Linda Buquet of 5 Star Affiliates will be featured on the ShoeMoney Net Income Radio Show over at Webmaster Radio on Tuesday, Oct. 3rd at 6pm Eastern.

Can Shoemoney lure Linda to the Dark Hat Side? Tune in and find out!

Linda's looking to take some serious affiliate questions from you guys, so show up in the chatroom at Webmaster Radio and Shoe Her Some Luv!

I'm SO tagged!

I didn't even see it coming … suddenly there she was! Linda Buquet with that smile of hers, politely pinging me to let me know that I should consider myself tagged. Wicked wench! LOL

So, here's the deal. There's a tag game going around where bloggers have to share five things about themselves that most readers wouldn't know, and then tag five other bloggers mercilessly. 

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Bobbie Grennier

1) Like Linda Buquet, my dad wanted to name me Linda Loo after his favorite gravel truck too! Thankfully the buoy industry was doing better than gravel that year, and so "Bob"-bie was the agreed upon name.

2) I'm very allergic to all alcohol. I love the taste of beer, so besides being a big bummer, it also makes attending affiliate events not so much fun as the others guys seem to be having.

3) I used to be a school teacher and I love helping people learn new things, but you probably know that last bit since I created the Affiliate Guild to help affiliates learn the ropes.

4) If you phone me you're very likely to hear birdies chriping and doggies barking from time to time. I've got a full on zoo in my office and feeding the animals is required … Starbucks for their trainer.

5) I live near the coastal redwoods of California, so my favorite past time is hiking in the woods. I never weary of just how special and beautiful these giant trees are.

Here are my blog tag predecessors. I was tagged by Linda Buquet who was tagged by Anik Singal who was tagged by Rosalind Gardner, who was tagged by Jeremy Palmer, who was tagged by Scott Jangro.

Now I'm passing the torch to Ros Phillips of LinkConnector, Arlene & James Martell of Affiliate Bootcamp, Tom Avery of RevenueSource Affiliate Forums, Stephen Ralph of Top-Affiliate.com and Marifer Vergara from the queenofcheap.com.

Sphinn … it's all the buzz today and I'm reading about it everwhere I go to catch up on today's latest and greatest.

According to Linda Buquet at 5 Star, latest and greatest is an appropriate phrase to use when describing Sphinn.

If you are into SEO, PPC and Internet Marketing you just may want to take "Sphinn" for a SPIN. (That's the pronunciation BTW.)

Many are saying this will replace the now defunct Threadwatch, but with all the social functionality this site has, I say it will far surpass it.

I was wondering what Danny Sullivan was up to these days and now, I get this awesome surprise from the master of webology.

Danny brings us all up todate on his SearchEngineland Blog with the new changes and other changes coming in the near future.

When Search Engine Land launched last December, I talked about liking the name in part because it sounded like "a community, where people can meet, talk, discuss and network." I promised to upgrade the site to help a community thrive. It took much longer than the original "month or so" I envisioned to make this happen. But today, we're happy to unveil our new social site, Sphinn.

And what specifically is Sphinn?

Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. It's designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.

Now what Marketer in their right mind wouldn't like the sound of that?! Hey Linda, thanks for the ping on Sphinn. I'm really looking forward to watching this grow. 

Okay, I think this hilarious myself. I could have blogged about this under SEO topics, but at this point it's gone into the That's Too Funny category.

You guys know who the Rich Jerk is right? Well, maybe not who he is, but you know of him. In fact, Linda Buquet blogged about him not too long ago … http://affiliate-blogs.5staraffiliateprograms.com/2006/09/11/rich-jerk-cj/

If you've been following the presentations put out recently by Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon (two SEO experts with good basic SEO tips for everyone), then you're in the know about the things they've been teaching. If you haven't been following, then here's a link to get started … http://www.stomperblog.com.

At any rate, Brady and Andy have released a few videos teaching some basic SEO, and I guess the Rich Jerk is taking all the credit for their SEO knowledge. And, apparently Rich Jerk is taking credit for Sydney Johnston's SEO rankings as well.

Sydney is the 63 year old woman who signed on with Brady and Andy with regard to her eBay business. I guess when she got wind of the Rich Jerk's comments … she made her own video.

I think it's pretty funny … gotta love a good cat fight amoungst the SEOers.

Here's the link to Sydney's video: http://www.convertlinks.com/smackdown.html

This thing is just heating up! Enjoy!!!

In typical 5 Star sytle, Linda Buquet announced today the start of several contests for her 5 Star Affiliate Forum members.

If ever there was a time to join the 5 Star Affiliate Forums, it's now!

The 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forum turns two years old on June 25, 2007 … and it's in that vein of celebration that Linda has announced her biggest give-aways to-date.

The contests offered are as follows:

“NAME THAT 5 Star MERCHANT” Contest
$200 CASH Grand Prize - $100 2nd Prize
Visit our 5 Star Sponsors to WIN!

I "HEART" 5 STAR Contest - $100 CASH Prize 

BLOG BUZZ CONTEST - $300 CASH Grand Prize $100 Runner Up
Which blog can create the biggest BUZZ and send the most traffic to the forum.

GUESS the MEMBER COUNT - $100 CASH Prize

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER - $100 CASH Prize

Thanks Linda, for a valued affiliate marketing resource and all the hard work you do for our community of affiliates and merchants. You're a class act, and with you … 5 star ratings really do mean 5 stars.

Happy Birthday to Linda and 5 Star!

I was surfing around reading the blogs of other affiliate marketers, and I came across a post by Linda Buquet of 5 Star Affiliates that really bugged me. Not with Linda, no way, but with merchants who think they can rip off the affiliates and totally get away with it.

Seems that DadaMobile slammed shut the doors of their affiliate program right befor Christmas.

That means that any affiliates who were promoting their products and services are basically out of luck for their commissions. Man, I'd hate to be the guy running PPC ads for this affy program … that's gotta hurt!

I think merchants like DadaMobile need to be exposed … to the winter's elements … for the doing bad business.

If you're an affiliate with them, I'd highly recommend you get out of there NOW!!! If you've owed commissions from sales you made prior to the closing of their affiliate program, you need to demand payment. If they refuse, you affiliates need to files a class action suit. Stick together and shady merchants like this will not have as much of an impact in the Affiliate Marketing Industry.

I also received an Associate email from Amazon today outlining more changes to their affiliate payout structure. Man, they're down to 4% for affiliates now … that's just wrong!

The email continued:

Announcing Monthly Payments!

Beginning January 1, 2007, your Amazon Associates payments will be monthly instead of quarterly, paid approximately 60 days after the end of each month. For example, referral fees you earn in January will be paid at the end of March, and payment of referral fees earned in February will be paid at the end of April. As part of this change, referral fee tiers will be adjusted to reflect monthly instead of quarterly item quantities:

Amazon's also sending out another email to some of their associates. I haven't gotten this one yet myself:

The Affiliate Guild has recently posted a great affiliate help list tips of 25 things that new and struggling affiliates trying to make a go of affiliate marketing should take a look at and give careful consideration to.

The Good Advice for New Affiliates post was inspired by Linda Buquet's super affiliate contest going on at 5 star affiliate programs.

Good Advice for New Affiliates
from the Affiliate Guild

25 Affiliate Tips To Success
1. Too much time building websites will bog you down. Make easy to maintain sites.

2. SEO does matter if you want targeted traffic.

3. Get a newsletter email opt-in on every page of every website you own.

4. Either get a forum or get a blog going. (Need one built?)

5. Write about your affiliate programs (article-repository.com). Tell everyone!

6. Focus on conversion not payout. Commissions are important though.

7. Get really, really niche.

8. Find affiliate programs that will be around awhile.

9. Find a search engine friendly cloaking script for your links.

10. There is more to affiliate life than Google! Diversify!

11. Learn about your affiliate programs and speak intellegently about them.

12. If you don't see what you want to represent, go get it. Consider your own affiliate network.

13. Make friends with Affiliate Managers … and if you have a lot of traffic ask for a bigger percentage on payout.

14. Work with reputable leadership (affiliate guild)

15. Buy from the affiliate program if you want to know how they work. We do it.

16. Monetize your websites.

17. If you have enough traffic sell ad space. If you have good SEO ranking, charge more for ads.

18. Ask for the sale. Most affiliate program banners don't close sales, you must do it.

19. You must work 8-10+ hours daily to be a successful super affiliate.

20. Keep it really simple … accomplish your goals with focused resources.

21. Find affiliate programs that offer a wide variety of advertising opportunities from banners to datafeeds.

22. Find affiliate programs that require strong marketing ethics and follow them, WIN-WIN.

23. Find affiliate programs that payout on schedule everytime. You're in control here!

24. Look for affiliate programs with affiliate tracking for phone sales you generate.

25. Look for affiliate programs with solid servers and software that works 100% of the time. Other affiliates write about the bad ones, so be aware and read the affiliate forums and blogs.

Posted by Bobbie Grennier on August 10, 2006 05:53 PM | Permalink