The MaxBlog Ninja Affiliate plugin is available for 33% off the regular price

We have an exclusive offer available for our readers for one week only

Our regular readers will already know that we use and love MaxBlog’s Ninja Affiliate plugin. And for those who don’t know why this is our favorite plugin, why not head on over and read our review about the benefits that you will gain by using it.

We paid full price when we purchased the plugin and it is a purchase we have never regretted buying. So 33% off  is a bargain for a plugin that you will find invaluable.

So just a quick summary of what the Ninja Affilitate plugin does quickly and easily (this is not a full overview) read the review to see all the benefits you will gain:

• Create affiliate links in a flash – simply enter them once in the backend and your entire blog can have mass affiliate links added in a instant to both old and new posts
• Manage your affiliate links
• Add nofollow to affiliate links
• Add internal links within your website
• Change colors and font sizes of the link
• No need to spend hours changing links if a merchant deactivates
• Add the link in Ninja Affiliate and it changes the links even on old posts for you.

CLICK THE LINK TO GET THE 33% DISOUNT - Maxblog Ninja Affilite 33% Discount

FINALLY RELEASED - Our complete guide to making money online by promoting Amazon products. Head over to the AMAZONIAN PROFIT PLAN website for all the latest info.

We have a number of affiliate marketing websites. These are a hangover from when we first came into affiliate marketing when we felt that having more websites meant making more money. If we were starting out now we would only have a couple as it is so much more manageable. But having lots of websites means we have lots of product reviews and we realized early on that if we were going to keep track of where sales were coming from that we needed to start using Amazon tracking ids.

If you have begun to add product reviews to your own website and are using Amazon then you should really be doing the same thing. This will make it so much easier to check your sales on Amazon as you will be able to see exactly from which pages on your website the sales came from.

Choose Your Tracking IDs Carefully

Be very selective in how you want your tracking ID’s to look as you cannot delete or change them once they have been approved by Amazon. Bummer I know.

We found this out the hard way, we had started using a set of ID’s and then found it didn’t really help us when we came to determining which products were performing the best and we had to start over, but the original ID’s could not be deleted or changed, and keep in mind that you can only have 100 tracking ID’s per account. This may sound a lot but once you get started you will find it doesn’t take long to start using up your quota.  Having said that, we haven’t used ours up yet but that is because we track a mix of websites and products.  So we only bother about tracking products that meet our product review criteria.

We use one tracking ID per product review page so it will be used for both the images and the text links on that page. However, if you want to go even deeper and see which individual links are performing the best, you can use a tracking id for each individual link. So you might have a tracking id for the image link, a different tracking id for the first link in your product review, a different tracking id for the second link and so on. But as we said previously, you only ever get 100 tracking ids per Amazon account so doing it this way will mean that you have the potential for running out of tracking ids fairly quickly.

So how do you Create a Tracking ID in Amazon?

1. Sign into your Amazon Associates account.

2. Click on Account Settings in the top right hand corner of your screen.

3. In the Account Information Section find the bullet point “Manage your tracking IDs” and click on it.

4. Click the Add Tracking ID button and you will be presented with a page where you can add a tracking ID (see image below). Add the tracking ID that you have decided to use for a particular product or website in the blank box. We usually type in a word that relates to the product we are promoting. So for instance, say that we have written a product review for the iPod Touch. If we wanted to create a tracking ID for that page we might enter the words “ipod-touch” into that tracking ID field. So the tracking ID would look like this - ipod-touch-20 (Note that Amazon IDs end in ’20′ in North America).

5. Click the search button and Amazon will do a search to make sure the Tracking ID is unique. Amazon will let you know straight away whether the ID is available and if it is you can start using it on your product review page.

How to Add the Tracking ID to the Product Review

1. Open your product review post in WordPress. Also open your Amazon Product page in a new tab or window, whichever suits the way you work with multiple internet windows.

2. On the top line of the product page in Amazon you will find the words “Link to this page”. Click on that link. This will open the ‘Customize and Get HTML’ pop-up.

3.You will see two drop-down boxes – one says “Signed in as” and the other says “Tracking ID” Click the down arrow and select the Tracking ID for the product review you just created (see image below). Amazon will automatically change the code in the HTML code box so that it now includes your tracking ID.

4. Now, you can simply grab the code and add it to either your image or text links as you would normally do and the tracking id will be included. (For instructions on adding Amazon links to images click here.)

So there you have it a quick and easy way to keep track of where your clicks and conversions are coming from as your Tracking ID will show in your Amazon Tracking ID Summary report.

You will be able to see at a glance, how many clicks, items ordered, items shipped, shipped item revenue and commissions or Advertising Fees each product is producing.

Paula and I recently took part in the James Martell Bootcamp on affiliate marketing.

This was one of the most informative exercises the we have undertaken in relation to our affiliate websites, where we learnt how to rank highly in google.

At the end of the course James and Arlene sent us our Certificates showing that we had successfully completed the course and an ‘Easy’ button.

So now whenever we complete a task we press the button that says “That was easy”. It’s a great little motivational tool that I think everyone should go out and buy one. The easy button is available from Amazon.com and Staples stores.

One of my favourite blogging communities is Spicy page. The site is full of incredibly interesting blogs of all types. Spicy page allows you to submit your own blog, vote on other blogs, and make friends.

I find I have regulars that I love to check out to see what they are up to. And then there are always the new blogs that arrive on a minute by minute basis, so I go and check out what some of them are about.

Of course researching and reading blogs is time consuming so I tend to pick blogs based on their avatar or blog name. Sometimes it leads to a dead end and is something I am not interested in, so I leave and I don’t join their community as I know I will not want to return. Other times I become lost in the story and spend way too much time becoming totally immersed in a blog.

There are blogsites running commpetitions, blogs with personal stories of triumph and some of despair, blogs about travel experiences and blogs about fame and fortune. You name it, it’s there.

Some of my personal favourites are Crunchy Carpets, Ubertramp, The Career Strategist, Life Cruiser, On Line Shopping Bargains, Bhutan Travel, Survival Wytch. Echoes in the Night, Comedy Plus.

There are many others that I also visit on a regular basis, too many to name really. But if you are looking for a laugh, a giggle, some information, or to share in another persons experiences then join SpicyPage and you have the world at your fingertips.

Just a word of warning to anyone who decides to start working online from home. Beware of the scams.

My daughter has been sucked into a number of schemes simply because she won’t take the time to research emails that are sent to her promising untold wealth if she signs up and sends money.

Unfortunately she refuses to listen to me. I have been working online for a number of years now – but what would I know.

So many hundreds of dollars later and with nothing to show for her effort, she has finally woken up to the fact that maybe her mother does know what she is talking about.

If it appears to be too good to be true, you can bet your boots it is.

Never send bank details to anyone without ensuring that you are dealing with a reputable firm and NEVER send money to anyone offering to set you up with an online business that will make you wealthier than Bill Gates.

Here are some Legitimate Companies that we work with and they have all proved to be totally reliable with both opportunities and payments.

Join online affiliate marketing groups (such as Commission Junction, Linkshare, Shareasale, Link Connector, Amazon Affiliate Program),

All of these companies are free to join and as they are all well known in the online business circuits and have a reputation to uphold so you will get paid for your endeavours.

It takes time and effort to generate a reasonable income online but perseverence will pay off.

Sometimes when we work from home we tend to forget to take care of ourselves. It is very important to continue to keep up decent levels of exercise and maintain a healthy diet.

When you are sitting at the computer all day at home it is very easy to reach out and pick at unhealthy snacks, not realising just what you are doing to your waistline and health.

With this in mind, Paula and I make sure that we get regular exercise at the local ladies only gym. We have been doing lots of stretch and yoga classes so yesterday I decided it was time to up the ante and did the pump class. Well today I am having difficulty walking up and down the stairs. Every step feels like I am being stabbed with a burning knife blade – at least thats how it appears to me.

Having done this many times before, you know what I mean- reach a high level of fitness and then stopping going to the gym for quite some months; I know that in the next day or so I will feel the benefits of this strenuous exercise but at the moment I just want to curl up in a ball with some hazelnut chocolate and make the bad pain go away.

Having said that, it is important to not let the computer take over your life completely. Factor in the breakations and fun times.

A timer is a good tool to have on your desk to remind you of when to take a break, go for a walk or have a healthy snack.

Now where’s that phone book I need to make an appointment for a massage