A few days ago I was thinking about high-paying affiliate programs after doing some reading about high PPC bids. I gave it a little thought but it wasn’t until just now that I found a very lucrative affiliate program (if I play my cards right.)

How lucrative? $2500 lucrative!

Good thing Vic posted about it instead of doing his TV dinner video!

This is when it would come in handy to have a site like HoustonJobs.com (HostGator is based there,) but I do have a number of connections down south that may help.

If you have any job or career related sites, or anything to do with Houston, you might be able to make some referrals and pocket a cool $2500.

Just be careful if you have a free job posting site. It was rumored that HostGator didn’t pay its regular affiliates who were operating free web hosting sites. (Biased against freebie seekers?)

However, that rumor could have started due to people trying to scam HostGator in the first place, in which case it’s a good thing they didn’t pay up.

Come to think of it, anytime an affiliate complains about not getting paid, it’s usually because they were trying to scam the affiliate program or doing something stupid.

So like I said in the beginning, if you want a big commission, this could be just the ticket!

Update: Back to the opportunity at hand…

I’m getting a few vague ideas in my head, but I’m kind of busy, so I want to post some ideas and maybe someone else can try them.

The first thing to keep in mind is that you have to refer someone to HostGator on your own by filling out a referral form before your referral goes in for an interview. That referral form is how they’ll track everything (there aren’t typical affiliate links for this.)

So if you’re paying attention so far, you will have realized that you need to have a relationship with your referral (at least enough to get their name, email, and phone number.) Along the same lines, you can’t just run some PPC ads direct to the Hostgator job application.

Which means… you have to collect their information!

You also have to wait and hope that your referral gets hired and stays employed for 90 days. Whew!

So what you need to do is set up your own job placement network. To make it quicker, it could be targeted to just Windows administrators. (Or Linux admins or whatever, but there are already sites like linux-jobs.com.) Then you market like normal to these potential employees and get them to come to your site and fill in a form with their name, email, and phone. Then you hand-submit the referrals to HostGator via the referral form.

That’s just one idea and it could be done in a variety of ways. There are other ways, too, but just remember, if you want a $2500 commission you have to take this seriously. Or I guess you could spam CraigsList!

Good luck!

(and by “good luck” I mean “I hope you don’t actually promote this because I’d rather keep the money to myself!”)

P.S. What would be sweet is if any super affiliate bloggers pushed this offer and published their results and/or strategies online…

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The local favorite Joel Comm has hit yet another home run today. As if the confusing Adsense placements weren’t doing enough for him, today he emailed me about about a new service that works out great when used alongside Adsense. He says it’s “something new which pays off INSTANTLY!”

Well, are you excited??!

Me too. Now get ready for the shocker…

It’s “called WidgetBucks, and it is probably the most sophisticated and ingenious contextual product unit I have ever seen!”

Holy crap, look at that. WidgetBucks. Really, I’ve never heard of that one before. I can’t wait to go and be the first to post about it at the Digitalpoint forums!! I will be so cool, totally pwning those n00bs that only use Adsense.

There’s also a $25 bonus, which is great for Christmas. But I wonder if it’s the same $25 bonus I got back in October? The same one that you only get when you earn enough for the minimum payment that is certainly higher than $25…

Nah… couldn’t be.

I’m sure that this is a brand new service that no one has heard about yet, let alone written about before. Why else would someone call it “something new which pays off INSTANTLY!”

If you want $25 for nothing, keep dreaming. But if you want to join WidgetBucks, put lots of work in, and then get a $25 bonus when you get paid a month or two later, take a look at WidgetBucks.

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WidgetBucks has been in the headlines since the day of its launch. There was A LOT of positive press, especially in the beginning, from the cool looking widgets to the great payouts.

For example, Zac Johnson blogged about it and Sean of WidgetBucks even stopped by to comment. And as with any opportunity to make more money, John Chow promoted it.

A little bit of positive press too:

• WidgetBucks Top Performer (WidgetBucks generating some buzz about huge revenues)
• Earnings Update (Earnings screenshots… hmm I thought this was not allowed based on their terms…)

But the buzz couldn’t last forever…

Especially with a Google penalty!

So here’s the negativity:

• Screw you and your terms (WidgetBucks is way too greedy. They’ll probably claim rights to your first born child.)
• A 0.04% CTR is click fraud? (WidgetBucks is not your friend.)
• The truth comes out (straight from the horse’s mouth)
• WidgetBucks Is Run By Monkeys
• Widget Sucks (catchy domain name lol)

Did I mention the forums are going crazy about the suspensions? (i.e. WidgetBucks is scamming publishers out of lots of money)

• WidgetBucks takes back $1400
• No US traffic? You’re screwed.
• Which network sucks less?
• Their generic email about fraudulent activity.
• There’s no money in WidgetBucks
• You call this an explanation?
• Jumping through hoops
• They think my site is pr0n
• In the red

If you’re still hungry for more, try the WidgetBucks review blog. Or the official WidgetBucks blog, which is full of negative comments from publishers!

In light of all this, I think the best thing to do would be to click my affiliate link, join WidgetBucks, and hope that they screw you out of money so you can be part of all this fun! (which will only get more exciting when checks are supposed to go out…)

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There’s a never-ending debate about how website design (as far as aesthetics) affects your site and its ability to pull in wads of cash. A lot of people say you need a professional, fancy, and clean design to earn customers’ trust. Others say that “content is king” and don’t worry what the site looks like, as long as it works.

I agree with both sides

I think that a well-designed site is great for some new Web 2.0 site looking to be purchased by Google. And a professional/corporate style site is great for a company like Delta Airlines.

But ugly, home-made sites can work well, too. Especially if you’re in a market catering to older people or industries that aren’t tech-savvy. It almost makes you more trustworthy if your site is plain (or even crappy looking.)

The best example I can give you is PokerChance.net, a site I heard about sometime last year. I have to laugh every time I see the site, but then I shut up real quick when I think about how much money this guy (Claud Dorton) earns.

“On a bad month I make $60,000”

At least that was the story at MarketingSherpa. I guess this retired guy just started writing some articles based on years of poker experience and then went to the public library to add them to his personal website. (He didn’t even have an internet connection at home…)

And now this dude supposedly pulls in at least $60,000 a month from poker affiliate programs. I do know that gambling affiliates get huge payouts, but his site looks like shit and the Alexa rank is well over 1 million.

I’m not sure if I believe it ($60,000 per year would be stretching it…), but if it’s true, you might as well not waste your time making your affiliate sites look too fancy!

But I have to wonder… if this guy knows so much about winning at poker, why couldn’t he afford a dial-up internet connection??

[This post originally appeared at InternetMarketingSucks.com]

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Can you believe it, just one month left before our taxes must be filed?!

I’m really sick of the government taking all my money and spending it on stuff I don’t agree with. But whatever, it must be done. (Unless you’re that dude up in New Hampshire that turned his house into a fortress and is ready to fight back!)

I decided to fight back in my own little internet marketing way this year. I’ll be doing so with the help of MaxBounty and a nice service called TaxBrain, which provides tax preparation services. It seems like a win-win-win formula. I can promote TaxBrain and get paid to do it. TaxBrain will get more customers. And the TaxBrain customers can hopefully get some extra deductions by using this service.

Heck, maybe I’ll make enough to offset my income taxes! (That could very well be possible considering I don’t have much income for anyone to tax )

If you’re a MaxBounty or CJ affiliate, you can try this out too, but you better hurry. This is the best time of year to promote!

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