There are only two people I will buy from without reading the sales page. They are Paul Myers and Jimmy D. Brown. I respect a lot of other marketers but there are only two that I’ll buy from time and time again, no questions asked. (Lucky bastards).

When I clicked on the link to Jimmy’s report, I scrolled all the way to the bottom and clicked the “Order Now” button without reading any of the text.

That’s what I’ve been doing with Jimmy’s products since I joined his List and Traffic membership site almost 4 years ago.

So was this the first time I made a mistake when buying a product of Jimmy’s without reading the sales page?

27 Ways to Increase Your Affiliate Commissions Review

I promote a lot of different products in different niches as an affiliate so I’m thinking these 27 “tricks” should plump up my wallet a bit. Even if this report got me one extra sale it would more than make up for the cost of the thing.

I remember one time I got an affiliate check for $43. I bought a few groceries with it, but still. $43? It was barely worth all the trouble to pick it up at the post office and deposit it at the bank. If you’ve ever received tiny commission checks, you know what I’m talkin’ aboot. If you’ve never received ANY commission checks, then my friend, you need to grab this report.

What I like about this report (and all of his other reports) is that it’s full of content. He hasn’t squished a bunch of hype into huge margins to make the report longer like so many marketers do. The text is normal size so it’s easy enough to read but it doesn’t take a whole page to house one sentence.

Now some of the stuff he talks about are things that many affiliate marketers already know (even though they may not be implementing it) but it’s a really good reminder to step up your game. Even with the methods that you’ve already heard of, he’s added on some killer ideas to get even more out of it.

It’s like toothpaste. Lots of people use up the tube until they can’t get any out without putting in some elbow grease and then throw it away. Others will squeeze the shit outta that tube until there isn’t one iota of toothpaste left in that sumbitch.

I’m betting Jimmy is that type. He can squeeze so many ideas out of one simple method, it’s kind of sick really. There are even a few ideas in here that people can profit from without having a website. (Although I must say, you really need to have a website if you wanna be cool like me.)

By the time I was at page 10, I already had a full page of notes. I had ideas that I never would have come up with on my own. The best part of that is, these ideas are super easy to do. Each one might require an hour or less of my time. Most ideas I come up with are GIGANTIC PROJECTS that I never get around to. Sound familiar?

Even though I’m always impressed with Jimmy’s products, I have to admit that I was surprised by this one. It was more than I expected which is great for me since I’m such a Scrooge.

You really have to pull my arm to get me to spend money but I’m more than happy with this purchase. Seriously, you’ll find me hemming and hawing in the TP aisle because I can’t justify spending $8.98 on something that I’ll be wiping my butt with.

In conclusion, I thought this report rocked out with it’s….sock out. If you do any kind of affiliate marketing, whether you sell physical or information products, you NEED to know this stuff if you want to A) beat out your competition and B) make more money!

Simple as that.

Who this report is NOT for?

Um, I guess the only people who wouldn’t benefit from this report are people who don’t sell stuff. I really can’t think of anyone else that wouldn’t be able to use this information to profit from. Even seasoned affiliate marketers can get some killer ideas out of this one. It’s definitely one of the few reports I’ll be frequently referring back to.

Learn more about the Affiliate Payraise report.

Whether you’re blogging for fun or profit, you should always have some sort of web traffic stats program installed. There are lots of options to choose from, but my two favorites are Google Analytics and StatCounter which are both free.

Which one is better?

I actually like to install both. I’m a stats junkie so I like to have plenty of info at my fingertips. Analytics and StatCounter both have their advantages and disadvantages which is why I decided to let them both hang around. (Although “StatCounter” is much easier to say than “Google Analytics” so Statcounter wins the phonetics round.)

StatCounter Advantages

Label IP Address – I like that you can tag IP addresses to keep track of certain visitors. Say you had some crazy broad who was web-stalking you. Label her IP address and see just how crazy she is by tracking her every movement on your site. If she doesn’t have a static IP address, this will change after awhile and you’ll have to keep labelling it which puts a bit of a damper on this feature.

Realtime Stats – If you’re doing any kind of testing on your site, it’s nice to see what kind of results you’re getting instantly.

Fast – The more code and crap you have on your website, the slower it will load and the faster people will bounce back out of your page. You want that puppy to load as quick as possible so StatCounter is a good option since it loads fast. I always paste the code into the footer of my pages so it’s the last thing to load and won’t keep my main content or images from loading first.

Newbie-friendly – It’s easy to navigate around the StatCounter user interface and it’s pretty simple to figure out what everything means. Certain programs *cough cough Google cough* require tutorial videos to learn how everything works, but StatCounter is very straight-forward which means you can get started right away.

Invisible – Lots of free web stats programs come with complimentary ads and nice big juicy counters that can really clutter up your website. StatCounter gives you the option to add an invisible counter.

Google Analytics Advantages

Website Optimizer – We now have access to Google’s Website Optimizer through Analytics which allows us to create “experiments”. Split testing or A/B testing might sound scary for someone who’s never done it before, but it’s really easy when you use Analytics. This is something everyone should be doing, whether you want to increase sales conversions, optin rates, or even Adsense CTR.

Pretty Graphics – I’m a very visual person so colorful pie charts and bar graphs make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. They make for some nice screen shots too!

Highly Configurable – From Custom Reports to Advance Segments to setting Goals and Funnels, there’s a lot to do for people who love to have complete control. You may have to read a few FAQs to figure out just how the hell to make everything work, but once you do, you’ll be a testing and tweaking machine and the knowledge that you get from your web visitors will give you a huge advantage over your competition.

Single-page Statistics – With Analytics, you can choose which page you’d like to analyze and see the traffic stats of that one page including Bounce Rate and Time on Page (the time your visitors spend on that page before clicking away).

There are many more features to each program than I’ve just mentioned, but these are just a few of my favorites. Either way, these are both powerful programs (especially Analytics) for any website owner or blogger. It’s essential to know how your visitors are interacting with your site so you can continue to improve it for them and generate even more traffic. These programs will help you do just that.

I wrote a review about Aweber Communications two years ago which was a few months after I had first signed up. I had heard tons of great things about them and was so happy when I could finally afford to start my own Aweber newsletter.

Now it’s two years later, and I’m just as happy – if not more happy – with my Aweber membership.

It’s obvious that they strive to bring their company to new heights so that it continues being a great experience and valuable business asset for their customers. One such change they’ve done recently is to redesign their interface and organize their menu a bit.

New drop down menu

I have to admit that the way it was before left me feeling a little frustrated at times, but with the new drop down menu I am a happy camper. The old menu was a hover menu and it managed to piss me off every time I logged in. Now it’s a nice, clean, drop-down menu that works!

Setup Wizard floats at the bottom

Another thing that annoyed me about the old control panel was how much space the Aweber Setup Wizard took up. It was obnoxious and right in your face every time you logged in, but now it’s tucked away neatly at the bottom so you know it’s there but not in your way. I did finally use the wizard today to finish setting up a few of my lists and it really does come in handy. There are quite a few features in Aweber but the wizard navigates you to exactly where you need to go which is a big time saver.

I’m excited about all the new changes Aweber has implemented, and I’ve been spending a lot more time on their site as a result. That’s good news for me since it means I’m paying more attention to my email marketing.

Final verdict

In my Aweber review, I gave them 4 1/2 stars out of 5. Now, I give them 4 4/5 stars out of 5. I just cut the tip off the last star, so whatever that is!

I’ve been using Twitter for a couple months now and soon after I first signed up I downloaded Twhirl which is an application that allows you to use Twitter without using your web browser. A week ago I decided to try TweetDeck, which is essentially the same application but with a few more features. In the end, I weighed the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that Twhirl won the battle of the two.

Here’s why I think Thwirl kicks ass:

Twhirl

• Small unobtrusive notices pop up in the bottom right-hand corner of your computer screen each time Thwirl refreshes and new tweets are posted.
• When you receive replies or direct messages, Thwirl will ding at you. This might annoy some people but it’s handy for me when I’m puttering around the house. When I hear the ding I’ll quickly check it out. Otherwise, replies or direct messages may not be replied to for a long time if I’m not sitting at the computer.
• You can set the options to make the Thwirl program opaque. I like this feature so that when I’m not using it I can see right through it and view my desktop wallpaper. Dumb, but I like it anyway.
• Thwirl has a refresh button. I have it set to refresh every 5 minutes but if I want to, I can refresh any time.
• Thwirl is extremely easy to use. I figured it out in no time with no confusion whatsoever. And that’s saying a lot (for me).
• You can shorten your URLs from within the Thwirl application.
• Everything you can view with Twitter on the web can also be viewed in Twhirl, such as Replies, Direct Messages, Followers, Favorites, etc. This is really handy.

Why I don’t like TweetDeck

• TweetDeck doesn’t “ding” at you when you receive direct messages or replies.
• There are no popup notices each time new tweets are posted.
• From what I could see, there was no refresh button. You had to wait for TweetDeck to “Auto-update”.
• While it was nice to see replies and direct messages in their own column next to regular tweets, the application took up a lot of room on my computer screen.
• I couldn’t find any “Options” to change any settings. The first thing I do when I download a new program is mess with the options so this was a point lost for TweetDeck as well.

Now, TweetDeck is in Beta mode so they’re still working out bugs and adding new features. Both Thwirl and TweetDeck also have other cool features in addition to the ones I’ve listed above, but I just stuck to the ones I use.

Ultimately, we all have our own preferences and reasons why we use Twitter. While Twhirl might work better for people like me, TweetDeck may be a better option for others. These are just some reasons why I personally prefer Twhirl over TweetDeck.

After spending a few minutes with this program I’ve got a monster list of new keywords which will help me tweak existing pages to get better traffic and also a plethora of new ideas for more content.

If you haven’t already heard of it, NicheBot is a keyword research tool and so much more. Corny, but true

Anyone with a website should know that keyword research is a huge factor in creating and maintaining a website or blog so you should also know that having a program like this is extremely valuable.

How much did I pay to use this program?

One buckaroo!

You can get a 14-day trial for only $1*. You have access to all the paid features and you can cancel at any time. I figured I would check it out, generate some keyword lists, then cancel if I didn’t think I would use it that much. After about five minutes I knew I would be renewing after the trial period.

I have to admit that when I first logged in I was confused as to what to do or where to look, but once I read a bit it was smooth sailing.

I really can’t believe how much I’ve been missing out by not using a program like this from the beginning. I don’t even want to think about how much money I haven’t made but could have. Quite depressing really…

Anyway, I’m off to find some new keywords. It’s so exciting. Feels like Christmas!

Here’s the link again. Check it out, even if you’re a cheapo like me!

http://mamasontheweb.com/nichebot.php

*UPDATE: Boo! NicheBot no longer has a 14-day $1 trial period. Instead, you can try it for just 46 cents a day. Go dig around in your couch and find a couple quarters and you can make keyword lists til you drop.

If you want to learn how to be successful online without wasting time on useless information, sign up for the Talk Biz newsletter. Paul Myers is an amazing marketer, and so far there hasn’t been a single newsletter of his that I haven’t read from start to finish (and some of them have been extremely long).

He’s got a great sense of humor and always makes sure each newsletter is interesting. Most newsletters I read are pretty dull, but not his.

What I especially love about his newsletters is his ability to get his point across without any hype or jazz. I don’t have time to read through a bunch of fluff, and I’m sure you don’t either, so this is something that I really appreciate as a busy mom.

You’ll learn a lot from Paul from what he says and also from HOW he says it. I particularly enjoy seeing how he sells. He doesn’t try and hide it by sneaking in the links. He comes right out and damn well says he’s selling something. Sometimes he’s selling his own products, other times he’s recommending someone else’s. Either way, he does it perfectly. It’s not a blatant sales letter that insults your intelligence, it’s just a simple, straight forward and honest recommendation.

You’ll realize right away that Paul is someone you can trust. These days, it’s hard to trust anyone on the Internet. I’ve been burned by marketers before and if you’ve been online for any amount of time, you probably have too. That’s why the Talk Biz newsletter is such a breath of fresh air.

If you’re not already a subscriber, sign up now. You’ll be glad you did. Oh, by the way, it doesn’t cost a thing. I’m not selling anything and I don’t get anything when you sign up, I just hope you can benefit from his information like I have.

I wish I had made the decision to sign up long ago. I really feel like it took my business one step further. I feel secure in knowing my subscribers information is safe and that my messages are being sent out.

There are tons of features with Aweber, but I’ll list a few of my favorites:

Once you’ve signed up for Aweber, you have an unlimited amount of autoresponders. You could have 3000 different lists if you wanted.

Tracking features include HTML open rates and click-through rates on both HTML and text only messages. This is extremely important information to have, and a lot of autoresponders don’t offer this.

You can send out broadcasts to your subscribers, or load messages into the autoresponder where you would set the intervals at which they get sent out. I do a combination of both.

Information from your subscribers is all carefully stored and you can use that information to help you determine their demographic. You can view which URL they signed up at, date and time they were added, and their country, region and even what city they live in. Some people might not need all this information, but if you’re targeting a very specific group of people, this can be extremely handy.

The web form generator is really easy to use. You can create an in-line form, pop-up, pop-under, exit pop-up or pop-over/hover forms. If you’re not sure which type of form to use, you can use the split-testing feature Aweber provides to see which works better.

Aweber also provides lots of detailed reports that include all the information you need for your email marketing campaign. If you’re not testing and tracking anything, then you’re missing out on sales and traffic.

The Aweber blog is updated regularly with really useful tips on how to make the most of your autoresponder and your list. Even if you don’t use Aweber, I would still recommend you check it out.

What I think is really important is the help section. I’ve yet to have a question that couldn’t be answered within their documentation, but if you do happen to have a question that isn’t answered, they provide live help desk support during business hours.

The downside to Aweber:

There is a bit of a learning curve when you first get started, but it should only take an hour or two of messing around before you get the hang of it.