I’ve had a busy August with my other commitments (full time job, volunteer activities, family), so I haven’t made as progress as rapidly as I would have liked. However, here’s an update on what I’ve been working on.

I’ve started plowing through the list of potential topics that I detailed back on August 3 . On each topic, I’ve been doing the following analysis:

1. Look for Affiliate Programs for Each Topic

First and foremost, my goal has been to generate income from a new site. Sure, I could make money from a Google Adsense perspective, but I’m looking for larger sums of money. So, I’ve been taking each topic and searching for affiliate programs on each.

Basically, I’ve taken each topic and added the phrase “affiliate program” to it, and typed it into Google. So for example I would type futon affiliate program or rechargeable batteries affiliate program or whatever into Google’s search box and investigate the results.

As I analyze each merchant, I’m looking for several pieces of information:

• Does the merchant site look reputable, professional, and trustworthy?
• Is the site easy to navigate?
• Is the merchant part of a network (Commission Junction, Clickbank, ShareASale, Netshops, etc.)?
• What is the commission percentage they pay out on a sale?
• What is the average amount of a sale?
• How long does the cookie referral last? (Ideally, I’d like a 60-day cookie.)
• What is the Earning Per Click over 3 months? In other words for each “click” (visitor) to the merchant’s site, how much is that click worth? It’s kind of like a “conversion ratio” measurement. In general, the higher the EPC, the better the site does at converting incoming visitors into paying customers. I am personally looking for EPC’s over $10.00.
• Does the site provide good creative I can use? (Banners, text links, articles, keyword lists, etc.)
• Can I link directly to product pages (ideal), or can I only link to the home page (not so good)?
• Is it easy to contact the manager of the affiliate program?

In my word processor program, I created a table for housing this information. I printed it out, and I just fill in the information by hand for each of my topics. I’m averaging about five (5) affiliate programs for each topic, so it’s not a lot of writing.

2. Check if People are Searching for the Topic

Here I’m talking about keyword research. I don’t want to pick a topic that no one is searching for, no matter how passionate I am about it! There are lots of ways to perform keyword research. Here a few:

A. Use the Overture Term Suggestion Tool. This tool is not preferred since the numbers haven’t been updated since January of 2007. The site got abused by lots of automated keyword tools made for the internet marketing industry, so it’s not as useful as it once was. However, for getting started for potential profitability, it’s a good start. It should not be the only tool you use.

B. Use Wordtracker. This tool is much more accurate as to searches done in the last 60 days. You can get some limited information through the free trial, but it’s more advantageous to signup for a week to get the full benefit. Wordtracker is the preferred source for keyword information these days, and I can highly recommend it, being a subscriber myself.

C. Use NicheBot. This tool has all kinds of pieces that make your research so much more accurate and powerful. You can extract from Wordtracker here. You can tap into “Keyword Discovery” and see yearly popularity for terms. You can even crunch down the numbers by pulling from Google’s database. This is a seriously comprehensive keyword tool that is available on a subscription basis. I have the $9.95/month subscription and that works plenty well for my needs.

There are plenty of other sources to use for keyword research, but I’m not trying to be all-inclusive here. I’m telling you what I’m personally using or have personally found useful.

3. Sit Down and Analyze the Results

After I’ve generated a list of affiliate programs for each, and printed out some keyword lists, I sit down and apply some good old fashioned thinking power. I look to see if I can narrow down each topic even further based on the types of products offered, and the keywords people search for … and … by asking myself am I still interested in building a site around this topic and sticking with it over the long term?

So far, I’m only done with the first five topics on my list. As you can probably guess, this is a slow process given other priorities in my life. However, I’m working to build a sustainable business out of this, not a model built on “hit it fast and furious, then leave it alone to die out”. Therefore I want to be thorough, and I’m taking my time.

That’s the update for now. Your comments are welcome!

The James Martell Product Line

As of July 2007, James Martell provides the following catalog of products:

• A training manual in PDF format called “The Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook”, combined with Camtasia instructional videos and videos from a live-training event especially created to be paired with the manual.
• A bi-monthly audio program called Affiliate Buzz to help keep you motivated.
• An online version of his "Affiliate Marketer’s Bootcamp" that takes you through the entire site building process over the course of several weeks.
• An online Backlinks Workshop to help you become an expert in getting the pages of your site to rank well in the search engines.
• An optional online website building software.

I got interested in affiliate marketing by purchasing the 2002 version of Martell’s “Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook.” At the time I found it to be very good and helpful to me. I also subscribed to his bimonthly audio program called the Affiliate Buzz.   I actually built two sites following his methods.  One is a patio furniture site.  This site has since dropped out of Google because I did some subversive things to try to get it to rank higher and later abandoned it.  Shortly after I purchased the manual, Martell announced that many of his affiliate sites dropped in the rankings because of his interlinking of sites and some updates at Google.com  He recovered by building new sites, using new methods, which are outlined in his most recent version of the manual. 

The Positives

I like the Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook because it clearly lays out in eight steps what any beginner would need to do to become successful in affiliate publishing.

Martell covers everything from assembling your basic materials of papers, pens, and passwords, to choosing a topic, to registering a domain name, to building the first few pages, to getting incoming links, and more.

He also is very realistic about income levels and to set your goals appropriately.  He emphasizes this is not a “get rich quick” business model. It can be up to four to six months or more before you start seeing significant traffic to your site from which you might earn some money.

I also like that, although most of Martell’s income probably comes from his online bootcamps, he continues to build affiliate sites and tweak his methods, occasionally sharing his findings with listeners through the Affiliate Buzz.

The 2006 version of the manual is much better than the original version I bought, with a much clearer and specific example of building a website around the topic of barbeques which he does from start to finish in the manual. He covers everything very clearly and gives many specific examples.

Throughout the book are various links to Camtasia videos of how to do certain steps in the process. Because I’m fairly experienced as a website builder, I found the videos to be a little bit elementary. However, I understand that the target audience for the material is the complete novice. So, on that level, I think the Camtasia videos would be clear and helpful to any novice.

Included with the purchase of the book are a set of downloadable videos from the “live” version of James Martell’s Affiliate Marketer’s Bootcamp. The videos are very high quality, done with a three-camera shoot before a live audience. The videos help clarify what is in the manual … especially the video about choosing a topic … but I didn’t find that they add any noticeable content beyond that.

For the most part, James talks and shows things well in these live action videos, but I found he spent a lot of time puffing up his own sites and how great they are and how high they rank. Late in each video there are questions from the audience which help to add a little bit of clarification to the topics.

The Criticisms

Of course, this wouldn’t be a fair review if I only noted the good things.  But, I only have a few criticisms with Martell’s approach.

1. Product and Service Suggestions in the Handbook

EZ-Webbuilder.com – There are less expenisve versions available 

Martell spends a significant number of pages in the manual telling you how to use an online website builder (ez-webbuilder.com) for $29.95 per month. What he doesn’t tell you is that he OWNS the ez-webbuilder.com domain. It’s simply a private-label version of an online site builder created by WebsiteDynamics.com that you can find elsewhere for $10 cheaper.

Of course, you don’t have to use his sitebuilder suggestion and he says as much in the manual. You can use anything you want to build websites and there are a lot of options like Dreamweaver, FrontPage, WordPress, Dr. Andy William’s SEO Website Builder, Site Buildit! and many more. 

However, if you don’t want to explore those options, try CityMax.com, macWebsiteBuilder.com, or BuilderSpot.com for the same exact online sitebuilder for only $19.95 per month. 

When I first read his 2002 manual, I was exclusively a Dreamweaver guy. In the last year, I have started leaning more towards WordPress, so I found the extensive number of pages on ez-webbuilder.com to be a little too long and, in this case, self-promoting.

Note: Martell is a true affiliate marketer by referring his students to a website building software and extracting a monthly commission from the sale.  It just rubs me the wrong way that he charges more for the exact same product offered elsewhere at a lower price point.

Website Templates through GoldenPineCone.com 

If you choose to build sites using DreamWeaver, FrontPage or SEO Website Builder, you don’t have to buy the templates Martell recommends.   Granted, the templates are really great looking. In fact, you might buy one for the first site just to get up and running quickly, but, in the long run do you really want your sites to look so similar to Martell’s and a lot of his students?

Domain Registration – Less Expensive Alternatives

Martell recommends buying your domain names through domain-maniac.com.  As you might expect, this is just a Martell private-label version of a Domain Reseller Program from Tucows.com. 

There are cheaper alternatives like Godaddy.com, MyDomain.com, and hundreds of other registration sites with domains less than $10 per month. 

Remember, James Martell is making a commission off just about everything he recommends in the book. But that’s not a bad thing, because that’s his career and if you wrote a similar book, you would probably do the same.

2. Very Few Page Layout Instructions

I would like to see more information about how to design the layout of your page. Some ideas on where to put a product photo, or “best places to put affiliate links” and other such topics would have been helpful. I’ve learned such information from other sources over the years, but I would have liked to see some here, especially if this is geared toward novices. 

On the other hand, if Martell wrote to "specifically put your links ‘here’, and use ‘x’ number of pictures on the page", EVERY student would do so and there would probably be some penalty inflicted by Google for so many sites leaving the same footprint! 

3. Few revelations about how he currently builds sites

What James doesn’t tell you in the manual (but you learn after listening to his Affiliate Buzz newsletter) is that he currently outsources a lot of site building and maintenance tasks to other people.

Martell currently hires a lot of writers through Elance.com for the writing of his site content, but he only started using Elance in the last couple of years because of a recommendation from a student. He has another person help to edit the articles he gets back from Elance writers.

He hires other people to do a lot of his site setups, and mentions on one audio recording how he even outsourced the simple 5-minute installation of WordPress. He also has some type of custom software arrangement to post an article almost every day on some of his sites.

It might be helpful to think of Martell as the true embodiment of the term affiliate "publisher".  Primarily he farms farms work out to other people, and occasionally does some things himself.

However, he does say that when he started in the business, he did write all of the content and did all the tech work himself or with the help of his wife and kids.

You have to remember Martell now runs a successful affiliate publishing business. It’s not a hobby to him, it’s a business. If you treat your website building like a business with diligent effort on a regular basis, you will eventually begin outsourcing such activities, too.  You will eventually reach a point where you simply cannot do everything yourself. 

4. You might struggle, but follow the manual

If you don’t have the inclination to follow directions and recommendations, you might struggle with Martell’s approach.  If you have no sense of self-discipline, you will definitely struggle with the approach. 

If you are coming at affiliate marketing with pre-conceived notions and previous website design experience, you might struggle with Martell’s approach and think of “better ways” to do the process. However, realize that Martell’s teachings have been used by thousands of people worldwide who have experienced success. And, they have worked for James Martell and they continue to work for him.

In fact, one of his more famous students is a woman named Bronwyn Bamber. She recently testified on one of Martell’s Affiliate Buzz recordings that she really didn’t experience true success with Martell’s process until she went back and read the manual again. Whole new paragraphs on the need to get inbound links “suddenly appeared.” In other words, by rereading and following the manual she really got all the information she needed. She now makes tens of thousands of dollars each month from sites built around personal checks, recipes and other topics (just search for her name in Google).

5. The live action videos

As noted previously, the videos from the live bootcamp included in the purchase price came across to me as a little too much about James, and not so much about the real purpose of building affiliate websites.

For several years I had a career as a professional computer software trainer, and also evaluated other trainers as part of my responsibility. I would put James in the “I need an audience and to be the center of attention” category (lots of public speakers and trainers project a little bit of this aura, too).   I got a strong vibe of ego from hearing Martell talk about his high-ranking sites, which he uses to great excess as demo material.  Some of the videos are better than others, but as a whole, I consider these videos only an “average” supplement to the manual.

On a sidenote, the cutaway shots to the live audience are a real hoot. I might be reading the people wrong, but to me, the audience seems to look bored, disinterested, expressionless and morose a good bit of the time!

6. Not really a bad thing …

Martell doesn’t readily share the URL’s of his websites. Some students would argue that Martell does everyone a disservice by keeping his websites “secret”.

I personally would like to see more examples of his sites beyond his original “1st-in” sites (1st-in-babies.com, 1st-in-cell-phones.com, and others which have since been penalized because of interlinking), but I completely understand his reasoning. Martell has had too many of his sites completely copied, word-for-word, by lazy students seeking a quick buck. Consequently, both his site and the copy site get search engine penalties slapped against them for duplicate content and a dozen other reasons.  So, except in limited cases (which I have seen), he has kept quiet about his current roster of some 90 websites. 

Note: Martell is not the only person to keep quiet on his URL’s. So does Michael Campbell, Dr. Andy Williams, Colin McDougall, and many other famous and not-so-famous people.  Think about this in the larger business context:  would you expect the Pepsi Corporation to publicly share all of its soft drink recipes? 

My Overall Recommendation

So, is James Martell’s “Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook” worth $197?

I say yes, if you are a complete novice and really need a good foundational education in affiliate publishing. The target audience is novices, and I think Martell’s materials are good for that target audience. The book contains solid and thorough content, written in an easy-to-follow style. 

If you have some sitebuilding experience and you have worked with other similar training products (like SiteBuild It! or SEO Website Builder), then I would suggest you might want to continue working with what you already have. You really don’t need to add Martell’s materials to your library. If you do, you might get a couple of good nuggets, but they might not be worth $197 to you.

Just remember, as with any content-based affiliate website, you can’t just build one Martell-like site, put up a few pages, forget about making further updates and expect to make shovels of money.  This is NOT a "get-rich-quick" process and you must be committed to the long haul.  You have to be willing to continually add new content and adapt your site as necessary to the ever-changing algorithms of the search engines. 

James Martell’s Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook is available at http://www.work-at-home-net-guides.com.