PPL Affiliate Blog

I look forward to seeing the results of your side project.

Can you clarify, when using an FB page are you using free traffic or does it involve paid FB ads to boost your post?

Jason!

You've just given me yet another reason to hang out on Warrior Forum.

(It will cut into Vodka and Masala Time, but I'll forgive you.)

I love people taking action on my WSO. I'm going to love even more watching it happen!

Quick tip:

I think putting together the website yourself is a smart move. You'll pick up valuable (necessary) skills that will serve you well in IM.

However, to make life easier, you can use the outsourcing chapters. Myself, I prefer to outsource tasks like web design.

(Well, I prefer to outsource every task, really. For instance? The monkeyservant is typing this post for me. Yes, indeed. I'm currently sat cuddling with Discrat in a beach hammock.)

I'll be following this journey. Subscribed!

Cheers,

Tom

So, who is Tom? Which WSO are you talking about?

I absolutely agree, Tom...once I figure this first one out, I'll have other sites set up in different niches.

And Oh yeah, the Saturdays are taken with the other business. Sunday is my "day off."

SUNDAY UPDATE:

Today was all about keyword sifting using the methods Tom provides. I had a list of 277 from last week's effort and it quickly became obvious this was going to be a slow, laborious process. I googled around for some software to help but didn't find anything readily useful. In this stage you just have to put your time in, like creeping along on a choked highway onramp at the end of the work day to begin your commute home ("20 minutes EVERY DAY, Annacis Island! Yeah, 15 years ago and still I remember--!")...or manually messaging LinkedIn contacts. This would be a good task to outsource. But remember, I WANT to do these steps so I know how they work and how long they take.

I set aside 2 hours to work on the project today and wherever I got to was fine. Fairly early on I realized for sanity's sake I ought to limit myself to sorting the first 50 results. Dual monitors were very helpful for going back and forth between spreadsheet and google.

The second, third, and fourth level sorts went faster as out of the 50 phrases 24 passed the first test. An interesting outcome was that those terms that passed Tom's first criterion all passed the second, third, and fourth. I don't know yet whether this will be common (and a serious step-saver if so) or just weird.

As I want to get to writing ASAP so I have some content, this "Chunk It Up By 50 Keywords" batching approach seemed the best route: get some good keywords and put some posts up. This sifting process, and remember I only got through 50 out of 277 keywords to check, took me about 1-1/2 hours out of the 2 I booked for this project. The other 30 minutes were spent looking for a faster, easier way to do it, and finding some interesting things but nothing immediately useful (this is what we call a rabbit hole, and it can be the biggest time suck on any project. I recommend setting a time limit, ie. "I will look for up to 20 minutes and then stop and go back to what I was doing if I don't find anything.")

Note that I am about 10 hours in and have not created any content yet. Working continuously on the project could have sped me up and I bet I could easily lop 2-3 hours off with what I know now. Not fussing around the exact navigation layout so much, and just grinding through the keyword filtering would save me 2 of those hours. More would be saved by not having to read the WSO book so carefully as I've already done the steps now, as well as not having to search through my stuff to pick an existing dormant domain and unused premium theme. Stopping and starting up again a week later definitely makes a "brain reboot" necessary. But the moral of the story here is: IM is work.

Next Up: Content Creation, the Tom Addams Way!

I think its a great idea. I thought affiliate marketing was very hard thing to do..

Yes I had my eye on this!

Sunday Update:

Despite my calendar being clogged with my main business, I found myself glancing at the blog project several times this week.

"What should I do about content creation?" was the question that kept coming up. Alone, I am the bottleneck in increasing the pace of this project. And my job as a manager is to remove bottlenecks. Thursday I made the decision to start delegating.

I will write some content, and I will pay for some content. I also considered hiring a contractor to write central content for an article while I write the start and finish. Overall I don't think that's a good idea, though, because of differences in voice and need for a specific structure.

Fortunately, one of our employees is an experienced article writer. He has also played the game I want to promote in this first article. This is a good combination so I went to him to ask about the How To.

Current Considerations

I want you to understand I am thinking about this project from the math perspective first and only. I think like a marketer and so should you. That means Cost of Customer Acquisition (CCA) and Lifetime Value (LTV) should be our concerns. These are the terms that separate the amateur hobbyists from the professional marketers.

Based on a payback schedule of 8-10 conversions, I feel comfortable investing $50 in an article. Many people are probably afraid to invest "this much" money in content but I was worried it would be too low an amount to get this writer to write. This is the number I shared with him, however.

His reply is what I figure most readers will get the most out of in today's post:

"So for content farms, the word count an article should be is pretty rigid, based on SEO guidelines, so how most folk do payout is they determine their budget, and then back-math the pay-per-word that would get them to that amount. [Exactly what I believe. Hooray!] For example, this article should probably be about 650 words, which puts you at a payrate of ~7.6 cents per word.

For comparison, content farms pay ABSOLUTE MINIMUM 1 cent a word for bad content, while sites like kotaku pay starting at 10 cents a word.

SO, a 7.5c per word payrate is enough to be as particular as you want to be about markup, properly laying stuff out, and so on, and capture the attention of people who actually want to do this sort of work, rather than people who will do it because it's available."

This is great! It means I can not only specify quality content, but also the layout. That saves me even more work.

Future Considerations

So that I am not flooded with requests to work at the 7.5c per word level, I know this writer and he has been on our payroll for a year. I will not hire you out of the blue. Nor do I have the need at this time, since I am figuring out how I want to proceed and am not scaling up yet.

I continued through Tom's WSO, into the section describing actually writing the articles, and am a little past the book's halfway point.

For myself, I mapped out some content that I may not monetize, but am excited to write about. Did you know it is hard to find television networks who have affiliate programs? I want to write about a show and get paid to talk about it and drive qualified leads/viewers...but I could not find anything after a half-hour of searching beyond a specific network's login for commercial ads specifications. Opportunity gap?

The blog needs content, and unless I give some time to it beyond a couple hours on Sundays I don't see it developing fast enough. Thus my decision to begin outsourcing content creation. I will likely have to find a second writer pretty soon as I know my current one's schedule is FULL with our other stuff. Probably will go through a referral to find that person. I may also have to find time in the evenings to work on content myself. We are usually working on the main business 8AM - 7PM, though.

I posted this around 10AM local time: it should be obvious the project was the first thing I worked on after getting out of bed. I'm excited about it...and it is, unsurprisingly, work.

Pretty disappointed with the views and more importantly the lack of feedback we're getting so far in here.

I can tell most readers are doing nothing, because when you're doing nothing you have no questions.

People who take action have specific questions because they run into roadblocks and try to figure their way around those.

I feel a bunch of newbies are waiting around to hear, "GOLDMINE!" and then they will rush out and buy the WSO. But that's ridiculous because even if you buy it you'll do nothing with it BECAUSE IT IS WORK.

I am trying to show you the process of working on it, in an extended timeline because that's the time I have available. You could probably get to the stage I'm at in 2-3 full days of genuine effort. I am showing you the thought considerations, roadblocks and how I fix them, and just what is required to set up a real revenue generating affiliate blog. But if that isn't interesting to people, then I'll stop. I can use the time writing here for something else.

I appreciate those who have taken the time to comment and Thank.

Call me shallow, but ima waitin' on more nooz 'bout the buttock pop.

Meanwhile, gladta see IRL pulse bubbadabummin' outta the WF vapidscape.

It is like the soul-wrenchin' moment at Granma's funeral ... after the weepin' an' the hymns an' the snarky comments 'bout how summa the floral tributes failed to honor the supremely wizened matriarch ... when the coffin passes from soulful ceremony to monster fahrenheit incineration ... an' a voice cries out ...

FFS get me outta here! How many episodes of The Crown have I missed?

An excellent Sunday update, Jason.

I think your approach to content is spot on for an experienced marketer.

Take me, for example.

(I can imagine my wife calling out, 'Please do, Jason!')

I tend to promote free offers that pay around the $10 commission mark.

• 1 free signup and I earn $10.
• 10 free signups and I earn $100.
• 100 free signups and I earn $1,000.

And so on.

Since these are, in effect, free offers for the consumer, and since we use free sources of traffic in Month One, I'm very comfortable with the prospect of paying for content.

My overheads are so little.

For a single business, we simply have to pay for hosting each month and the cost to renew the domain each year.

And all of this?

In a nutshell?

It means outsourcing content is something that we can feel comfortable doing.

If you don't mind, though, I'll offer some advice to newer (newbie) marketers.

Everything Jason has said is bang on the money.

(And I'd expect nothing less from Jason.)

But 50 bucks to a newbie? That's a lot of money.

The amount of money itself may not be a lot but it probably does feel a lot when you're new to marketing and working on a business model that may well be entirely new to you.

Jason has experience. He understands that the investment he makes is probably an extremely safe investment. As Jason points out: a small handful of free signups and Jason is already in profit.

On the other hand, if you're brand new to marketing? The business model in Month One will also be new to you. And if so? You're naturally going to be cautious about spending money. And you'll feel more cautious the more money you feel that you have to spend.

I think that's only natural.

So this is what I suggest. For the newbies.

If you feel capable, produce the content yourself. You only need very simply content. I produce a range of media myself but, 9 times out of 10, I create simple media.

Work through the content sections of Month One. Everything is explained in very explicit, step-by-step detail, over the course of around 200 pages or more.

In terms of articles? Start with simple articles. Use your education in MO to make them very powerful tools, but still - stick to simple, just for now.

On the other hand (or the other foot, if you prefer), you can indeed outsource. What I would suggest, though, is using the outsourcing sections in MO to find low-price but good writers.

In general terms (generally), the more you pay a writer? The better the writing.

But plenty of good writers can be found for a bargain price. Especially if you only need very simple articles.

To sum up (for the newbie):

• Produce articles and other media yourself, if possible (saves investment).
• Stick to simple articles (as I do myself most of the time).
• Outsource very simple articles for around 5 to 10 bucks apiece.
• Use what you learn in MO to polish/ improve those articles.

As your business evolves, you should find yourself in a position to increase your investments into that business. What you'll want to do (as Jason is doing) is have reliable content creators (a writer, say) who are available for you. This way you can easily feed your business with content.

I hope you don't mind that advice, Jason. I can see some newcomers feeling uncomfortable with larger investments. You and I are both comfortable spending money in order to make money. Newbies (many of them) have yet to come around to that way of thinking.

So far, Sir J, this is a bloody brilliant Path. I'm really enjoying it!

I don't think the weak engagement is a reflection on yourself, mate. This section of WF is brand new and it hasn't been promoted heavily (or at all?) as of yet.

Given the quality of your work thus far in this thread (immense) I think the engagement will massively pick up when more people are visiting this area of WF.

Your thread has the most views and replies in this area of WF. So it's The Warrior Path that needs to pick up, I'd say. Keep plugging away; that's my advice.

If you build it, they will come!

Cheers,

Tom

very good and thoroughly explained plan, will be following your journey, good luck!

Jason glad to see you are feeling better. How much time do you figure you have in this project and how far along are you into it now. Is the graphic designer someone you work with or did you hire them from outside.

Jason - great to have you back!

I've always said, health, family, and vodka come first.

(Obviously, vodka is at the top of the list.)

This is excellent.

In the book, I go into meticulous detail about content, as we know, but it's important that the marketer put together a plan that makes them comfortable.

And simple is the right word to use. I can offer up some advice here, if you like.

I live and breath simple when it comes to business. And I mean in every element of the business.

When I'm working on anything business-related, I'm always conscious of wanting to limit how much time the business will need from me on the day and in the future.

(You'll know all of this, I know. Just working up to my process.)

So what I do is streamline everything. When I was younger in business, I'd almost always create too much work for myself.

I'd have grand dreams and, diligently, I'd throw myself into projects. The end result turned out good more often than not, the business worked well, but I always ended up taking on too much work.

Trouble with devoting too much time to a project is you have increasingly less time for future projects, of course.

Nowadays, my goal is always to try and take a project to a stage where my involvement in it is either minimal or non-existent.

The goal is to always have more time on my hands for other projects.

Which brings me to the content process.

In our email chats over the weekend, I shared my Sunday EPC for a single PPL offer.


Each unique visitor sent to the affiliate landing page was earning me $4.75. The conversions/ money was coming from the type of content you're about to make. The articles are simply sending people to free offers.

This is the process I suggest for you . . .

1. Use the information about "spikes" and search popularity in the book to decide on the most profitable topics for whichever niche you've chosen.

2. Let those topics represent 100% of your content plan for launch. That's not only going to help optimize earnings but also audience growth.

3. Use the full variety of content formats. MO covers 5 different formats. Use them all, and equally. So if you launch with 10 articles, that will be 2 sets of each content type.

4. The objective is to give Joe and Jane Consumer what they want most and deliver it in the full variety of formats, thereby further appealing to the majority of your audience.

5. With you being new to this particular type of content and marketing, I suggest you opt for simple content. Focus on simple and short.

6. Furthermore: forget about Google for now. Think more about your audience. You don't need Google and Google prefers longer content.

7. Jot down a 2 or 3 line summary of each article and put them in a single file. Either outsource or write them yourself. Given your time? Probably outsource, as you mention in an earlier post.

8. Add filler then drip-feed your content. You need a few articles on your blog on launch day. This helps with audience perception, PPL conversions, and audience collection.

9. Even starting with as few as 5 articles is fine. Then you drip-feed on a schedule you can manage. Don't worry about adding content every day. The trick is to feed your business consistently. Every 2 days. Or every 3 days. Or whatever schedule works best for you.

10. Right from Day 1, focus on traffic. This is where most marketers go wrong. They throw their heart and soul into content that doesn't earn them anything; either right away or at all.

That example EPC I showed you on Sunday actually comes from content that was syndicated 8 years ago. The definition of passive income. The trick is to setup a simple PPL business that you can manage and always be thinking of how, down the road, you can either limit or remove all of your involvement.

I hope some of that helps, matey. As you'll appreciate, a lot of the above is mostly intended to help others using my methods, but I hope some of it helps you too.

Oh, last thing. Stay healthy and put that as your #1 priority. If you want any help with diet, shoot me an email.

Cheers,

Tom

Hmm how can I say this...

The problem is not writing. I produce content for our other businesses every day.

THIS project has me a bit stumped on how to start, what to write about, because it is a new topic group and style.

I do have a list of keywords researched with your SEO methods, Tom. But they are general, around the topic, and I need to get specific. The problem isn't writing...it's being clear about the specific topic for an article. I also seem to have a hangup about making the article look pretty and legit. Not like a 15-year-old wrote it in crayon ;-)

Thanks for the input, Savidge and Tom.

Hi Jason,

I am following you too. I bought the course this sunday based on your strong recommendation. Right now, my first step is to read this 700 pages long manual. It would be nice to read the manual and observe a practical implementation of the same through your journey.

Regards,

Shekhar

Purchased also a few days ago and working through the mammoth WSO. Interested to see how you go

Thanks a lot for your support, Jason; you're a good chap.

In other news: your Path has become one of the most addictive things for me online. I love the cerebral approach you adopt for IM. It reminds me of the better students at university: they don't just absorb information; they absorb and endeavour to understand it.

Well, you do that too.

It's a pleasure to watch this Path unfold. I like how you think everything through and apply your own knowledge to the business as well.

Brilliant work.

Cheers,

Tom

Hi Jason, how are you getting along with the process?

I have purchased domain, but also not used avada so have some messing to do there still.

Up to the keyword research for blog ideas now.

Tom, if you are here....was there talk of an updated version of this wso soon? Not that I need any more information (!!) but would be interested to see what you have added or changed.

Alan

Switched hosting after 4-6 years with BH ... too many SSL issues in the past 6 months after Google forced compliance. Komodo's fault, really, but guilt by association is a real thing lol.

Anyway with the new hosting there's a max of 20 SSLs a week that can be set up and no one to bitch and moan to as it's all automated. That means Jason can't get a political decision, which I hate as exceptions to the rule are my jam. And my blog for this project happens to be down at the end of the alphabet when it comes to first letters. No one at the new hosting co. bothered to tell me about the 20 SSL weekly limit despite me informing their people repeatedly that I had over 20 domains. Net result: won't be working on that site for a week as it won't resolve without the cert. D'oh.

Hear that? That's the harsh sound of brakes as we screech to a standstill.

Good thing this isn't my moneymaker. Not thrilled with the new host on this account at the moment, though to be fair the transition has been issue-free otherwise and the issuing of SSL certs painless.

I can still work on content...I just can't post it.

However, I have seven projects for TCE and paying customers that need to be addressed so it may be a blessing in disguise to have to delay posting content. I may rethink my focus per Tom's suggestions since the ideas are not arriving easily.

I am limited to about 6 hours a day of computer time and continuing to work out how to reorganize my effort a la Tim Ferris ;-)

Thanks for the update, Jason!

The new host just needs to be able to handle a lot of concurrent users. When you deal in social traffic (predominantly) it's less about the trickle and more about big bursts.

Most hosts, though, are setup so you can quickly and easily upgrade your hosting plan, so I'm sure you won't have continued problems.

Anyway - cheers for the update!

Tom

Hi Jason,

Thank you for taking the time to make this journey on the PPL Affiliate Blog. Thanks to your high praise of Month One, I got my hands on it no questions asked. I mean if an expert conversion guy is recommending people to get an expert traffic guy's book, it's a no brainer Traffic + Conversion = Money

I've been following the processes written out in the book like a maniac. But I have come to a problem and I'm wondering if you had the same problem. If not maybe Tom can help me when he sees this post.

When trying to edit the category page, I can't seem to find the "Edit Page" anywhere. The only thing I see remotely similar is "Edit Category". And inside the Edit Category, there's no Use Fusion Builder to make a container for the category page. (I'm using the Avada theme).

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Edit:
Never mind. I found the problem. Between following Professor Clone's lecture on free theme and eating pig scrotum, I completely missed that you said to create a page for each category. My bad.

Dan, what do you take me for - a madman? Any scrotum will do. Whatever you have to hand.

Ben, give Colin a kick for me. I'd do it myself, but I have both feet lodged in his rectum.

Cheers,

Tom

It's back, baby!!

The week has gone by, and the 20 SSL cert install limit has expired. The blog is back up.

I bought the guide and I'm following it too. Looking forward to reading about your progress.

Sir J!

Mrs. A is heading into the city with the daughters this weekend. Meaning that TA here will be left to his own devices over the weekend. Aside from raiding the fridge - and eating anything bad for me in sight - I want to hang out in this thread. I hope you'll be working on the business! If not I'll be in here with nothing to do except post my twerking videos!

Cheers,

Tom

I will be still working through the guide and adding progress if that is ok with OP? I think it would be good to throw some questions and approaches around, especially if the author is offering to kick around the thread also?

How is your result? Hope everything is awesome.

Still on your heels Tom!

Been implementing some things, some traffic and building but need to re-kindle my motivation. Get the revised one out!!!