Hannes Johnson dot Com » Make Money Online

Make Sure To Keep Track Of Your Affiliate Commissions

Hannes Johnson — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:12:18 +0000

A large part of my online income is generated through affiliate marketing. These days many affiliate programs (like my own) pay through PayPal – which I think is great because it’s instant and I don’t have to go to the bank to cash the check. But some affiliate programs still use checks so I do have to go to the bank regularly. To save time I usually collect a batch of checks and go to the bank every 2 months or so to cash them.

But a few days ago when I was getting ready to cash some checks I noticed that something was missing – I couldn’t find any checks from a company that usually sends me commissions every month. After checking my records I found out that it had been a few months since I last cashed a check from them. That didn’t look good… This is the opposite of getting surprise affiliate commissions. So I contacted them to see if they knew what was going on and apparently they had a check returned to them recently (for some reason). A new check will be generated on the next commissions cycle so I should get all the commissions I’m owed.

So, if you’re doing any kind of affiliate marketing (and if you’re not – why aren’t you?) you should remember to keep track of your affiliate commissions to make sure you get paid for your hard work. You could keep a record and write down each time you know you have a check coming (or other forms of payment) – write down the name of the company you’re an affiliate for, for what time period it applies, how much you’re supposed to get paid and when you expect to receive the payment (checks might take a few days – or a few weeks if you live in another country).

In case your affiliate commissions don’t arrive you should just contact the company you’re an affiliate for. When contacting support regarding missing affiliate payments you should give as many details as you can – your username or member ID, your mailing address, the last payment you received, information about the missing payment (which time period, the amount…), etc. That will help speed up the process of getting it fixed.

Checking your stats regularly is good – but you don’t want to spend too much time on it. There is no reason to check your ClickBank or AdSense statistics every 5 minutes ;) Once a day or even once a week should make sure you’re on top of everything.

Have you ever had any problems getting your affiliate commissions?

Keywords: online income, affiliate programs, PayPal, checks, commissions, stats, ClickBank, AdSense

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An Easy Way To Make Money Online

Hannes Johnson — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 03:48:59 +0000

After ignoring Text Link Ads for quite some time I finally decided to give them a try a few months ago. One of the reasons I hadn’t tried them before was because of the controversy about buying/selling links on websites. For example, Google doesn’t particularly like when people buy links on high PageRank webpages to increase the PageRank of their own websites. But why did I change my mind? Well, I was reading John Chow dot Com and he was pushing Text Link Ads pretty hard and I just thought “hey, it can’t hurt to try it out” ;) You can just look at it as a way to sell advertisement on your websites – because that’s essentially what it is, the added PageRank boost for advertisers is just a bonus ;)

Is it safe to join?

Another reason why I decided to jump on it was that they had testimonials from several notable SEO professionals like Aaron Wall, Rand Fishkin, Brad Fallon, etc. Those guys should have a pretty good idea of what is good practice in web development. Google can’t penalize websites for having advertisements, right?

So I joined Text Link Ads and added my first website – that has a PageRank 5 front page. Actually, while reading their sign-up agreement I noticed something funny:

MEMBERSHIP RESTRICTIONS.
Individuals that are in anyway affiliated with, agents of, working for, or employed by any internet search engine organization may not register to use this site.

I guess they don’t want Matt Cutts looking around and seeing what websites are buying/selling links ;) But I’m an AdWords advertiser and an AdSense publisher, does that mean I’m affiliated with Google? They’re probably OK with that.

Adding your blog

When you’re adding a new site that you want to publish ads there is this option:
“Publish Ads On Your RSS Feed? (Feedvertising)” and a note: “WordPress 2.0+ is required for this feature.”. Yet another reason for using WordPress for your blog. I submitted this blog but at the time it hadn’t gotten any public PageRank so it was just put in the “waiting queue” – they say that it isn’t necessary to resubmit websites because they recheck all websites regularly. But this blog hasn’t been accepted even though the PageRank update was more than a month ago. I’m not sure if I’m going to resubmit this blog or just try to see if I can sell some links through direct advertising – I might be able to get more profit that way.

Make money on autopilot

Well, I joined TLA in the middle of January 2007 and in the beginning of February I sold my first text link. So it only took a little over 2 weeks to get my first link. Not bad – I didn’t have to do anything but sign up and add a small code to my site. The Text Link Ads system took care of the rest. Next month I got 4 more links which meant that half of my link inventory was already sold :) I then submitted some of my other high PageRank websites and sure enough I sold some links (even though those webpages were only PR4 and PR3). Now I just wished I had joined Text Link Ads sooner – this is a great way to monetize any website. You don’t have to work on looking for advertiser and those text links don’t take up much space on your pages. If you have a webpage that has at least PageRank 4 I highly recommend that you join Text Link Ads and give it a shot – it’s a nice way to make some extra money from your websites. Also, they pay on the 1st of every month through PayPal and they use mass payment which means you don’t have to pay any fees. You can also select the option of getting paid by check but I haven’t tried that yet.

Good support

On a side note; Patrick Gavin (the President of Text-Link-Ads) is a pretty cool guy – I had some questions after signing up and he personally answered the support tickets fairly quickly. One of the things I asked about was regarding the price advertisers paid and what would happen if my page increased in PageRank and/or Alexa rank? The answer is that the price for current advertisers is “grandfathered” – that is, an advertiser pays the same every month as long as he remains active (doesn’t cancel). That makes sense, reward loyal advertisers.

How to get Text Link Ads to work on static pages

Because the TLA links are loaded dynamically you cannot have TLA on normal (static) HTML pages. But there is a solution for that. From their FAQ:

If your website uses the Apache web server (as most Linux/UNIX hosting packages do), you can instruct the web server to treat .html (or .htm) files as PHP. To accomplish this, create a file named “.htaccess” in your root directory and add the following to it (or append it to the bottom of the file, if it already exists):

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

(Note: if you use “.htm” files, replace the “.html” above with “.htm”)

I did this where I had static pages and it worked great.

There you have it, another great way to make money online. Your websites don’t even have to get a huge amount of traffic, as long as you have decent PageRank you will most likely be able to sell some links (totally “hands free”). Just click here to join Text Link Ads and you’ll be earning money in no time :)

Have you tried Text Link Ads? What was your experience, were you able to sell links quickly, are you satisfied with the money you’re making through TLA?

Keywords: google, pagerank, text link ads, text-link-ads, SEO, Aaron Wall, Rand Fishkin, Brad Fallon, monetization, Matt Cutts, Patrick Gavin

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A Little Trick To Increase Your RSS Subscribers

Hannes Johnson — Thu, 31 May 2007 02:21:21 +0000

One of the things bloggers strife for is to increase the number of people that are subscribed to their RSS feed. When people subscribe to your RSS feed it’s almost guaranteed that the person will come back to your blog to read new posts – then you’ve turned a one-time visitor into a loyal reader that might read most of your blog posts for months and years to come. Having many subscribers can also have a snowballing effect – when I see a blog that has a few hundred and even a few thousand subscribers I think “since all those people subscribe to this blog it might be good” and I might subscribe to the feed just to give it a shot. Also, by having more subscribers you can usually earn more money through services like Text Link Ads and Review Me.

To get more subscribers you can of course write stellar posts again and again, get Dugg, get linked from a high-profile blog… But here is an easy trick to increase your RSS subscribers quickly. Just add a snippet similar to this one to the end of each post:

Did you enjoy this post? Why not subscribe to my RSS feed. That way you’ll never miss out on new blog posts. Click here for the feed.

You might want to give it more attention by adding a border. This is the HTML code that I’m using on this blog:

Did you enjoy this post? Why not subscribe to my RSS feed. That way you'll never miss out on new blog posts. Click here for the feed.

I will probably change that text soon – make it more compelling and even link to better instructions on how people can subscribe to my RSS feed.

If want to put this on your own blog and you’re using WordPress just go to the Theme Editor (wp-admin > Presentation > Theme Editor) and edit the Main Index Template. Then put it somewhere between
and — preferably closer to

Also edit the “Single Post” file (single.php) and put it between and

After adding this bit of text (took me just a few minutes) I noticed my subscriber number increase very quickly – I had about 50 subscribers at the time but soon I saw the number go to 60 and a few days ago it said 70 subscribers. Right now the FeedBurner widget says 64 readers. So that’s about 30% increase in just a few days – and I didn’t do anything else. Not bad :)

Keywords: RSS, subscribers, text link ads, text-link-ads, reviewme, review me, code example, FeedBurner

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Got Accepted Into ReviewMe

Hannes Johnson — Thu, 03 May 2007 02:22:11 +0000

Soon after launching this blog I applied to ReviewMe. But it looks like they mainly look at the PageRank when deciding what blogs get accepted – so blogs that don’t have any public PageRank yet don’t get in. With the recent PageRank update that shows this blog having PR4 I was sure I would get accepted and be able to charge a decent fee. But it looks like you only have to submit your blog once – after that they’ll just keep you in their database and check every once in a while to see if your blog meets their requirement. So I had to just wait for them to check my blog again…

Today I got an e-mail from them notifying me that this blog was accepted. They set the price for a review on Hannes Johnson dot Com at $60.00 per review. Since I’m free to change the price I might increase the price or start at $40 and increase it with every review like Michael Kwan suggested.

But I think bloggers need to be careful with these kind of paid reviews – they must take care of the advertisers so they get their monies worth but bloggers must also think about the readers (which is a blog’s most valuable asset). I definitely won’t accept just about any review that is submitted – it must be something that I think my readers will be interested in. But since this blog doesn’t have just one topic of discussion it can be anything about making money online, personal development, SEO, web development, affiliate marketing or marketing in general… or something else that I think is cool. I also want to try to include in the reviews a few things that the reader will learn from – that will hopefully keep everybody happy :)

Well, now I’m just waiting for Text Link Ads to accept me and then I’ll be able to add yet another income stream to this blog :)

If you’re interested in getting reviewed on this blog you can click on the badge in the sidebar or just click here to order a review.

Keywords: ReviewMe, monetize, monetization, income, revenue, text-link-ads, Text Link Ads, review

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Create Urgency By Increasing The Price With Every Sale

Hannes Johnson — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 01:17:43 +0000

One of the tricks you can use when you’re trying to sell something is create urgency. For example: “there are only limited copies available”, “buy within the next 5 minutes and you’ll get this extra bonus”, etc. People that are “on the fence” might decide to buy because they don’t want to lose out – fear of loss is one of the most common buying triggers. But one thing that I’ve seen more and more the past year or so is pretty clever – increase the price with every sale. Well, that’s what Gary Ambrose and Keith Wellman have done with their latest Nickel Mania product. As the name suggests the price increases by a nickel ($0.05) each time someone buys the product.

So, time is of the essence and if you want to check it out you can click here for “Same List More Profit”. I just bought it and look forward to receiving it – it’s actually a physical DVD, not “just” a digital product – although they’re nice too ;) A few months ago they also had this kind of a “nickel sale” and I bought that package too – the video was pretty cool and I learned a few things so I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.

You might be wondering what the DVD is all about… Well, like the name suggests they will take you through how you can make profit with the same mailing list – or, if you don’t have a mailing list – how you can build a new and profitable mailing list the right way. Gary and Keith both have huge mailing lists and know how to make the most of their lists – they’ve been around for quite some time and tested a lot of different things. I know from my own experience that having a responsive mailing list can bring you some nice extra money by just sending out an e-mail with your affiliate link in it. However, I must admit that I’ve been neglecting my lists a little bit over the past few months because of lack of time. But that will all soon change when I get my hands on that DVD ;)

Right now the price is $4.40 so you can get a physical DVD sent to your door that can help you grow your business for just a few bucks (+ shipping). Click here to lock into that price before it goes any higher.

Just to let you know – there is an upsell, but you might want to check it out if you’re interested in starting a serious business that can bring you a serious income.

By the way, Paul Kleinmeulman is using the same trick with his Profit Funnel Secrets package. I also have that – excellent product that teaches you one of the vital parts of having a profitable business. It’s a digital product (video + eBooks) so you’ll get access immediately.

Keywords: Gary Ambrose, Keith Wellman, Nickel Mania, DVD, urgency, fear of loss, upsell, Paul Kleinmeulman, profit funnel

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Google Gives You Tips On How To Make More Money With AdSense

Hannes Johnson — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:01:14 +0000

I was just checking my AdSense stats and on the Overview page under “Recent messages” I saw a new message from “Optimization Team” with the subject “April 2007 Optimization Report”. Interesting… I hadn’t seen anything like that before. This is what the message said:

April 2007 Optimization Report

Dear Publisher,

Here is your optimization report for the month of April. After an automatic review of your sites, we think you might be able to improve your monetization using the following tips:

You may be filtering ads that monetize well on your site.
How can I fix this? – Dismiss this tip.

We hope these tips are helpful, and encourage you to experiment using different layouts and formats–no two sites monetize the same way!

Sincerely,
Google Adsense

OK, cool – Google is telling me how I can make more money, nice :) Well, I have a few sites in the “Competitive Ad Filter” but I don’t think I have too many. It’s mostly just competing websites and sites that I’m an affiliate for (I want people to click the affiliate link on my site and not the one in the AdSense ad unit). So I’m not sure if I’m going to take this optimization tip seriously – like they said, it was an automatic review so you should definitely take it with a grain of salt.

It looks like they’re going to send AdSense publishers an optimization report every month which I think is pretty good – they might point out a few things that you forgot about and it can end up making you more money (and making Google more money, of course).

How about you – did you get any optimization tips from Google?

If you want more AdSense tips you should also check out the official AdSense blog. They often post some nice tips and news regarding the AdSense program, like this one about Introducing Google Apps referrals

Keywords: adsense, optimization, adsense tips, make money, affiliates.

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Why I Love Having An Online Business

Hannes Johnson — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:59:33 +0000

Having a part time online business is great if you don’t have a lot of free time or if you can’t set aside specific hours to work on your business.

For example, right now school is keeping me quite busy and I can only work on my business a few hours per week. But I have several tools that are working for me on autopilot:

I still get traffic, subscribers and sales from my AdWords campaigns
I still get traffic from organic search engine results
I still get visitors (and subscribers) from traffic exchanges
My subscribers still get e-mail messages from my autoresponders

It gives you a lot of freedom if you don’t have to work on it 24/7 – it’s alright if I don’t touch my business for a few days. Even if I go on vacation for 2 weeks I might just occasionally check my e-mail…

But it’s not perfect – my business doesn’t grow as fast as it would if I could work on it 24/7 – I also meant to write this post a few days ago but couldn’t find a time to finish it…

A great way to start a part time online business is by promoting products as an affiliate – did you know that I have an affiliate program? ;)

Reminder: The “Top Commentators” that you see in the sidebar is reset every month. February just arrived which means the top spots (with free one-way links) are up for grabs. May the best one win ;)

Keywords: part time, part time business, school, hannes johnson, little time, business, vacation

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John Chow dot Com – You Can Learn A Thing Or Two From A Dot Com Mogul

Hannes Johnson — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:14:20 +0000

I mentioned John Chow in an earlier post. Well, John is a real up-and-comer in the blogosphere and is on his way to become an internet celebrity ;) His blog is already in the Technorati Top 1000 and he’s set on reaching the Top 100 before the end of this year. You might say that John Chow is the reason I decided to put this domain to good use and not just let it collect digital dust. I’ve been reading his blog for a while and I discovered that it doesn’t have to be that hard making a full-time income from a single blog – and it can be quite fun too.

John is the owner of The Tech Zone and it looks like he’s doing alright… He makes about $3,000 from his personal blog (pocket change to him) which all goes to charities. So you can’t say that John is all evil although he is a bit naughty ;)

On his blog John provides a lot of good tips on blogging and making money online in general and that’s the main reason why I reguarly read his blog. But it’s also fun to check out his “off topic” posts :)

His Top Best WordPress Plugins post was very helpful when I was setting up this blog. I’ve already installed most of the plug-ins on that list and I’ll install the rest very soon…

It looks like you can learn a thing or two from a dot com mogul. Here are just a few of the things I’ve learned from John Chow:

Don’t rely entirely on Google AdSense as your only revenue source. There are so many things you can do to add to your bottom line.
You can earn a full-time income from a blog that has only one author and “only” 30-80 posts per month.
…and each post doesn’t have to be a 3000 word essay. It can be as simple as linking to something newsworthy and giving your spin on it, posting a funny video of you goofing around to posting pictures of what you had for dinner ;)

I don’t really remember how long I’ve been reading John’s blog – but it’s been a couple of months I think. How exactly I found JohnChow.com is also a mystery but as with many new sites you discover it was probably from a link somewhere or when I was searching for something on Google. But I’m pretty sure I’ll be among John’s “loyal followers” for a while :)

You might be wondering why I’m posting a “review” like this… Well, I like John’s blog and all the tips he’s giving – he’s already in my blogroll in the sidebar. But I have an ulterior motive, last month he started this “evil” linking scheme ;) Basically, you write a review about John Chow dot Com, link to his website and he’ll post a link to your blog. Not a bad deal… everybody could use some more linkage. John has received over 100 reviews so far and his offer is still open.

Check out JohnChow.com – you might learn a thing or two :)

Keywords: John Chow, review, pro blogger, hannes johnson, johnchow, link building, blog

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