Learn affiliate marketing for beginners — Skip the scams, get the skills

Win a copy of Joel Comm’s “KaChing!”

I've read several Internet marketing books (real physical books, not just ebooks) and one of my favorites by far is "KaChing - How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays" by Joel Comm.

It discusses choosing a niche, creating content that "kachings," creating information products, earning with affiliate marketing, membership sites, coaching programs, and much more. It's presented in an easy to digest and entertaining manner. Comes with new book smell and everything.

I will mail one fortunate winner a free, brand new copy of the book on Wednesday, September 26!

Here's how to enter:

Click on the Facebook button under the red "Share the Knowledge!" text below and publish it to your timeline.
Then “like” my Facebook page here.
Once you’ve published your Facebook Share and liked my page, come back here and let me know you’ve done so using the form below (this window will stay open so you can easily return).

That's it! I will contact the winner (drawn at random) on Wednesday, September 26, and I will mail the book as soon as he/she responds with a mailing address.

It could be you, and you could be on your way to either beginning or vastly improving your online income!

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How to install WordPress using Fantastico

Follow the screenshots below, or check out the video:

In your cPanel, find Fantastico DeLuxe with the happy smiley face under Software/Services. This is used to install any of dozens of scripts available with your hosting plan. We’ll use it to install WordPress.

Then click on WordPress in the left-hand column.

Choose New Installation.

In the Install on domain box, it should show your domain name. Leave Install in directory blank.

Admin access data is the name and password you’d like to use to access the WordPress dashboard to administer your site. For security purposes, this should be different from your cPanel info, but there’s nothing to prevent you from using the same info if you really want to.

The Admin nickname is what will appear when you leave comments or write an entry on your blog, so choose something you don’t mind being known as on your web site. The Admin e-mail address is where info about the administration of your blog is sent. Click Install WordPress.

(The reference here to the "Sanity Saver" is a worksheet included in the Affiliate Marketing Schoolbook used to keep track of data.)

Click on Finish Installation.

It will remind you of your username and password, but it’s a good idea to fill in the e-mail address at the bottom so the details are e-mailed to you and thus are easily findable later.

You can go back to the WordPress overview, which is where you would remove WordPress if need be.

That’s all there is to installing WordPress! Nifty, huh?

You’re probably itching to see what your site looks like. Type your domain name into your browser. If you see a post titled “Hello World!” then you’ve done it correctly. What you see is the default theme installed with WordPress, called Twenty Eleven.

If you have any questions or problems installing WordPress, please let me know in the comments below.

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How to create a link in WordPress

This post will explain how to make a link in your WordPress post or page. It's easy-peasy.

The first thing you do is select the text that will serve as the anchor text. Anchor text is the words that will be underlined and clickable. So let's say you're linking to a page somewhere using the anchor text "Check out this article." (Of course, you would not use lame anchor text like that in real life, right? You'd want to use keywords that indicate what the article's about.)

Anyway, you would select it like this:

Then click the link icon shown here:

You will get the dialog box below:

If you're linking to a page elsewhere on the web, you would type or paste the address into the first box where you see the green highlighting. In the next box, give it a title—just regular English words to describe the link, such as "Gardening tips at Sally's blog." Then if you want the link to open in another tab or window rather than loading in the same window the visitor is in, check the box and click Add Link at the bottom. (Generally, I do check the box if linking to an external site, and I don't if I'm linking to my own.)

If you're linking to one of your own pages, click on the page in the list under Or link to existing content. (If the list isn't showing, you may need to click on the little triangle to the left of "Or link to existing content.") Again, click Add Link at the bottom. Make sure to Publish or Update.

Then if at some point you need to remove the link, just select the anchor text again and click the broken link icon next to the link icon you used to create it.

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How to exclude a page ID from the Pages widget

If you're using the Pages widget in WordPress, there may be times when you don't want all your pages listed there. For instance, it's not necessary to have your privacy policy or compensation disclosure in that list (a link at the bottom of your site is all that's necessary for those pages in most cases).

The Pages widget is under Appearance > Widgets

To exclude a page, you need to determine the page's ID number (see image at left). Where do you find that ID?

Go to Pages > All Pages and hover your mouse over the Page name in question. As you do that, look at the very bottom of your browser (the line that often says Waiting... or Looking up... or Transferring data... when you are navigating the Internet). As you hover over a link, it shows the structure of the link. It will look something like this:

http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=513&action=edit

Make note of the number near the end of that string, in this case 513.

Then go back to Appearance > Widgets and open the Pages widget once you've dragged it into a sidebar. In the Exclude box, type in that number and click Save. If you exclude more than one, separate the numbers with commas.

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Tempted to use an article spinner?

August 17, 2012

Driven by a desperate fear of creating duplicate content, many affiliate marketers employ article spinning software to create different versions of a original that they can distribute to various article directories. Is this a good idea? Is it even necessary? No and no. There may be some situations where an article spinner is helpful. I [...]

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Why you should NOT follow my example

August 15, 2012

Today I’m going to explain why you should do as I say and not as I do. I know, I know, that’s what your parents used to tell you and you hated it because it was so hypocritical. Well, now I’m saying it. Earlier this year, I had an epiphany during which I realized what [...]

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Facebook photo dimensions

June 22, 2012

An acquaintance on the Website Babble forum created this graphic with the various sizes of the photos on your Facebook timeline, and I thought it was so handy I wanted to share it with my readers. Check out his web site – with a name like Packerland, it has to be good.

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Problems uploading images to WordPress? Try this

June 18, 2012

Once in a while, WordPress hiccups and you start getting “HTTP errors” when you upload images in your dashboard using the new uploader. All you have to do is click on the link shown below to use the browser uploader. That gives you the following screen, which works the same way. Just browse for the [...]

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At long last, the second edition of the Affiliate Marketing Schoolbook!

June 6, 2012

I’m thrilled—no, beyond thrilled, to announce that the second edition of the Affiliate Marketing Schoolbook is finally finished! It took way longer than I expected, but what are you gonna do. Life has a way of rearranging our expectations. This is not a completely new course; much of it remains the same. But this version [...]

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Student question: How do I cloak my affiliate links?

February 15, 2012

————— Now playing: Save Me, San Francisco by Train ————— How do I cloak my affiliate links so they’re not so long and confusing? As you’ve noted, affiliate links usually aren’t pretty. They look something like this: http://www.domain.com/1224xjn876bhf4vg91x3014js493661 Maybe you’d like to put the link in your e-mail signature or send it [...]

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