Internet Marketing Toolbox

I just recently purchased the Ninja Affiliate WordPress plugin and I thought I’d share with you my plans on how I’m going to implement this across multiple blogs/niches to help streamline the backend administration of my affiliate promotions…

One of the key issues with managing affiliate programs as a “publisher” is keeping track of everything!

Now if you’ve only got one blog or site, then it’s not much of a drama. But… as you add to your virtual real estate and set up even more sites in different niches (which you will do) then it does start to become a bit of a nightmare!

And as you sign up for more affiliate programs, and promote even more affiliate products… then there’s some serious premature hair graying going to happen real soon…

Unless… you’ve got an effective means of administering all of these links and programs, and knowing (at a glance) what is and isn’t working for you!

My main motive for purchasing Pawan’s Ninja Affiliate WordPress plugin was the backend administrative capabilities it offers, although the URL cloaking, and auto keyword conversion are also going to be very useful!

So here’s how I intend to use it across my (many) multiple blogs to centralise the administration of all my affiliate promotions.

Step 1 - Set Up A Brand New Domain For The Admin

And install a Wordpress blog on it so I can use the Ninja Affiliate WordPress plugin on it to track EVERYTHING.

I want a new domain so there is NO other traffic coming to it to pollute the reporting from the logs. Preferably, it will be a SHORT domain name so I don’t have to use a long URL in any promotions I do… e,g, I already have 2omf.com as a short domain I use to redirect to my onlinemarketingfundamentals.com web site… so something like that would be the go!

The shorter domain looks better and works better with email promotions… and it’s easier to type as well, so less mistakes possible on that score.

As to the CONTENT I’ll have on this site?

Hmmm… well, considering now that all of your outgoing links from this site are going to be for your “customers”, this site would be a VERY appropriate place to have your help-desk software, customer FAQ’s, your contact details… stuff like that.

Centralise all of that too while you’re at it!

Step 2 - Add My Affiliate Links To The Admin Backend

Using the backend system for the plugin built into Wordpress, I’ll start adding the various affiliate programs that I am currently promoting, paying careful attention to the names I give each link, making sure it’s descriptive enough for possible SEO purposes, AND to make life easier for me to identify each link (and when remembering links to place on other sites).

Step 3 - Convert Existing Links

If you’re just starting out with affiliate marketing, then lucky for you - you can skip this step completely

This is going to be a long-term project, and it will involve finding ALL of those hundreds of existing links I have scattered across various multiple sites, and then point them to this new “centralised” link. It’s important that all your existing links (eventually) DO end up going through this system, or else all the old headaches will remain…

I will have to do these conversions in conjunction with Step 4…

Step 4 - Add Plug-In To Your Existing WordPress Sites

OK… now is where it might start to get confusing… but on all your existing WordPress based sites (or any new sites you set up) install the Ninja Affiliate plugin!

Now, any NEW affiliate link you want to promote on a niche site will use the plugin on that site…

BUT (and here’s the twist)…

It will NOT use your “direct” affiliate link that goes to the merchant website!

Instead… it should use a link which redirects to the new “centralised” link you’ve got in your admin backend!

So it’s like this :

niche site –> central admin site –> merchant site

Each niche site contains ONLY the affiliate programs that are relevant to that niche (you don’t want to get confused by including affiliate programs that aren’t relevant to that site).

When someone clicks on one of these, the redirect sends them off to your MAIN admin backend site - the one which contains ALL the “real” links to the merchants — and then they get sent onto the merchant.

So whenever ANY merchant program dies, there’s only ONE place you need to go to fix it up and replace with another program that is working… and ALL of your “redirect” links scattered elsewhere will still work - perfectly.

From a stats perspective, you’ll be able to track all your click-throughs (from each niche site, AND from the admin one) and if you ALSO use the east to implement “sub-campaign” feature of the plugin, you’ll know exactly which of your sites is sending the traffic!

And by looking at the awstats on the central site (i.e. your normal web log files) you’ll also get a good “big picture” look at how well your affiliate marketing is performing overall.

Obviously, this is all going to take a little bit of time to get it all going, but hey - I’m in this game for the long haul, and I’m not going anywhere else!

I AM looking at making my Internet Marketing life easier over the long-term — and I really think this IS going to contribute to that. The management of my affiliate promotions up to now has been a gigantic headache, especially with all of the inconsistencies I’ve implemented over the years.

And (probably because I’m already close to being an old fogey or is that fogie?) I am ALSO looking at making things easier for my successors if I “kick the bucket”… and if you haven’t been thinking about who is going to look after your Internet business if/when you die, then you better start now!

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