Why I Show Products At The End Of Posts
Posted by Mitch on Jan 20, 2010
Here’s the questions. How often do you go to the store and end up buying things you didn’t initially go there for? How many times have you been looking through a catalog or advertisement, saw something that interested you, then decided to check it out and saw something else you liked instead?
I belong to a lot of affiliate marketing programs and advertisers. Most of you know that I’m a member of Commission Junction. They have almost 3,000 different advertisers that you can choose from, some big names, some not so big. Every time you see an individual post on this blog, at the top you see a Commission Junction banner, via one of their rotating banners programs. I’m also running one of their little applets on the left side.
Many of the advertisers allow you to post their products on your websites as well. The template you see below is their template, which I kind of use for other things, such as my book and webinar there at the top left. That’s just standard HTML, which I already knew, but their version was just so clean I’ve co-opted it. Some of the advertisers don’t have specific products you can purchase, but have services instead. So, when you see a banner, those are usually companies that offer services.
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But not always. I also participate in the Linkshare affiliate program, which also has some advertisers like Commission Junction, just not as many. The same goes for ShareASale, but I’ve only hooked up with a couple of those. Most of the pictures you see on this site in a post are actually images you can purchase in some form from them. I also always have at least one image to the left side. I could do it more often, but I don’t always think images fit my posts, though some people swear by them.
And many other affiliate programs I’m associated with also don’t have products I can specifically hawk, but I still want you to know about them. So, I’ll throw those banners on here every once in awhile as well. Just so you know, I didn’t join all those programs because of this blog, but since I still belong to them, it makes sense for me to cycle them in here from time to time.
Here’s the thing. If I highlight something like the rowing machine below, what I’m showing is a sample of the types of things you can find at that particular site, which in this case is called BigFitness. Now, you can go directly to the site and purchase it and cut out the middleman, but if you’re nice ( 
) and want to help a brotha out, you’ll buy it from me. But maybe you’ll go to the site and see something else you like instead. No matter what you buy, if you buy something from the site, I’ll get credit for it. And suddenly it’s just like the flat screen TV you saw in the Sunday flyer that got you to the store, and instead you walked out with a GPS unit. The store only hopes you bought something; kind of what I’m hoping as well.
There you go. And sometimes, if you find something on another site that you want, if you come back and ask me about it I might have a coupon that will get you a discount of some kind, even if it’s only free shipping. Hey, saving money never hurts either, right? If that’s what happens, just go to my contact link above, see my email address there and write me.
It’s a very passive form of marketing, I know. Does it work? Well, in two years I think I’ve made two sales for CJ stuff and a couple for other products. So yes, I’ve made some sales. Not a lot, but that’s okay. You make no sales for any products you don’t try to market, right? 
I’ve been asked often over the years why I have any products on my site that aren’t just making money things; that’s why. And that’s why I never beat up on anyone who’s marketing anything on their site. Sometimes I even take a quick look at it. Never hurts to look.
10 Affiliates I’ve Talked About Before
Posted by Mitch on Oct 4, 2009
I thought this would be somewhat interesting, for two reasons. I’m going to mention and link to posts where I’ve talked about affiliate programs or products that I’m trying to make money from. One reason is that some of these posts were pretty early, and didn’t get seen by a lot of people, and I’d like to reintroduce them to the masses. The second reason is that I’d like to do some internal linking, something I’ve talked about from time to time here that others should think about doing with their blogs and websites, as it’s an important part of getting the most out of your blogs and websites. I hope you visit the posts and the links throughout these posts, just to see what I’ve done, but it’s also to show you that, every once in awhile, there’s nothing wrong with marketing yourself, something else I’ve talked about often around here.
The first affiliate product I ever talked about on this blog concerned Ultra Diamonds. It’s interesting because I ended up having to write a follow up post months later because, like most things, there were a few people who didn’t like Ultra Diamonds and thought I was a bad person for helping to market them. Hey, no one’s perfect, but their stuff looks really neat. I’m marketing it off my Services and Stuff site, along with most of the other products and services I’ll mention here, and if you go to the original post, it’ll show you the link to the actual page so you can see what I’m trying to do with some of these things.
The second thing I wrote about was the Harry Potter series, and on that post I decided to market a water globe rather than what was, at the time, the upcoming 7-book series or the first 5 movies; missed the boat on that one.
The third thing I advertised was this affiliate of mine called Things You Never Knew Existed, which is, well, an amalgamation of strange and wonderful stuff that you just can’t get everywhere. It seems I made a sale from the page that I’ve linked to from here last week, which is great. If you check out the page on my S&S site, as well as the page from my Ultra Diamonds site, you’ll see that I just picked a few things, but if people click on any of those things they can search the actual websites for other things, and if they purchase I earn. Nothing wrong with that. By the way, those 3 things all came in the first month I had this blog, which was created in December 2007.
The fourth thing I introduced was something called X10 Home Security, a fairly nothing post that explains why no one wanted to bother with it, but one that you’ll see has been updated so that I at least said something about it. This post was written in February 2008.
The fifth thing I wrote about was Excalibur Gifts, which is a pretty neat site that markets a lot of knives and cutlery, which is pretty neat. It wasn’t all that long of a post, but at least it was accurate.
The sixth thing I wrote about was the Rich Jerk program. This was actually the first thing I ever bought, then started to market, through Clickbank. Right now, I think it’s one of the few things I still market on Clickbank, mainly because of this blog. I’m not marketing anything new through them because I just started feeling, last April, that I just wasn’t sure that I’ve been treated fairly by them as it pertains to sales. I could be wrong; let me know by maybe buying Rich Jerk’s $10 book. It’s actually very good.
The seventh thing I wrote about was my own product, called Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool. It was my first ebook, and, though I haven’t made a lot of sales, it’s still a product that I created, that’s at the top left of this blog. That, and I’ve written about it lots of times on this blog; hey, if I can’t talk about myself, who else will talk about me, right? This post and the previous two were originally written in April 2008.
The eighth thing I wrote about was a follow up product to The Secret that is also a Clickbank product. It was short but sweet, called Laws of Attraction Booster, and I have it and thought it was pretty good.
The ninth thing I wrote about was FreeCreditReport.com, a product I use and actually wrote a pretty good post about, if you ask me. And I’ve made money off this product, though I’m not sure if it’s because of this blog or another place where I wrote about it.
The tenth product I wrote about is my last Clickbank product, Error Doctor, and it was another pretty good post because I talked about a lot of different things, and there’s even pictures! I don’t do a lot of pictures, though some people say that you’ll attract more folks to your site with pictures.
And that’s that. There’s 10 products of mine that most of you have never heard about (though I’m betting many of you have heard of Rich Jerk and FreeCreditReport.com), and I got some internal linking in also; yeah! (update; the programs for Excalibur Cutlery & FreeCreditReport have expired, which is why there are no links)
Imagekind – ShareASale
Posted by Mitch on Nov 14, 2008
Talk about a different kind of affiliate program. Imagekind, through Share-A Sale, offers an affiliate program where people can purchase images instead of other types of programs. Frankly, I was surprised by it, and I like the idea so much that I’ve signed on as an affiliate, and at some point I’ll be adding a block ad of some kind to my sidebar.
Imagekind allows people to post their images on their site for purchase, and if you, as an affiliate, get people to go to the site, then you get a piece of their commissions for sales of their images. Because the prices vary so drastically on this site, believe it or not, you could make a commission off an image anywhere from $10 to $10,000; yup, that wide a range. I’m just imagining someone purchasing a print of that magnitude and being able to get a piece of that; nice!
You can go through the gallery and select images that you like and market those specific images. For instance, here’s one that I absolutely love, though I’ll probably never make it to France; click on it if you’d like to purchase it:
Of course they offer banner ads like what you see below, but there’s more. By joining this program, there are other programs you can add to the mix. For instance, Random House publishers is someone you can market for, along with Electronic Boutique, Rugman, Ace Hardware, and about a hundred others.
Anyway, this is another affiliate that adds some diversity to the norm of affiliate programs, and I think it will add a new quality to my blog site. At least I hope so.
I'm Just Sharing is where I share my thoughts on internet marketing, writing, blogging and many other things. You never know what I'll be posting on. So keep coming back, read, enjoy, and buy! ;)
