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I am curious to see what everyone else out the encountered. Thanks to all of you and my link partners, we took a positive bump back to our all time high of 6/10.

Traffic is at an all time high as well. Thanks for all of your support.

God Bless,

Wade

Happy Wednesday.

Each Wednesday morning, I gather with 8-12 men from my church for breakfast, Bible Study and prayer.

This morning, we watched one of Rob Bell’s Nooma videos - Nooma #3 “Trees” The message was a pretty cool one that I think we can all apply to our lives today as we work, and as we interact with our families, friends, clients, customers and the public at large.

Rob talked about how he was traveling once in a rental car and could not find the button to turn off the radio.  He ended up listening to a well known radio evangelist for longer than he wanted to.   The message presented was that we should all have Faith and wait patiently for the Lord to come and do what he would.   Rob differed with this guys advice and here’s why.

If we sit back and wait, and don’t let our Faith take action, we are wasting so much awesome opportunity to go out and impact the world for Christ.   Jesus was not a man of waiting… he was a man of ACTION.   In the roughly 3 years of his ministry, we hear constantly of Jesus DOING.  He preached, he taught, he healed, he interacted with people who needed help.   He LOVED the world through his actions.   The he called his disciples to do the same and calls us to do the same as well.

The time we are living in now is part of the Eternity we’re spending with the Father.  Are we acting like it?

Let’s go out and live our lives with the joy that we have in Jesus Christ every day.  Let’s be stoked about it and share that enthusiasm and passion with others.  Enthusiasm and passion are contagious and we have so much to be enthusiastic about.

Let’s have a Faith that lives and breathes and grows and ACTS.

God Bless,

Wade

I took some time last week to sit down with Anik Singal of Blog Classroom on Skype and chat a bit their launch that happened about an hour ago

As you can see in my previous post, I am pretty excited about the potential that Blog Classroom has in the affiliate space, and the Christian affiliate marketing realm as well. I think that blogs are an awesome platform for getting started in the affiliate business because they are easy for a non technical person to get into and they offer some distinct advantages in terms of Search Engine Optimization over building a site from scratch in HTML etc.

Enjoy the audio!

 

 Part 1 of PodCast focusing on impending launch of Blog Classroom [4:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (48)

 

 Part 2 of PodCast focusing on impending launch of Blog Classroom [4:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (43)

The Blog Classroom has opened it’s doors and I think it’s definitely worth checking out. Anik Singal from Affiliate Classroom and Rosalind Gardner (super affiliate and expert blogger) have really put together an awesome course delivered by video with coaching to help you become a successful blogger. Here is Anik speaking a bit on what to expect from the Blog Classroom course:

I loved the way that the free pre-course was laid out as it not only featured some great hands on content with Anik and Rosalind going through specific tasks involved in launching a blog, optimizing it for SEO using plugins and using social media bookmarking to get traffic immediately, it also spurs you to action by giving an assignment for you to perform to put what you just learned into play.

Oh - and check this out. Anik and Rosalind have offered a “double your money back” guarantee on the course

Price is $497 - but if you are serious about blogging and doing it well and using your blog to generate revenue, this is a good investment. They are even guaranteeing results. If you purchase the course, actually put their lessons to work for you, and you don’t receive traffic to your blog, Affiliate Classroom will refund your money as well as give you an extra $500 for your trouble.

That screams “confidence in product” to me.

If you’d like to check out a ton more content on what all is involved in the Blog Classroom package, check out their blog here.

Get started with Blog Classroom Today

NOTE: This post contains affiliate links - WT

I am way stoked to announce that C28.com has just signed on with my company GTO Management to re-enter the affiliate marketing world with an affiliate program hosted at Avant Link.

C28 is I feel the top player in Christian apparel for youth and young adults. Their look is edgy and conversation inspiring and as a company they are committed to retail ministry… meaning, it’s about more than just selling clothes. It’s about helping to take the Gospel forward and see people saved and developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Stay tuned for more on this as we get closer to launching the affiliate program for C28.com

If you check out the thread on blogging vs Site Build It, particularly the comments, you will notice that I got a little contentious with a commenter. Why?

The main reason is that I think that “Jay” was using this platform to blatantly advertise a product.

“So what you might ask… Wade, you promote products on here all the time.”

Uh… yeah… it’s my blog… I can do that.

My issue wasn’t that Jay mentioned SBI at all - I brought it up I guess. It was the fact that the posts he wrote went beyond just “hey, I have used it, it’s great” and went into claims that I though were both over the top and blatantly untrue. Some facts for you:

1. More people online are making money without using SBI or Sitesell than are making money with it. It’s not the “only way” to make money online or for newbies to build sites that get SEO ranking
2. “Hundreds of thousands of people” are most likely not using SBI (Dr. Ken, correct me if I am wrong_ so this is hype.
3. Even If “hundreds of thousands of people” are using SBI, chances are (as with any money making system) that a small percentage of them are actually doing well. So… hype again.

And then, after the hype, the commenter posts a link to his review (read sales) page for SBI to jack my traffic on the thread to his page where he has affiliate links for SBI.

Jay, I don’t mind if you comment on my blog… but if you want to advertise, please contact me for rates.

In summary - I love to promote products and programs that I really like. I am happy to have commenters mention their projects in context, but if you want to have your ad copy included on my blog, contact me to see if something can be worked out. If I check out your product or program and it’s passes muster with me, I’ll let you know what the ads rates are or if I want to support it free or with an affiliate cut. You never know.

Oh… last note- Jay - I will actually be happy to identify when I post affiliate links in a post.

God Bless!

Wade

I got a phone call from an affiliate newbie yesterday who was looking for some guidance on how to get started as an affiliate. Should she use a product like SiteBuildIt? Or should she do something else? What should she write/blog about?

I bump into questions like this all the time when I talk to followers of my blog and I never get tired of trying to steer people in the right direction here. I respond to their question with a question as well:

What are you passionate about?

I think this should be one of the first things we ask ourselves when it comes to any project that we undertake. Why? For a few reasons:

1. If you are passionate about a topic, it will be easier to commit yourself to blogging multiple times a week or even daily.
2. You will know more about your topic and be more willing to learn more through reading, product experimentation and online research and this means more and better content.
3. If you review and recommend products that you have experience with in an area you are an “expert” in, your recommendations will carry weight and your reviews and other content will be compelling.

Anyone can slap up a site or a blog and start writing on topics that they think will generate revenue, but if they really don’t know anything about the topic or care about it, they won’t be as effective as they could be and blogging or site building will seem like a chore. If you’re passionate about your topic, creating content won’t be a problem and it will show.

In terms of the Site Build It vs Blog question… I have to vote for blogging. Site Built It is a decent product and Dr. Ken Evoy is one of the best marketers in the business, but to really leverage his stuff, you have to be able to get through his instruction manual, which is a bit overwhelming for my ADD addled brain.

If you are new to the blogging game, and would like a kick-start, check out my post on Blog Classroom from a few days back.

Whenever I speak with new clients about affiliate marketing, the topic of blogging usually comes up (my fault most of the time.)

Many clients or prospects mention that they are worried about blogging because of users having the ability to comment on their posts and potentially post damaging or negative things.   They want to make sure that they can get rid of the negative comments if they want to to protect their company’s reputation.

Wrong.. I tell them.   The key is not that you have a negative comment posted on your blog, it’s how you deal with it.  If you leave the comment up and respond in a positive and constructive way, thanking the poster for their feedback and working to get to the bottom of their issue, you can turn around the situation.  Best of all,  you can do it in front of your blog’s entire audience and likely in front of Google and it’s searchers.

“But what if the person is an unreasonable jerk who won’t be helped?”

Well then… most likely, they will be seen for what they are.

Your blog is another medium for you to have conversations with your customers and prospects.  Embrace it and you will reap the benefits.

Web 2.0  (and beyond) is all about conversations.  Don’t miss out on your chance to connect with your prospects and customers through the blogosphere.

God Bless,

Wade

I am pretty excited about next week on the CAM Blog as I am going to be sitting down on the Podcast with Jim Kukral. Jim is a long time online marketer and blogger who I have worked with for a number of years on a couple different projects. Jim was the Affiliate Summit Blogger of the Year and recently was the MC of Affiliate Summit West 2008. He also hosts a daily video cast called “The Daily Flip” that features video’s Jim shoots with his Flip Cam that he has now infected nearly the entire secular affiliate industry with. In 2007 Jim launched Scratchback a fun “blog tipping” widget that makes it possible for bloggers to accept “tips” from followers and reward them with a link. Jim is a blogging and social media mentor to me and I am excited to chat with him.

We’re going to be chatting about “Finding Your Voice in Online Video” which is a topic that I think is really topical and awesome. Online video is very hot and destined to get hotter, and can be a powerful tool in both developing a following through Viral Marketing, but also when used to promote and review products and services as an affiliate.

Jim and I are chatting on Monday afternoon, so expect the podcast to be updated Monday night or so.

So far we’ve had three winners in the CAM Blog Twitter Giveaway - the CAM Blog fan’s way to win free stuff just for following this blog on Twitter.

Congrats to:

Tim Bossie who won a copy of A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing
Jamie Birch who won a copy of Online Shopping Through Consumer’s Eyes
Karen Garcia who won a free T shirt from 1M4JC.com

How did they win? They followed the CAM Blog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/camblog and were the first to answer a trivia question.

Subscribing to the CAM Blog updates via Twitter is also a good way to get updates on what’s happening in Christian Affiliate Marketing.