you must claim your affiliate commissions, or….
for around a year now I’ve had affiliate links up in various places promoting a webhosting company called Dreamhost, but being my usual lazy self I’ve never bothered checking my stats until today.
And I got a bit of a nasty surprise. Instead of finding I’d banked hundreds of dollars (at least) of commissions I’ve probably been both making and then losing the money.
To be fair they do offer an option in their control panel for payments to be made monthy. I just hadn’t checked it.
Related posts
Internet marketer on dialup
I’ve not been able to get online much for a couple of weeks, and to write this I’ve had to drive into town to use an internet cafe where I had to queue for 45 mins. Here’s why:
For a few weeks now my “broadband” internet connection has been so bad that I’ve been getting a download speed of around 5k rather than the 1500k or so that you’re probably on.
That’s when my microwave wireless setup is working at all.
But at 5k it might as well not be working anyway. I’ve had to turn off images in my Firefox web browser and then still wait ages for a page to load.
After getting worse for months it’s finally become unusable, so guess what? I’m going back to dial up 
Well dialup ISDN which promises speeds of up to 128k. I don’t like the idea, but my only other choices are to get satellite at a crazy $499 a month with a 4 gig a month download limit, or move house. And I don’t want to take either of those choices.
So from next Monday (due installation date) I’m probably going to be the only full-time internet marketer on dialup
Ok, the phone company called me a couple of hours ago and said “good news, we’ve got the ISDN equipment in stock and we can install it for you at 10 am on monday.”
I said thanks, I’ll be home waiting for you.
Ok, a different department from phone company called me 1 hour ago and told me that I can’t have ISDN because it’s not available in my area. So I told them my next door neighbour has it and so does another neighbour. So they said I must be on a different exchange. I told them that was impossible because there’s only one exchange and they said they’d call back.
They’ve just called back and they said that nope, I definately can’t have it because even though they’ve found that I am on the same exchange as my neighbours the exchange is full and there’s no room to put more ISDN equipment in and they have no plans to ever upgrade the exchange.
So I don’t know whats going to happen on monday. I’m hoping someone turns up, but I doubt it somehow. Or maybe they’ll turn up and install stuff here then find it can’t be switched on
because the exchange can’t handle it - that sounds the most likely thing to happen
Don’t know why I’ve put these smilies in. It’s not funny 
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I’m back online
It’s been a while since I last wrote a newsletter. It’s just that I got back from my 10 week long overseas jaunt, attending Yanik’s Underground Seminar in Washington and Jim Edwards Ebook Workshop in London among other things, to find my internet connection no longer existed.
After a lot of pleading I finally got it back today, but I don’t know how long for.
But it really looks like I’m going to totally lose my broadband connection and have to get the next best alternative, ISDN at 128k. It’s a real downer.
The ISP wants to get rid of me because I’m costing them money because they have to keep coming and fixing my weird connection (microwave wireless). Something - and they can’t discover what - keeps interfering with the signal and they have to send a technician up into the mountains to reset it/fix it.
As I’m their only customer on microwave (the rest of their customers are in town) I can quite see why they want me off their books.
Because I live too far from a telephone exchange I can’t get ADSL here, and cable hasn’t even been dreamt of in this remote neck of the woods. I can get a satellite internet connection but I’ve tried it in the past and found it next to useless. We get a lot of electrical storms and it simply doesn’t work when theirs lightning around. But the main reason I don’t like it is that it’s AU$499 a month (US$373) for a slowish speed and a 2gig a month download limit, which I really don’t feel like paying … it’s such a rip off.
Anyhow….for now I’m back online, and they say if the reliability doesn’t improve within two or three weeks they’ll have no option but to permanently cut me off.
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One no-cost way of getting indexed and ranked fast
Here’s my latest newsletter
Letter from Phil…335 - Apr 18th 2006
Affiliate Programs - Business tactics and ideas.
_______________________________________________________
…here’s what you’ll find inside today:
What I’m up to right now
Jim Edwards UK seminar
One no-cost way of getting indexed and ranked fast
Where is Botcandy the Sequel part 2?
Becky’s super quality ebook offer
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what I’m up to right now…
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Hi
I know that I should write to you more often, but my life has been so full recently that it’s often hard to put pen to paper, so to speak.
We had the forest fire threatening our house, but luckily the wind changed direction at the last minute and then a day or so later it rained.
Around the same time Kate, my daughter, was in a nasty car crash, but luckily only got a bit battered and bruised (she’s now touring Europe writing travel stories for magazines and our websites…so far she’s been rollerblading in Nice in the South of France; spent an evening in the Monte Carlo casino; been to the top of the Eiffel Tower; taken a gondola ride in Venice; went to a party in Rome dressed as a nun; listened to the Pope making an address in St Peter’s Square; and right now she’s in Amsterdam where she’s, to quote from an email she sent me today, "sampling the cultural aspects of the lifestyle (trust me you don’t wanna know)."
Mmmm, I’ve heard about those Amsterdam cafes and those ’special’ cookies they sell.
And as for me, well once more I’m busy blending the freedom of the "internet lifestyle" with business trips.
After spending a great week in Washington doing a bit of site-seeing then attending Yanik’s Underground Seminar (absolutely excellent for networking and doing deals with people), I’ve flown over to England to write some travel articles for my collection of travel sites, and meet up with some internet marketers.
And I’m still here.
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BTW, I sometimes get letters asking if I come from a monied family… the answer’s no. My lifestyle is entirely paid for from affiliate commissions and Google Adsense,
using the exact same techniques and software I write about in these letters.
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Jim Edwards UK seminar…
If you’re in Britain, Jim Edwards is putting on what should be a great seminar this weekend. (22nd april 2006)
I know that I’m a bit late telling you about it, but if you’ve got any interest in writing and publishing ebooks it sounds like a must (I think it also covers doing videos and podcasts).
Jim heard that I’m over here and he’s invited me along as a special guest - I might be doing a Q&A session with him, but whether I do or not I’ll be there all weekend and
we can spend some time together.
Should be fun, but just like everyone else attending I’m going there to learn from Jim and his co-presenter Phil Gosling.
If you’re there and you tell me you’ve read this I’ll buy you a coffee or something, and we’ll have a chat.
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One no-cost way of getting indexed and ranked fast…. even if you don’t have a blog network.
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Ok, here’s a mini success story from my brother Ric.
The day after I arrived in England, just under three weeks ago, Ric built 10 "Adsense" sites using a site building program called Website Morph. It took him 3 or 4 hours to do all 10 sites and that included learning how to use the software.
I’ve just bought it myself after watching Ric use it. It’s good and fast. And simple to use.
It must be if he can use it
Nine of the sites he built haven’t done anything worth writing about. One site is booming and pulling in very good money for a new auto generated site.
Within a week a few pages were in Google and he was getting a few impressions. By the middle of the second week the site was making around $6 a day. Now in the third week of the sites life it pulled in $18.29 yesterday and he’s got 559 pages listed in Google, and almost 100 in MSN.
Why is that one site doing well?
Here’s exactly what he did. It’s easy to copy. (he’s asked me to keep both the subject and the url private)
The site has kicked off quickly for one simple reason - because he wrote a fast, short article linking to the site, and submitted it to a lot of article directories.
He hasn’t got a blog network, didn’t use a mininet, or link to it from any of his other sites. In fact he did nothing at all to let the search engines know about it except for submitting the article.
So that one site has taken off, and the others haven’t for that one simple reason - the article.
It’s not a particularly good one (Ric’s words not mine). It’s a subject he knows nothing about, and he wrote it very quickly by finding a few articles on the same subject in article directories and sort of blending and rewriting them.
It took him perhaps 20 minutes, then he used some semi automatic article submitting software to send it to the directories.
In all it took around one hour to build and submit the site. This included choosing a subject, using Wordtracker to get his keywords, using Article Miner to get the content for the site (he just used snippets on the site rather than full articles), and writing the article he sent to the directories.
I’m not including the time it took to use the article submitter here, because it was the first time he’d used it and there was a bit of a learning curve.
Anyhow the site has already made around $100, and tomorrow - seeing it’s now beginning to get indexed in MSN - we’re guessing it will easily pass $20
When you think that it cost him under $2 for an info domain name, and it’s on a cheap shared IP reseller account, that’s already a great return on his investment.
And what do you think he’s going to do next?
Yep, now that he’s seen the power of articles he’s planning on writing one for each of the other sites.
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Where is Botcandy the Sequel part 2?
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If you’ve been reading "Letter from Phil" for more than a few weeks I guess you expected this one to be part 2 of my Botcandy (and other sitebuilder) how-to blueprint.
The thing is it got far too long and detailed to publish here. And also far too good to give away.
So I’m turning it into an ebook which will be ready really soon. If you bought, or buy, the awesome sitebuilder Botcandy from my link you’ll get the ebook for free.
If you’re not a Botcandy user, but you subscribe to this newsletter, there will be a nominal cost for a few days before I raise the price and let ‘outsiders’ get their hands on it.
However, to be fair, if you strongly feel that I should give it to you rather than asking a small fee (because it was supposed to be in newsletter format) please email me and when it’s ready I’ll send you the download link.
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Rebecca Hagel’s NicheTastic private label ebook site.
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Becky has just launched a private label ebook site with a twist.
Personally I think she’s way under-priced the deal, and set herself up for a ‘lot’ of hard work. Basically, for a one-off fee of $99, she’s giving you resale rights to 8 ebooks.
There’s no on-going monthly cost, and the ebooks become yours to modify, rebrand, resell, or use nearly any way you like (you can even put your name as the author).
Each book covers a different niche, and right now the first 3 of them are ready to download.
Number one is on the nursing home niche, and it’s good.
Something else which is also good, is that she’s written up a list of ideas of how you can sell and promote to the nursing home market.
(unless you’ve got aging parents, or you’re knocking on in years yourself, nursing homes probably doesn’t sound very appealing. But it’s a huge and growing market)
Now if you’re thinking that this is just another private label rights site you’re wrong - this one has a huge twist… and that’s the quality of the content.
Why?
Because Becky is writing, and researching, all the books herself. Every word. And, as you probably know, she’s a very good writer.
Here’s the link to her site - I highly recommend it.
This is a great deal at just $12.50 a book.
ok, that’s it for today. It’s 2am in England and I’m tired.
phil
ps. If you’re in the UK do try and make it along to Jim’s seminar on the weekend and meet up with me. It should be a very interesting seminar which could really help you
move your online business to a higher level.
