Recently I bought a new web hosting plan from Lunarpages and I must say it’s excellent. I bought a basic shared hosting plan. Currently Lunarpages are running a Fall promotional offer on its basic hosting plan, where you get unlimited featured hosting for only $4.95/month ( no hidden fees, you have to signup for 12 or 24 months to avail this offer – so that will cost you around $58/year )

Here are some of the features of basic hosting plan : Ideal for new webmasters, bloggers & small businesses. Apache 2 and SSH (Secure Shell) available!

• Unlimited Hosting Space
• Unlimited Addon Domains
• Unlimited Databases
• Unlimited Bandwidth
• Unlimited Pop/Imap Email Accounts
• SSL, FTP, Stats
• Front Page Extensions
• CGI, Ruby, Perl, PHP, MySQL
• Free Domain Forever
• Free Site Builder
• 24/7 Phone Support Best Support in the Industry
• $775 worth free bonus softwares and tools

Recently we made a deal with lunarpages and they agreed to provide lunarpages web hosting rebate for problogineer readers. So if you signup through this link – I will give you $28 rebate in your paypal after 45-60 days.  So the effective cost on you for this unlimited hosting plan will be $30/year or $2.5/month.

So if you want to take advantage of this rebate offer, follow this instructions carefully :

1. Clear your cookies of lunarpages or all cookies ( Also, You must have cookies enabled on your web browser to qualify for this rebate )
2. Click this link Lunarpages hosting rebate
3. Buy the Basic hosting plan, make payment for 1 or 2 years, don’t use any other coupon code.
4. Contact me with following details : Full name, Email, postal address, Date of purchase, primary domain name, paypal id.

Remember to follow the steps properly so that we can track the things. If any doubt, contact me before. Limited offer

So it’s time to announce the winner of “Affiliate Marketing Tips” Contest – Win iPod or Flip Mino

We received a wonderful response and lots of entries from people all round the world. Some were one liners (you can see the comments on that contest post), some were usual known tricks, some were lengthy & informative while some were short & sweet. It was tough to decide the winning entry, but after going through each entry, I found the below entry a clear winner.

And the winner is Hetal (mailfast****yahoo dot com ) Congratulations Hetal for winning the “Secret Is out” contest sponsored by MarketLeverage. Please contact me with your prize option ( Ipod nano 8GB or Flip MinoHD ) and shipping details.

Also winning entries will go for nomination into the final step where every participating blog will vote for their favorite 3 winning entries (not including their own blog’s winning entry). And top 3 entries with maximum votes will win Amazon Kindle, $100 reward card and $50 iTunes card –>

Update: Hetal’s entry won the 2nd prize in the grand prize voting.. Congrats again for $100 ML Reward card.

Ok, below is the winning entry and you will some really helpful tips. I will post the other entries too one by one after few days so that everyone can learn those affiliate marketing tips and secrets.

Making Money from Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing programs are a great way to make money from your websites, but to maximize on their earning potential you will need to spend of bit of time and effort on making them work, and learning all of the little affiliate tricks to choosing the right programs, and integrating them into your website successfully. Most of the people who claim that they know all about affiliate marketing actually do not even know the initials well.

No matter how hard you try, sometimes your website fails to drive the required amount of traffic. The same thing is applicable in the case of marketing as well. It is here where the affiliate marketing business tips act as a savior.

Here are a few tips to help you cash in on affiliate programs:

1. Integration – there is nothing worse then following a link to a website you think sounds interesting, only to find it has a lot of blatant and overwhelming advertising that has nothing to do with the topics being discussed. To avoid annoying your visitors you will need to take a bit of time to choose affiliate marketing programs that can blend in easily into your existing website theme, and choosing programs that are advertising products/services that are relevant is a good start. For example if you have a website all about pets, then you need to select affiliate programs that are advertising pet related products like dog food, kennels, animal treatments or pet insurance. There is no point running affiliate programs for beauty products or the latest gadgets as it is unlikely that these will be of much interest to your visitors, and you will be just wasting time and resources.

So first and foremost analyze your landing page. Make sure it looks well as this would determine your future profits. People never tend to buy from a site which is clumsy in appearance. Never even dare to copy the landing page of someone else as this can ruin your chances of attracting visitors who might also turn out to be probable customers. Also, place the affiliate links/banner above the fold and at the end of the landing page. Make them stick out of the page and keep some space around them.

2. Keywords – keywords are important to attaining high rankings on search engine results (which is vital for attracting visitors), so sit down and write a good keyword list that is relevant to your website theme and chosen affiliate programs, and make sure you incorporate them often throughout the content of your website, ensuring they are included in titles and HTML tags (yes, you can gain some direct FREE search engine traffic if your site ranks well ) . Start with lower bids and increase the bid in small succession to know what brings the best ROI. Try campaigns with different ad groups and different keywords. Keep working and keep researching into this. Make sure that you are not bidding on trademarks or other objectionable keywords.

Various keyword suggestion tools are available on net – including free and paid ones. Long tailed keywords are better converting and costs less CPC – but requires lot of research regarding this.. It’s not a one day task.

Here are few Free keyword tools
• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
• http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
• http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

3. Offers – First question by every newbie – which offers to promote, which offers work best ? This depends on various factors and your interested field. Zip/email submit offers can be easy to start with but don’t bring much in a short time. Free trial offers would be a next step, but you will find lots of competition here. Also, some are masters in incentive based programs. Promote what is hot and also which have less competition. Remember, there are millions of people like you who are sitting there to make money online. Don’t forget to take advantage of seasonal and festive promotions.

4. Direct linking is another essential tip which can help you strike the chord of success in affiliate marketing. It often happens that your visitors move away from your site even before they glance through the offers listed down there. It is here that the direct links work wonder and eliminating them might purge your future prospects completely. Though Google and yahoo don’t allow direct linking, but I have ran many email/zip submit offers via direct link on Yahoo Search Network without any problems.

5. Tracking & Research – Make sure your check out your traffic and conversion rates from time to time. Sometimes it happens that the users are not at all interested in the products listed on your site. In this case use Google Analytics and examine the keywords which are drawing traffic to your site and then proceed to place relevant ads. You will also find sub id tracking in MarketLeverage campaigns which will help you in researching the top performing keywords.

6. Free Traffic – Here free traffic means, traffic outside PPC campaigns. Keep participating in various social networking sites, forums, blogs and so on. Viral Marketing, link baiting, Facebook Ads, Youtube video marketing, Craigslist/classified posting, SEO etc are some more cost effective ways for a massive affiliate marketing. Though singly they will not bring a lot of traffic, but collectively they can surpass PPC traffic.

7. Website publications – newsletters and special competitions/giveaways are a great way to advertise your website, and get visitors to leave valuable contact details to help push future advertising campaigns. A newsletter only needs to include two or three main articles of around 300 -600 words each, and can be sent out either every fortnight or once a month, so they should be easy to fit into a busy schedule. Try and think of a theme for each newsletter, and include articles that refer back to content on your website, to encourage people to visit there for more information. Competitions and giveaways also create a good ‘lure’ to get people to visit and sign up on your website, and they are simple and easy to set up, with small prizes and offers working well as long as you make it straightforward for people to apply. Once you have a good list of member contact details you can also send out emails regarding new items on your website or upcoming promotions and offers.

8. Content – if an affiliate program is to be successful you need to have sufficient site traffic, and the key to this is providing interesting and constantly updated (at least three times a week if possible) content. Think about the sort of visitors you hope to attract, and write articles with them in mind. For example if you have a website that is all about herbal supplements and over the counter medicines, then visitors will expect well written, concise articles that include plenty of facts and figures. However if you are running a website that is about arts and crafts then visitors will expect plenty of demonstration articles and pictures, and personal, friendly anecdotes about crafts projects. The key is to target your audience and cater to their needs, providing relevant, easy to read content that will interest them and encourage them to return, and also recommend your site to friends.

9. Keep Learning – Yes, keep learning what’s new in the internet and affiliate marketing world. Participate in various affiliate marketing forums and learn/share with the fellow members. Keep reading tips and updates on various blogs and sites. Know what’s hot, what is in demand, promotional methods, new networks and so on. Here are some helpful resources:

• http://forums.digitalpoint.com
• http://www.sitepoint.com
• http://www.wickedfire.com
• http://www.associateprograms.com
• http://www.5staraffiliateprograms.com
• http://blog.affiliatetip.com/
• http://www.shoemoney.com
• http://www.zacjohnson.com
• http://www.here.org.uk/
• http://uberaffiliate.com/
• http://www.johnchow.com

If you are a beginner at running affiliate marketing programs that it is best if you stick to just two or three to start with, and work at maximizing these before you move on. It is important that you devote enough time to each of your affiliate schemes, in order to maximize their potential, and successful affiliate users can make more money from one good scheme that is run efficiently, than some users can from six or seven schemes that are poorly managed.

10 – Friendship with the network – Last but not the least, create a friendship with your affiliate network and affiliate managers. Ask them for various promotional offers, marketing tactics, special commission, banners/landing pages, keywords and so on. Ask them which offers are converting best. There are various dedicated AM’s out there on Market Leverage to help you out.

I think I have written a lot and would have made an e-book of this, lol. Hope you will find these tips interesting and useful. Happy Money Making from affiliate marketing on Market Leverage.

Hetal Bidasaria

Yeh, Merry Christmas And Happy Holidays to the blogosphere and the whole world out there. Enjoy each and every moment of this auspicious occasion and spread the message of love and friendship everywhere.

I am too enjoying these holidays with my friends and family.  And so you will find me not updating this blog daily. But don’t worry, I will be more regular in the coming new year 2009.

Don’t forget to wish me here or at twitter @meethere .

When you see the file extension XLS it means that the file format is saved in the Microsoft Office Excel software program, which is a spreadsheet application based on the macro programming language VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Excel has a number of useful features including multiple worksheets, formulae cells and also graphs and tables. It is useful both in home and business scenarios for simple tasks such as creating basic accounts tables and monthly budgets, or more complex spreadsheets that can track and display staffing resources and annual income and expenditure.

You may also see Excel workbooks saved under a number of other file extensions such as:

• XLSX –the default Excel 2007 format, which does not support macros.
• XLSM – this indicates an Excel Macro-enabled Workbook.
• XLSB – also an Excel Macro-enabled Workbook, but this stores information in binary form to improve loading and saving efficiency, and is essential for large, complex spreadsheets with multiple worksheets.
• XLTM – this is the basic Excel Macro-enabled Template, which forms the basis for workbooks.
• XLAM – the Excel add-in function, with adds extra functionality and tools to basic macro enabled workbooks.

The XLS file extension is useful for businesses as it is based on a proprietary file format storage system, which means that the person creating the spreadsheet can lock worksheets (read only) to prevent tampering, or can set a password so that it can only be opened by authorised personnel. Excel is one of most widely used spreadsheet software programs in the world, but it has been heavily criticised over the years for a number of inherent faults:

· Reliability – studies into Excel spreadsheets have shown that in an extremely high percentage of cases, (up to 94% in a standard study), worksheets commonly contained small errors that often went undetected by the administrator.
· Practicality – Excel spreadsheets have a number of limitations, which can reduce their practical application. For example there are thousands of cell formula types, which can make it difficult and complicated trying to set up working spreadsheets. Also creating complex worksheets is time consuming and technically challenging, with detailed programming required that often has to be implemented one cell at a time.
· Productivity – even small changes to complex spreadsheets (changing a formula or adding a new start time) can require significant manual input, and each individual change increases the risk of errors occurring. This means that updating and maintaining large spreadsheets can be labour intensive, and the risk of losing previous work by accidentally corrupting the existing worksheet is unacceptably high.

You may also encounter errors when trying to open up files with XLS file extension. This may be because you do not have the correct program (Microsoft Excel) installed on your system, or it may be a registry related error. If it is a registry problem you will need to download one of the free performance scanning programs that are widely available online, which will be able to identify where the registry error has occurred and also provide guidance on resolving the problem.

Recently I had lot of bad expereinces. Firstly my blog was suspended before few days, then problem with my affiliate marketing company and now in domaining. Usually I buy domain names from Namecheap or Godaddy and currently I have around 25 websites and 2 undeveloped domains on which I am earning some money via parking domain. This is the first time I bought a domain from EnomCentral.

Someone was selling a nice blogging related domain name and I bought it from him. It is registered on Enom and so he pushed it free to my newly created enom account. But I was surprised to see that :

• Their prices for renewal/registration are very high – around $30/year ; while that on Godaddy/namecheap is around $6-10 per year.
• They charge $30 for domain transfer out of enom while free on others.
• Don’t have paypal payment option
• Takes very long time in DNS transfer. Not sure if it is because of domain registrar company, but it is taking a long time. It’s more than 36 hours now and still no DNS propogation here. Usually it propogates fully within few minutes/hours on rest.

So the moral of the story is – buy things only from reliable, popular and long-existing companies even if you have to spend few more dollars. Infact, that would save you money in long run (I wasted a full day and money in hiring a freelancer for my blog transfer – duh )

BTW – A blog contest is coming soon – Sponsorship and suggestions are open – contest me soon.