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!

• Topics Chosen from Affiliate Networks: 12
• Topics Chosen from Giant Household Inventory: 63 (narrowed down from a list of over 670 different products!)
• Topics Chosen from “Top Links” Sites: 21
• Topics Chosen from Personal Skills, Talents, Hobbies and other interests: 20

So now, I have to narrow this down … WAY down. My goal is to get this list down to 10-15 topics that have potential and that I can investigate further for popularity.

If you’ve created a list like this yourself, you need to have some criteria to narrow the list.

Here’s my criteria for this step in the project:

Am I interested in the topic or product category enough to research it, “live with it”, write about it, and build a site around it over the next several months?

After I get the list down to 10-15, then I’ll investigate keyword popularity and affiliate providers.

Time will be tight over the next week as I have some other commitments during my limited “free time”, but I’ll make sure to squeeze in at least a couple of hours on this project this week!

You can read my review of Martell’s Backlinks Workshop. Overall, the workshop is fabulous and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants their site(s) to rank higher.

Thanks to James for using my testimonial!

I told him, “Actually, my eventual goal is five hundred dollars per DAY. That just seems amazingly out of reach right now when I’ve never even made five hundred per month from one website.”

I went on to say, “It’s not that I’m aiming low. I’m just picking a figure I think is reasonable to start with and I’ll build from there.”

When you’re working to make money from home on the internet, you should have a goal you’re working towards.

Some people are trying to earn money to pay down a five or six figure amount of debt. Many have done so.

Others are trying to make “a million dollars” on the internet. There are plenty of people who have done so, too.

Regardless of the goal, you have to start somewhere. And, if you’re like me working on this part-time between other responsibilities, you should set your goal small enough to succeed, and large enough to still be a challenge.

Hence, we start with a goal to “go for 500″ dollars per month.

Once that’s achieved, then I’ll set a higher bar. The race is on!

On this trip I realized I still get a lot of email. All kinds of internet marketing promotions from joining so many different sites. Probably 80% of my emails were notifications about the latest and greatest offer to make me successful on the internet. Even with a recent bout of unsubscribing from such lists about 4 weeks ago, I realize I still have a ways to go.

I hereby resolve that I am going to spend this prep week unsubscribing from anyone’s mailing list I haven’t read in the last month. My focus is on building a content-based affiliate website that generates $500 per month. Other email offers are merely distractions towards that goal.

I suggest you evaluate your inbox overload and start unsubscribing, too.

As a supplement to the Affiliate Buzz, Martell has also recorded a series of audio programs called Coffee Talks. In these recordings, James Martell plays the role of interviewer and has conversations with various people in affiliate marketing. His guests have included affiliate managers at major affiliate networks, Bronwyn Bamber (one of his top students), Sherman Hu of WordPressTutorials.com, and experts on the topics of autoresponders and adding audio to your site.

Affiliate Buzz Review

What I like:

I like the short format of the audio recording. I like that sometimes there is actually occasionally useful information in the conversations. I stay subscribed because I do get some benefit from the recordings.

What I don’t like:

Sometimes I find that Charles Johnson, the interviewer, really plays it way too dumb. For a guy who supposedly makes his living from the internet and has worked alongside James for many years, Charles asks some really basic questions and often just repeats what James has said. Perhaps his role is to ask the questions that a newbie would ask. In the last year, his simplistic approach has really started to grate on me.

Oftentimes the recordings are just 30 minutes of fluffy nothingness about James’ Cobra replica (a car), or how “beautiful” or “awesome” an undisclosed student’s site is, or some other discussion about James’ methods that dances on the perimeter of disclosing something of value. I’m often left wanting just a wee bit more information, and when a new issue is released, I have high hopes for some good solid content. On a rare basis I get a nugget, and I suppose that’s what keeps me subscribed.

There was also a time when Charles was the case study for one of Martell’s “Affiliate Bootcamp” training seminars in Canada. Supposedly, Charles built some sites following Martell’s methods on the topics of hammocks and bean bag chairs (if my memory serves me right). In the last two years, however, we haven’t heard a peep about the progress of those sites. I like to think that Charles just got busy with his other projects or changed focus, as any of us might do. However, since he was a “case study”, I would like to hear some updates.

Coffee Talk Reviews

What I like:

The interviews with Bronwyn Bamber, one of Martell’s most successful students. Her real-life, down-to-earth sharing of her successes and failures with Martell’s methods was simply captivating. The two recordings of conversations with her were simply put: pure gold. I also like some of the other interviews, and have gained some new perspectives listening to these industry insiders speak out. I also like the uncapped length of the conversations. Some have been short like 45 minutes, and others have been close to 90 minutes long.

What I don’t like:

Too often James talks about himself and his own successes when he is supposed to be interviewing someone else. 

For example: In the first Bronwyn Bamber interview, Bronwyn shares how she first met James and his wife at an Affiliate Summit Conference. Her little story was just fine. Then James practically repeated the story from his perspective and went on and on adding very little new information and eating into time that could have been devoted to some real content.

I find Martell does this in a lot of the Coffee Talk conversations, taking over for the guest instead of simply letting the guest speak and then asking further probing questions.  I have occasionally found myself talking back to the recording saying “Shut up, James, and let your guest do the talking.”

Overall Recommendation

Is the Affiliate Buzz (and Coffee Talks) subscription worth $9.95 per month?

If you’re a newbie and want to hear some fluffy conversations about James successes, then sure. The Coffee Talk interviews are useful to a point and help give further context to the world of affiliate publishing beyond James’ personal methods. I’m a subscriber and occasionally get a nugget out of all the recordings.

However, if you’re looking for solid content, as of July 2007, it’s rather lacking and I would say use the money to pay for site hosting instead.

The subscription is available when you purchase James Martell’s Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook, and is also available separately at:
http://www.affiliate-buzz.com