Blogging Resources For Jo Han Mok Telecall
I just finished an affiliate marketing training call with Internet Marketing Guru Jo Han Mok and Rasheed Ali.
My topic area was on blogging and blog monetization.
As a followup to the call, here’re my notes for the participants.
Blogging at blogger.com and wordpress.com
It’s ok to test out the blogging waters when you’re starting out, however, do note that these services are targeted at hobbyists and recreational bloggers.
You’re subjected to their terms of service, which unsurprisingly prohibits promotion of adult, gaming, pharmaceutical-related niches among others.
Violation of their terms of service means they may forcibly take back the domain if you happen to violate their rules (inadvertedly or otherwise).
If you build up the Google PageRank or traffic to the domain, you don’t have the option of selling the domain (which could be value in the hundreds of thousand or millions for a high value, high traffic domain). The blog service provider owns the domain. Good luck trying to sell it!
My recommendation: Hosted WordPress
Having your own WordPress blog on your hosting account beats all options hands down in my option.
Here are the benefits in my opinion:
- You are free to develop any niche you desire (provided it doesn’t contravene homeland security or national interest restrictions).
- You can choose to sell your domain should you choose to exit the niche.
- You have stronger branding associated to your own domain (compared to having domainname.blogspot.com).
Having your own hosted domain is analogous to using a domain specific email, rather than a hotmail.com or yahoo.com for your business email!
If you don’t already have a web hosting provider, I’d recommend BlueHost.
And a blogging tool which has been very useful for me has been SecretBlogWeapon (SBW).
SBW runs thorugh the keyword research and blog setup process with lots of illustrations and graphics. In addition, it helps you optimize your blog to generate traffic and the basics of social traffic generation (which generates immediate traffic, compared to search engine traffic which can takes weeks to get your site indexed).
Killer WordPress Plugins Roundup
Once you have your blog set up, here’s some of the plugins which have helped me step up to a new level:
- Killer WordPress Plugins Part 1
- Popularity Contest WordPress plugin
- 10 Ways to a Killer Blog (a short series)
And if you’re like to do remote blog posting, w.bloggar is useful.
This isn’t pretty, but you can download some useful WordPress plugins.
Does Affiliate Blogging Work?
If you’re like to see the efforts of my affiliate blogging, here’re some screenshots from last year. (Yes, the results are only from blogging. I don’t use articles or press releases)
Several new bloggers who purchased the Auto Blog Income Generator have given me feedback that the instructional videos were very useful. (Site may occasionally be inacessible due to high traffic. Please try again later)
And don’t forget the free Robert Allen books when you join my list. (You will get a short blogging guide too).
PS: If you’re planning to do affiliate blogging, I’d strongly recommend removing Google Adsense from all your pages. A $20 affiliate commission is much more valuable than a $0.50 clickthrough!
If I left anything out, leave me a comment below.
Tony
February 7, 2007 at 3:32 pm (17 years ago)Hosted WordPress is by far the best option, though check with host’s TOS for the type of content they allow. Many will not permit “adult, gaming, and/or pharmaceutical-related”, although others will.
Andy Beard
February 7, 2007 at 4:37 pm (17 years ago)A few points
You have always been able to use Blogger on your own domain and can easily switch with a redirect with the new version of blogger, even if you start off hosted on blogspot
WordPress.com specifically forbid commercial activities such as affiliate links and advertising. Some people such as tech startups seem to be able to “bend” the rules slightly, but the service should be avoided by anyone remotely connected with affiliate marketing.
I would still highly recommend WordPress on your primary sites, but blogspot is still useful for secondary blogs.
Andrew Wee
February 7, 2007 at 5:34 pm (17 years ago)Yep, you can use blogger on your own domain.
The main issue is that blogger is a basic blogging platform, doesn’t support categories.
If you’re going to be blogging exclusively on a single theme (eg. affiliate marketing), I think it does an adequate job.
Given the option, I’d go with WordPress blogs for my primary and secondary blogs though.
There is the option of setting up Blogger.com and WordPress.com blogs as “informational blogs” and then direct them to a transactional HTML site on your own domain to process the transaction. So at least outwards, the blogs are “information sites”, while your own domain hosts the “transaction site”.
But it seems like things going in a big circle and setting up your own hosted blog will save you time and resources.
Andrew Wee
February 7, 2007 at 5:36 pm (17 years ago)For the intent of the call, which was on info product affiliate marketing, I don’t see that most web hosts will have an issue with that.
Going a step further to use blogs as a traffic generation platform, using a hosted WordPress blog to do affiliate marketing for the ‘pills, porn and poker’ niches can be very effective and equally rewarding.
Alain (Alan) Diza
February 9, 2007 at 6:34 am (17 years ago)First off, Andrew, Thank You so much for your part – in my opinion and the reason I listened to the conference call in the first place – the ‘best’ part of the call – in discussing the role and effectiveness of blogs and monetization w/ affiliate marketing.
I’ve only recently delved into the Web 2.0 tactics & strategies of blogging in conjunction with social networking & bookmarking.
In fact, I’m in the middle of my most recent project on a niche blog site.
Feel free to have a visit! ==> MP3 Download Sites Review
And though I’m using the free, hosted wordpress.com version, I’m experiencing some pretty phenomenal initial results already!
However, based on the information you shared last night on the call, I will no doubt convert over to the non-hosted WordPress platform, for peace-of-mind.
Thanks for the great tips, Andrew! Your blog kicks Azz!! 🙂 I like it!…And will be bookmarking you on my Del.icio.us account!
(Speaking of social traffic generation, Andrew, this SQUIDOO is fast-becoming a favorite of mine! 😉
We’ll be in touch. I’ll be back often. You can count on it! 🙂
Sincerely,
Alain (Alan) Diza,…
The “Crazy Ex-Enron Guy”…
Andrew Wee
February 9, 2007 at 7:36 am (17 years ago)Hi Alain,
Thanks for your feedback.
I took a look at your Squidoo lens and it looks interesting.
You might like to add a RSS feed to it though to improve it’s ranking.
My Internet Marketing squidoo lens has Google PR3 and ranks in the SERPs (search engine results page) so it helps generate traffic too.
I had an earlier Squidoo post, which might help you enhance your marketing efforts.
Jinger Jarrett
February 27, 2007 at 2:29 am (17 years ago)Thanks for the tip on getting rid of Google Adsense. After losing my Google Adsense account (they never did tell me why), I’ve been looking around for better, and more ways to monetize my blog without annoying my readers.
What programs do you suggest? I mainly use Affiliate Sensor, which are Clickbank ads. Is there something better?
Thanks, Jinger Jarrett
Kitty
March 11, 2007 at 11:27 pm (17 years ago)Hi,
I would want to buy Jo han Mok ‘s product. Any comment after you take his training course.
Best Regard
Kitty