Since our recent blog post detailing our November income from Amazon, we have had a number of requests from people asking us to provide more detail on what we did to actually achieve that amount of money.  So I started to write up a blog post for it last week but it turned into a bit of an epic….I am at over 3000 words so far and I haven’t even scratched the surface.

So we’ve come to the conclusion that it really needs to be put into an ebook. However, we realise that many of you would rather not wait around while we do that and would prefer to get into it and start making money with Amazon as soon as possible. So we have put together this blog post to tell you how we structure our reviews for maximum conversions to help you achieve the same success.

Value First…Money Second

Now many of you who are regulars to this blog will know that I do tend to go on about providing value to your readers. With product reviews it is even more important. If you want to convert your visitors into sales you need to provide as much information as possible to help them make an informed decision as to whether the product you are promoting is the right one for them.

People want to be told what to buy and most don’t want to do the research themselves so they love it when they see a page of content that concisely puts together everything they need to know about that product.

So here are the steps we use for creating quality product reviews that convert. Bear in mind, that at this point we assume you already have a product in mind for review.

Step 1: List the features of the product

The first thing we do with any product we review is to list the features and functions of the product. So say for instance we are going to review the iPod Touch (my favorite toy at the moment) – these would be at least some of the features/functions:

• on/off button
• sound control button
• earphones
• colors available
• technical specifications
• password protection
• battery life
• apps store
• watching videos
• using the internet
• touch screen control
• using email
• itunes
• listening to music
• clock/alarm function
• settings
• Google maps
• calendar function
• contacts function
• notes function
• photos

Try to be as detailed as possible when you are writing up the list, even if it seems trivial. Remember that when buying online, a person can’t physically hold the product so detail is important.

Step 2: Add Content

Now take each of the features/functions in your list, create a heading for each and write a paragraph or two about it. This is where your research comes into play. Remember that you don’t need to own the product to write a good review (although it helps) but you really need to research, research, research. This means scouring the net to see what other people have to say about each of those features. The best place for this is Amazon and in particular the reviews left by real people who actually use the product.

It can also mean contacting the manufacturer for more detailed information.

At this point, you may be thinking that this is all going to take time and just seems a little like hard work….BUT, just remember that you only have to write the review once and it could potentially make you money for years to come.

When writing this sort of content you don’t want to just rehash the features and benefits that can be found on any website. You really want to get into as much detail as possible.

The trick with writing these reviews is not to write it like you are trying to sell something. To start with we wrote a lot of reviews like this and they were really not that effective. Instead we find the best way is to write the review as if  you were telling a friend about the product.

Step 3: Add Your Introduction

The goal here is to get your readers to read your entire review and the introduction is critical to that success. You could start your review off by saying “Today I am going to review the iPod Touch…but that’s kind of boring. Instead try using a real life story.

For instance I might write something like: ” When Wanda and I were in the US attending a conference, we happened upon the Apple Store in New York. If you’ve ever been there you’ll know what an experience that is, but we happened to be there the day after the iPhone was released to the world, actually we were on a hop on hop off tourist bus and when the guide pointed out the iPod store – we hopped off.”

I would then go on to say how great I thought the iPhone was but since I didn’t want to buy into a phone plan I waited and eventually ended up buying an iPod Touch instead. That would then lead me straight into the review.

You’d have to agree that it sounds a little more interesting than simply saying “Today we are going to review the iPod Touch”.

Step 4: Add Your Affiliate Links

The final step is to add affiliate links. This simply means finding about three or four spots in your review to add a link. We generally add the first link in the second or third paragraph of our content. So for our iPod Touch review we might add an Amazon link when the phrase ‘iPod Touch’ first appears in the second paragraph.

The second link may appear somewhere around the middle and the third right at the end of the review. This final link would be part of a sentence that tells the reader where they can purchase the product. You can do this in a couple of ways:

1. Provide a list of merchants who sell the product so that the reader can do their own price comparison. Note that you wouldn’t actually add the prices here as they can change and you would be forever updating the page – just list the merchant names and a link to each.
2. Provide one link to one merchant – we always use Amazon as they generally have the best prices.

Although we do use both options, we tend to go with the second option more often as Amazon convert extremely well for us.

Some final tips…

• Although you want to be completely honest with your review, you don’t want to focus too heavily on the negatives….after all, your goal is to make sales. To avoid this, try and choose products that get excellent ratings so you don’t have to worry about the negatives.
• Don’t ever make things up. In other words, don’t say the product is good when it clearly isn’t. Your goal is to get your readers to trust your opinion. And don’t say you have the product if you don’t. Your readers will pick up on this sort of thing and you will lose their trust.

And finally…

One thing to remember is that a majority of the reviews on the net are of poor quality and lack the detail that most people look for in a good review. Just try and add as much value as you can to your reviews and you will be streets ahead of the rest of them.

Want to know where we learn to make money online? Head on over to Wealthy Affiliate University for all the latest info.

Last week as I was leaving a comment on a blog I noticed a discussion between the owner and one of his readers about a Wordpress plugin he was using that automatically turns predefined keywords on his blog into affiliate links.

My first thought was that this was one of those programs you have to join where you get paid for each click from links on your site…you might have seen those blogs where ever second keyword is underlined twice in blue and you hover over the keyword and an annoying pop-up appears. But from looking at his blog posts I soon realized this wasn’t the case – the links were regular blue text links – nothing fancy or spammy looking.

So since I was a bit intrigued I clicked on the link in his comment and made my way over to the sales page for the Ninja Affiliate plugin. Once there, it really didn’t take me long to realize that I definitely needed to buy it. I even made a call to Wanda to see what she thought and she definitely agreed that this would save us a lot of time.

So How Does it Work?

The best way to describe how the plugin works is to use an example. So let’s  say for instance you are an affiliate for Amazon and your blog is all about fishing. And one of the products you promote regularly on your blog is a fishing rod called “The Prestige Fishing Rod”.

Now at the moment, in order to link to Amazon using that keyword phrase (ie. The Prestige Fishing Rod) you would have to grab the affiliate code from Amazon and manually pop it in to anywhere in your blog posts where you use that keyword phrase. We all know it’s not difficult to do but it is time consuming….this is where the Ninja Affiliate plugin comes into play.

With this plugin you will only ever have to grab your Amazon affiliate code once, place it in the back end admin area and from then on it will automatically add that affiliate link whenever it sees that keyword or keyword phrase (ie. The Prestige Fishing Rod)  in blog posts on your blog. This includes posts that you have created in the past as well as new posts.

You can also specify multiple keyword variations that link will apply to. For example,  ‘The Prestige Fishing Rod’, ‘Prestige Fishing Rod’, ‘Fishing Rod’ and so on.  If the plugin sees any of those keywords it will automatically convert them to links.

What I really like about this plugin is that you can specify how many links per post. You can have 1 or more, or just choose unlimited if you like.  Just be aware that too many links can make you look like a spammer. (I like to keep it at two or three.) And you don’t have to worry about all those links leaching your pagerank as there is an option to add a nofollow tag to each link.

You also don’t need to use this to link to affiliate links. You can link to other pages on your site if you like. This is a great way of getting more traffic to a particular post or page on your site.

There are a host of other features that come with this great little plugin including:

• the ability to cloak the links so instead of the reader seeing an affiliate link when they hover over the link they will instead see a keyword or whatever you choose to use.
• the ability to overide global settings for each individual post. So say you have set up your global settings to add a nofollow tag to each link but for one particular post you want the nofollow tag to be removed then this feature allows you to do this.
• the  facility to create groups so you can easily track the links you have created
• stats so you can see the number of clicks on each of the links you have created
• the ability to have each link open in a new window
• the ability to change the formatting of each link ie. link color, underline, bold, italics, font size and family
• the ability to exclude Pages from automatic linking
• the ability to exclude specific Categories from automatic linking

Final Conclusion…

This is a brilliant tool and we wonder how we ever did without it. Today we spent less than an hour creating links in the back-end which  resulted in literally hundreds of links on one of our niche blogs.  If we were to do this ourselves if would have taken us hours, if not days to accomplish.

Plus if we ever get the problem of a merchant closing down their affiliate program or going out of business then we don’t have to spend hours changing hundreds of links – all we need to do is change it once in the admin area and all the links will  change automatically.

We give the Ninja Affiliate plugin a big thumbs up. Highly recommended.

Further Reading

• Read more about the Ninja Affiliate plugin.
  

 Not too long ago I received an email from a reader wanting to know whether to sign up with Wealthy Affiliate University or go with the James Martell Super Bootcamp instead. My advice was to try both. The reason I said this was that they are so totally different that it is really too difficult to compare them side by side. Plus you can try both programs for a month for a minimal amount to see which one suits. In fact, to try the James Martell Bootcamp for a month costs absolutely nothing….and Wealthy Affiliate costs just $39 – that’s only $1.25 a day – less than a cup of coffee.

We are members of both simply because they both provide excellent value, provide huge amounts of info to help you progress towards your goal of making money online and are professional in their approach. We have been members of the James Martell Bootcamp for a few years now and Wealthy Affiliate for close to a year so we have long term experience with each.

Even though they are vastly different in their approach they do have a few things in common – they both provide tons of information – tutorials, videos and forums.

So how do they work?

James Martell Bootcamp

The James Martell Bootcamp is more of a system that takes you by the hand step-by-step with James himself giving the instructions. You meet once a week in an online conference room where James gives a 1 1/2 to 2 hour lesson that also includes a Q&A at the end. This is where you can ask James questions either by typing it in to the text box on the screen or by using head phones and actually speaking to James direct.

The basic goal is to learn how to create a website using Drupal (a content management system) (although you have the option of using any type of system including Wordpress or XSitePro for instance) and driving traffic through natural search. It goes through choosing a topic, building the website, adding content, video and audio as well creating a newsletter and forum. It concentrates on developing just one website and focusing everything on that. And of course it goes into adding affiliate products and making money through Adsense.

The lessons are all recorded and you are given ‘homework’ for the week although it’s up to you whether you do it or not.

Also included are:

• regular Coffee Talks with well known internet marketing gurus and celebrities. You can attend these live via phone or listen to them later as a recording…or both.
• transcripts of the weeks lessons.
• fortnightly Q&A sessions in the conference room – these allow you to ask James questions that you might have about anything.
• Affiliate Buzz – this is a fortnightly recorded chat James has with a friend to discuss affiliate news, events, how his business is going, how some of his students businesses are going, events he has attended recently and so on.
• acesss to the member forum – this is where students get together to ask questions and discuss their progress.

Wealthy Affiliate University

The Wealthy Affiilate University works a little differently. It provides an eight week course but it is available only as text. In other words, Kyle and Carson (the owners of WA) don’t run a live weekly lesson so it’s up to you to read the lesson and go from there. You don’t get to ask questions as you go through the lesson – well you can, but it involves sending an email to Kyle or Carson. With the James Martell Bootcamp on the other hand you can ask James a question live as you go through the weekly lesson so everything can be clarified there and then. You don’t have to wait for a response.

Wealthy Affiliate also focuses more on bum marketing techniques – in other words, ways to make money online without having to spend a cent. They also include tutorials relating to Pay Per Click.

They don’t focus as much on setting up a website and driving traffic through natural search like the James Martell Bootcamp does. Instead their approach is more about picking out a product and then creating a review type site. So your site is pretty much a few pages with reviews and you drive traffic via PPC. They also go into driving traffic through natural search but not to the degree that the James Martell Bootcamp does. The James Martell Bootcamp is all about natural search.

Wealthy Affiliate also focus heavily on article marketing and using sites such as Squidoo and UsFreeads to make money.

Also included are:

• free web templates
• keyword tools
• access to the member forum
• Clickbank search tools
• an amazing number of tutorials on all sorts of subjects
• free hosting
• Rapid Writer

Our Recommendation

If you are new to affiliate marketing and need someone to hold your hand then we recommend the James Martell Super Bootcamp.

If you are looking at ways to make money online without having to spend a cent or very little then we recommend Wealthy Affiliate.

If you are looking to make money using Pay Per Click methods then we recommend Wealthy Affiliate.

If you want to learn how to make money using natural search then we recommend the James Martell Super Bootcamp.

If you want to make money using Clickbank products then we recommend Wealthy Affiliate.

If you want to build a website and become an authority on your subject then we recommend the James Martell Bootcamp.

If you want to learn how to make money using actual products rather than ebooks then we recommend the James Martell Bootcamp.

And finally…

Neither method is going to make you money overnight – it just isn’t possible with legitimate methods. Howver, with either method you can see money start to trickle in after a couple of months and then it builds from there.

We recommend you trial both methods for a month to see which one suits you.

For more information on the James Martell Bootcamp CLICK HERE

For more information on Wealthy Affiliate CLICK HERE

Some time back I found a blog talking about a website called Legit Online Jobs. Their review was honest (or at least it sounded that way) and they spoke highly of Legit Online Jobs. Still I am not one to purchase something without reading a few different reviews. So I did my best to find reviews from people who looked like they actually used the product and after finding only positive comments and reviews I decided to give Legit Online Jobs a go.

Their home page didn’t reveal too much apart from the fact that they are heavily into making money from posting classified ads but I had heard that they offer much more than just the classified ad technique so I signed up and paid the $69.95 for VIP access (only $49.95 if you take the basic package.)

This money making membership site focuses on quite a few different ways to make money online and lists them on the welcome page once logged in:

Ad Cash System- Learn how to make great money typing ads for companies.
Real Home Jobs – Real no-fee jobs. Get paid by the hour. Includes data entry jobs.
Paid Surveys – Give your opinion on various products and get paid for it.
Paid Shopping – Get paid to shop in stores or eat out at restaurants.
Paid Driving – Get paid to drive your own car or receive a brand new free car.
Paid Email/Surf – Get paid to read email and visit websites.
Paid Offers – Get paid to complete free offers from various companies.
Paid TV – Get paid to watch TV for companies.
Paid Photos – Make money taking pictures.
Paid Blogging – Make money with your own blog.
Wholesale/Ebay – Access the best wholesale sources and make money reselling.
Advanced Money – Money making secrets for advanced users.
Gov. Auctions – Access government auctions all across the US.
Gov. Grants – Find the best sources for all types of grants in the US.

Each of these money making techniques is backed up with an introduction on what it all means, step-by-step tutorials and eBooks to help you along. The guides are easy to follow and they provide tips and techniques to making them work effectively.

In additon they also provide extensive lists of resources or websites that are relevant to each money making technique. For instance, for the eBay section they include a huge database of websites where you can source products (mostly dropshippers) and for the Paid Surveys section it includes a database filled with companies you can sign up with to start completing surveys.

Although the home page of Legit Online Jobs pushes the Ad Cash System (which by the way I have tried but more on that below) the main benefit for many is the Real Home Jobs section. This is where you can find hundreds of legitimiate, paid by the hour, work at home jobs. It includes data entry, transcription services, editing, writing, translating, assistant type jobs, clerical, research, sales and marketing and much more. There are even jobs that involve you answering customer phone calls in your own home for big companies.

Quite a few of the members of this site take on a few jobs at a time in order to make a full-time wage.

Legit Online Jobs emphasises that none of the services provided on their site requires a further fee to sign up so after the initial payment everything is free.

As well as everything mentioned above there is also a bonus section with over 50 ebooks and video coaching on a variety of subjects including:

• The Expert Guide to Affiliate Marketing
• Squidoo Basics
• One Step to eBay Riches
• Make Money Without Leaving Your Home
• How to Get Quick Cash in an Emergency
• Adsense Secrets

The Ad Cash System is promoted heavily on the home page of Legit Online Jobs. We have tried it and it definitely does work. It requires time and effort but it is by no means difficult to do – in fact it is dead easy once you know how. The goal is to place as many ads as you can on free classified ad sites that link to a product that you can make a commission from. Legit Online Jobs recommends putting up 30 ads a day. We put up about 2 a day over a 2 month period and made just over $200. Not bad for about 15 minutes of work a day.

The whole point of Legit Online Jobs is that they do the dirty work for you and find only the legitimate money making sites. This is especially important for those new to internet marketing or working online as they can be easily scammed.

Overall we found this to be a great resource for anyone wanting to make money online. The variety of methods means that there is something for everyone and you can pick and choose the money making method that suits you. We definitely recommend it.

Click here for more info on Legit Online Jobs

If you own the James Martell Affiliate Handbook then you will already be aware of James Martells recomendations on how to succeed in the affiliate business, but we can tell you now that there is nothing like hearing it from the man himself.

We attended the last James Martell Bootcamp or Affiliate Marketers Bootcamp as it is officially called which is an online training course that takes you through developing a niche website step-by-step from start to finish. It runs over a period of 26 weeks and covers absolutely everything you need to know to create a website and make money from it even if you have absolutely no experience.

What makes this program unique is that James himself runs each weekly session in real time in an online conference room so you are hearing the content live. This means that you receive the most up-to-date information you could possibly get. You can also be anywhere in the world to attend these sessions. We met like minded people from countries such Australia, England, Asia, Europe, New Zealand, Canada and the US. All of us just looking to be successful in our online businesses.

What makes this Bootcamp so special is that at the end of every session there is a question time where you can ask James questions directly by either typing in your question or using a headset if you have one and speaking directly with James. These sessions usually run for about 90 min to 2 hours but James is very generous with his time and will go over time if students have a lot of questions.

It’s almost impossible to get to talk to an internet marketing guru like this on a one-on-one basis without it costing you thousands of dollars so this in itself is worth every cent of the program.

James is an excellent teacher and explains everything in easy to follow structured lessons and remember that it is all live so it can be easily clarified in moments with just a quick question to James. The sessions are recorded so if you can’t make it to the live online sessions then you can download the recorded sessions to watch on your computer or you can also grab an audio version to listen to in your car or on your MP3 player. Transcripts are also available for each session so you can print them out and refer to them whenever required.

The weekly sessions include:

Session #1 – Meet ‘n Greet and Orientation
Session #2 – Web 2.0, Orientation and Case Studies
Session #3 – Choosing a Topic that is Right for You! (Part 1 of 2)
Session #4 – Choosing a Topic that is Right for You! (Part 2 of 2)
Session #5 – Developing Your Website Blueprint (Part 1 of 2)
Session #6 – Developing Your Website Blueprint (Part 2 of 2)
Session #7 – Crafting Stories that Lead Visitors to the Sale! (Part 1 of 2)
Session #8 – Hosting and Domain Names …for NON-TECHIES!
Session #9 – Crafting Stories that Lead Visitors to the Sale! (Part 2 of 2)
Session #10 – A Common Sense Approach to Keywords
Session #11 – Preparing Your Work Order for Copywriting Success
Session #12 – Fast Track Your Business Through Outsourcing
Session #13 – Web Publishing Software …Solutions!
Session #14 – Developing Your List for Long Term Sustainability
Session #15 – Growing Unique Content with a Chat Forum
Session #16 – Finding Your Voice With Web Audio (Part 1 of 2)
Session #17 – Getting Your Feet Wet With Google AdWords
Session #18 – Finding Your Voice With Web Audio (Part 2 of 2)
Session #19 – Make a Splash With Web PR
Session #20 – Backlinks Workshop (Part 1 of 2)
Session #21 – Backlinks Workshop (Part 2 of 2)
Session #22 – Monetizing Your Site With Affiliate Programs
Session #23 – Google AdSense Makes Dollars and Sense
Session #24 – Lights, Action, and Your Video Camera?
Session #25 – Practical Web 2.0
Session #26 – Making Your Digital Camera Your Friend

What’s also included:

• Members only forum – this is where you can get support from not only James but also the other students who are all extremely helpful.
• Video tutorials – these help with some of the more techy sorts of issues you may come across.
• Regular Coffee Talk interviews with industry professionals.
• Fortnightly live coaching sessions if you have any questions you need answered – these are in addition to the normal weekly sessions.
• Weekly homework assignments to keep you on track.
• Access to the Affiliate Buzz interviews with James Martell.

The beauty of the James Martell Bootcamp is that you can test it out for 1 month free to see if it’s right for you – so that’s full membership access to the Bootcamp with James Martell as you learn, so really you have nothing to lose.

We recommend this program for complete beginners to internet marketing or those who have a website already developed but haven’t had much success making money with it.

We have been students of James Martell for over 2 years now and have met the man in person on a number of occasions. Take a look at the Youtube video - below we are in it… just listen for when James talks about Paula and Wanda…yes, that’s us!

James works hard to give back what he knows to his students. He does the research so you don’t have to and he gives 100% to every class. But you don’t have to believe me, try it for yourself because James offers a 4 week free trial of the program. It’s a no obligation 4 week trial that you can cancel at anytime…you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

If you want to start making money online with James Martell then click here for more info…

One thing you will find after you have been in the Affiliate Marketing business for a while is that you will accumulate lots of email addresses, passwords, user names and a variety of other information.

And believe me it doesn’t take too long for all this information to become hard to manage, unless you are a very organized person.

Last year we had a piece of software recommended to us that would simplify our affiliate business and get us completely organized.

Now I have to say at the time that I was a bit skeptical and didn’t really expect it to be anything special. In fact I didn’t even buy the software right away because I thought that I was pretty organized what with my notebooks and spreadsheets and the rest.

It was after we received a second recommendation that we took that as a sign and went and purchased a copy of Affiliate Organizer and I have to say that I am so glad we did. This little piece of software is just brilliant and it definitely keeps us organized.

The main feature of the Affiliate Organizer is that it allows you to store all your user names and passwords in the one place.

How many times have you joined something on the net and had to register with a user name and password?I have literally hundreds of passwords for different things – forums, affiliate networks, blogs, websites and so on. The Affiliate Organizer allows me to store them in the one place and access them easily.

It’s other features include:

• A calendar function where you can set up upcoming events and tasks and be reminded of them with either a pop-up or an email.
• A category to store websites including DNS, ftp settings, passwords, hosting company details and so on.
• The ability to store the details of software packages you have purchased and enter the unlock codes and the registration details.
• A section for affiliate merchants where you can add their website address, the commission amount, the contact name, join up date and so much more.
• A section to store keyword lists and click on keywords that you have used so you can stay on track.
• A category to store forums that you have signed up with and include the url, password and user name.
• An area to keep track of tasks that you have outsourced including the freelancers name, email, the project description, date started and completed, keywords lists, the cost and much more.
• A category where you can store any training or seminars you may be taking with fields to include the event, location, date, time, cost, contact name and so on.
• A section where you can add any ideas or projects you have in mind.
• And the list goes on…

The icing on the cake for this program is that if you can’t find a place to store a piece of information then you can simply create your own categories and fields so you can literally store almost anything.

The software is extremely simple to install and once installed sits in your system tray for easy access and it starts up when you computer starts up – although you can turn off this setting if you prefer.

What I really like is that you can password protect the whole program so that even if your computer is stolen no one can access your passwords.

These are just a few of the features of the Affiliate Organizer. We literally use it every day and couldn’t do without it.

Read more about Affiliate Organizer.