years, the focus on the toon has always remained the same, which always continues to build on the lasting branding and impression made to visitors of the blog.

Make sure to read one of the posts I’ve written over at BloggingTips.com that walks you through the process of how to create a logo for your site. It’s actually much easier and cheaper than you think! The best way to start branding your site and making a name for yourself, is to start on day one!

“Zac Johnson” – As Seen on ABC News

What’s the price of getting coverage on a national television station like ABC News? Simply put… Priceless! Less than two years ago I made my first television appearance on ABC News on the Tory Johnson’s Job Club show. It was pretty cool to visit ABC Studios in New York City and get a behind the scenes look at what everyone else is seeing when they are watching television at home. Once again, this was all possible due to the exposure I’ve received through ZacJohnson.com.

Speaking at Conferences Around the World

One of the best ways to build a name for yourself, is through speaking at conferences and events in your area. The first conference I ever attended was CJU 2000 in California, then the first event I spoke at was during Affiliate Force 2000, which was an internet marketing cruise. Since then I’ve spoken at many well known conferences and events such as Affiliate Summit, SES NY, BlogWorld and even did a keynote in Australia for AffiliateSyd. As you continue to speak at more conferences and build a name for yourself, this will lead to more invitations and paid speaking positions… which leads to even more networking, contacts and business.

Free Products, Passes and Services

When you have a popular web site or blog that companies and people want to get exposure on, they may give you special deals, free passes to conferences and many times they will provide you with free versions of their software or memberships to their sites in exchange for a review. For anyone that already has a popular marketing blog, you probably already know what I mean. Many times you can get a free conference pass to internet marketing conferences just for applying for a free guest pass. This in itself can save you a few hundred dollars!

Winning Massive Contests and Promotions

Blogging can open up a lot of door ways and opportunities you may not even think about. In addition to continually being offered free / trial accounts to paid membership programs, software and other services, you can also enter a lot of contests and promotions that are only open to bloggers. Since going live with the blog, I’ve won a decent amount of contests and promotions I’ve participated in… winning such promotions as a all inclusive vacation to the Dominican Republic, tickets to Elite Retreat, Apple products, conference passes and much more. However, one of the most interesting things I’ve learned over the years from entering and participating in blogging contests and promotions… is that people are just too lazy to enter! Which in the end helps my chances of winning!

Building Amazing New Partnerships and Contacts

On top of everything else mentioned, you then have all of the contacts and new people you will meet through your blog. As many people as you think you may know, there are hundreds of not thousands of people who visit your blog every day and know who you are. This has been all too familiar from when I attend internet marketing conferences and people will come up to me out of no where and say they read the blog. You really never know who is reading your blog! It’s quite exciting and always a thrill to meet your readers in person.

Just from attending different marketing and blogging events over the years I’ve been able to network and meet (and become close friends with many) with not only some of the top people in the online marketing space, but also big name celebrities and bloggers like Marc Cuban, Pete Cashmore, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jalen Rose and many more.

You Need to Get a Blog of Your Own

Now just imagine if I stayed a quite affiliate marketer and just kept running my ad campaigns and minding my own business. Sure, this is a working model and a great way to make money, but look at all of the opportunities I would have missed out on had I not started my own blog… not to mention whatever will come out of the blog in the many years to come.

The bottom line is, this blog now has almost over 1,000 posts now is a massive resource and continues to grow every day. I get new emails and readers every day, and who knows what tomorrow will hold.

In all seriousness, growing a blog to the size of 1,000 posts and creating an authority site like this blog is today is no joke. It takes a ton of time, research, dedication and drive… and you can’t look ahead and try to rush the process.

If you don’t currently have a blog of your own, it’s so crucial that you get started today. It doesn’t matter if you are an affiliate marketer or a grandmother at home who would like to write about cats! Blogging is simple and can be whatever you want it to be. To make the process even more simple, you can even use my free blog installation service and get setup right away without the need to know how to install a blog or setup a domain name.

Here’s to the future of blogging and I hope you are ready for when the next opportunity comes knocking on your blogging door!