Regardless of the affiliate network, I like to be a member of as many as I can. This can be beneficial for finding new programs, as well as participating in the ones that are worth the most money.

For example, I joined Panthera Network to promote an exclusive Vista Print certain offer that only lasted so long. After making $32, I haven’t found an offer to make money with again, however I’m sure something else will come up.

As much as I like Logical Media, I found a great competitor with similar offers.

MySavings Media

Programs offering something free is by far one of the easiest things to convert in my opinion. A lot of times you can find something that relates to your niche, or find a way to incorporate it.

For example I wrote an article that Website Magazine featured. They ranked the top 50 affiliate networks. At the end of that post I included a link I earn money for every time someone subscribes to a free subscription. While each lead isn’t a lot, stuff like that can add up.

MySavings Media offers free offers just like that. Whether it’s free magazines, samples, newsletters or promotions you can find something to earn money with.

They also have their own widget that you can throw in your sidebar, or dedicate an entire blog page to. I did that here, and was able to make about $10-$15 last month with little promotion.

Referral Program

Another component I often value is the affiliate program. A standard rate for an affiliate program seems to be about 5% give or take.

MySavings Media offers a 10% commission on all approved affiliates! The only downside is they only offer that fee for the first 10 months after they sign up. Any commissions generated after that aren’t credited to you anymore.

Overall MySavings Media is definitely worth checking out.

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Last month I was terminated by the first affiliate network since ShoppingAds became a “closed network” (but that’s a whole different situation). This wasn’t due to a program change, it was due to traffic. I don’t like to curse, but this was bullshit.

Hydra Network Termination

I’ve never heard of traffic levels being unfit for an affiliate network after already getting approved, sometimes I don’t run any offers on a network for months at a time. With some offers I can generate $500 in a month, then $0 the next, it just depends on what I am working on.

I hadn’t worked with HydraNetwork in a while since several lucrative months over the summer. I was able to piggy back my offers on some newsletters through a few online friends who weren’t into affiliate marketing. Throughout my experience with Hydra (1-2 years) I broke $1,000 in earnings, so it wasn’t like I never used them.

Recently, I started inquiring about different programs like Vista Print to get active again with Hydra. Several days later,  I received an email about how I promoted a Bidz offer I was running and had been off and on for months. I responded with my website url and then the next day I received a termination letter.

Bullshit MOVE

What I HATE about this whole thing that if there was some sort of problem, I would have been fine discussing and working it out. Other than that poor excuse of an email by Kollene McGinley (affiliate manager) I was terminated without a “warning” or any REAL information as to why I was terminated.

Let me stress again, I’ve never been singled out and terminated from ANY affiliate program and I’ve been doing this since 2005.

Compliance Letter

They have some “fine print” on the email I received so I am not going to publish it word for word.

However after “reviewing my account” including my monthly uniques, experience and “other criteria”… my “traffic” is not a good fit for Hydra.

The ONLY thing they did right in this situation was that they paid me my pending commissions of $15.50 in about two weeks.

Have you ever experience something like this before?

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I’m a huge fan of funny t-shirts, so when I saw this site I was instantly attracted to it. I used to get shirts like this at my local Anchor Blue, but since a few of them closed down, I’m shirtless.

Some of these shirts can be “offensive”, but there is easily something for everyone. Step Brothers is one of my favorite movies, and if you’ve seen you, you will recognize the shoe t-shirt. This is definitely on my “wish list”.

Even though it’s less than a week before Halloween, you can still order a costume online. CrazyDogTShirts will guarantee their order to be delivered to you by October 30th, if you order by Tuesday at 3pm EST.

Shop the Deals

I’m frugal at heart, so when I come to an online shopping site I start looking for deals. Two places to start looking are the $6 mystery tees and the $9 t-shirts.

I know the “mystery” shirts are supposed to be a surprise, but I would definitely like to see some images of previous shirts that were given as a “mystery”.

You can also see what the deal of the day is, today is a Ghost Bar t-shirt for only $6.99.

Affiliate Program

If you like Crazy Dog T-Shirts and want to write about it they do have a great affiliate program you can join.

It is ran through Share A Sale, and for every sale you generate you get 12.5%.

What’s your favorite Crazy Dog T-Shirt?

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However some of the forums I participate on, the constant topic is web hosting and the different options available.

Using a web hosting resource like Web Hosting Geeks can save you a head ache.

Web Hosting Geeks

I’ve reviewed Web Hosting Geeks before, and it’s still my favorite site for information on hosting. It’s easy to navigate and find exactly what you want information on.

What I didn’t notice before (maybe it’s new?) is the Green Web Hosting section. That could be a HUGE factor to some bloggers moving forward in a more eco-friendly world. SuperGreen is rated the #1 Eco-Friendly Host and at $3.95 that’s good. Can I coin the term Organic Web Hosting?

The first thing I did notice though, was it’s outdated! This is such a good site to keep updated, it’s disappointing to see that their awards aren’t updated for 2009 yet.

Still…

It’s easily the best in my opinion. Not only is their information on the web hosting you are looking at, there is information ABOUT it. Say you were interested in Multiple Domain Hosting, you could scroll down to find out about it, learn, and see if it’s something you need.

It is interesting to see however how each web hosting review site ranks these companies. The top 10 always seems to be about the same, but the order is always different.

Who do you think belongs in the #1 web host slot?

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When I first purchased my web hosting, I went by what friends said and ended up going with Hostmonster. So far they’ve had pretty decent support, I’ve had to call in a few times. The price isn’t bad, it’s not cheap or high.

As a novice blogger and growing internet “entrepreneur” thinks like support and customer service become increasingly more important. Sometimes it may be worth paying more or making less to work with a good company.

Hostgator Online Support

As I mentioned I do not have a hosting account with Hostgator, but I have personally experienced their great online support.

While working for a client she decided to go with a magazine theme. Those can be tricky to get all of the features started, especially for someone brand new to Wordpress, so she hired me. Magazine themes are definitely not my favorite to configure and it took me a while to get it right.

I finally found the problem with a particular imaging set-up and it was something I needed the hosting company to fix. After logging in to the online chat I told them the problem and they made sure it was fixed, all was well.

The next day I woke up to an email stating my client had decided to change her theme (lol) to yet another magazine theme. Of course things needed to be changed internally on the hosting again, so back to the online support.

I told them the problem, while waiting for them to fix it I accidentally got disconnected. They must of still followed through with it, because the problems were fixed within a few minutes.

Hostgator’s online support not only saved me time, but a lot of frustration!

Do you know of an online company that has great customer service or support?

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I first realized this when I had a dispute with Neverblue. I had commissions removed without any notification or explanation. After several phone calls and no ground covered I blogged about it. After blogging it if you search the term “neverblueads” my posts ranks really well.

Not too long after I received a call from a head affiliate manager from Neverblue. The end result was a full refund of the missing commissions.

Yesterday I saw another example of the power of blogging.

StudioPress

Kim from Accidental Mommies wrote a great blog post titled Are Premium Wordpress Themes Worth It? In the post she did mini interviews with other bloggers about what they expect from themes, the benefits, and support.

I’ve personally never paid for a Wordpress theme. I think with so many great free themes out there that you can simply customize it the way you want. If the theme doesn’t work with your website you can simply find another one, no need to worry about.

Some bloggers who are new to Wordpress do prefer to go with the premium themes because they usually do offer the support with installation and set-up.

In the article Kim wrote about Miss Blondie who had recently done just that. On her switch from Blogger to Wordpress she purchased the Allure Wordpress theme from StudioPress at  $59.99. To make a long story short the support was really bad and the “unlimited” theme support ended up costing an additional $60. There are also comments of other problems with StudioPress not being what they promised.

The Result

After the article was published Brian Gardner (SEO of Studio Press) commented on the blog post apologizing. The comment did seem sincere as he was obviously making the effort to right anything that went wrong, which is great in my opinion. Why do business with any company with bad customer service?

Brian did in fact refund Miss Blondie the full amount (and then some). She was also giving a free upgrade giving her access to use all of the StudioPress themes instead of just the one she paid for. I can’t imagine a better result for this problem.

I think it was great of Brian to act quickly, and hopefully showed what type of business he is running and that he does care about his customers.

If you’ve got a problem, blog it!

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BloggersBase Review

“BloggersBase is a citizen journalism magazine powered by YOU!”

The layout looks great and diving into this website I think it is a great concept. You the blogger rate, publish, and view the articles you want to read on a variety of topics.

You can earn money by being a top blogger as well as referring bloggers to the site. You can of course build links to your own sites in the posts you submit. Of course, you can also read great articles by bloggers.

However, in my opinion, the system is complex and a little difficult to understand, especially if you’re not familiar with a blog like this. Terms like Nuggets and Goldmine are thrown around. Even after reading what they mean I am still slightly confused. I could imagine others having the same problems and not trying at all. Basically you have to ‘prove yourself’ as a blogger before you hit the front pages.  As a newcomer, you can post in any blog that you want a contender post, in a location which is a little out of the way and not very visible. Such a post is denoted a “Nugget”, marked with a golden-nugget icon to indicate its potential and its residence is called the blog’s Goldmine.

So instead, the process needs to be a bit more simple. Instead of all of these terms and a long list of how the site works it really can be easier. Similar sites to BloggersBase just promote the articles through the website based on votes. A certain amount of votes can get you to the front page, just like any social network.

BloggersBase is still young and appears to only be a month or two old. I imagine they will find out what works best for them as well as their bloggers. They have the set-up, the quality, and the incentive for bloggers to blog.

Rewards and Referrals

I’m big on incentive especially when blogging on other sites. Whether it’s compensation, or link building, Bloggers Base has both.

The top two bloggers in a certain ‘timeslot’ (I think it’s a week) earn money. First place receives $40, while second place receives $10. On the BloggersBase blog, they announced their top blogger amabaie, won two weeks in a row, cashing in a cool $80. Not bad for a few articles. (amabaie is at it again winning first place and second a few times, bringing his total to $150)

The other way to earn money is to refer bloggers to BloggersBase. Each time one of your referrals earns money you will get a bonus as well. They don’t exactly say how much you will get which is unfortunate and definitely needs to be added. After you earn $20 or more you can cash out with Paypal.

Update: Since this review was published BloggersBase has went ahead and updated their referral payouts. You will be awarded exactly the same money prizes as your referred users do, up to 3 wins per user. So if they person you refer wins as a top blogger, you get the same amount they do.

BloggersBase Verdict

I think BloggersBase has a really good idea and set-up. After this review I may just submit a few articles and see how it goes. Take a look and leave me a comment on what you think of the website.

Join BloggersBase

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Web Design Dev

WebDesignDev was created by Michael Dunlop who also blogs at Retire at 21 (read our review here). When I first looked at Web Design Dev I wasn’t too impressed until I started going browsing.

With nearly 1,000 rss feed readers, this website is very complete. There aren’t very many tutorials (about 30) but the ones that are there are very detailed. They are all thorough with screenshots, which is something I think is important when trying to teach someone something. You can read tutorials on creating flash websites, photoshop, and dreamweaver.

I think I am most impressed with their create a website page. Its the ultimate guide for creating a website, from buying the domain name and hosting to actually marketing the website. That page could be a website by itself.

Update Me

From the website to the forum, it needs updating. The last tutorial was posted July 22nd and several of the forum topics are a month old. It seems whatever initial buzz this site received is now gone and needs a pick me up.

With the web developement category with only one post, I think this site has great potential to opening up their reviews a bit toward Wordpress theme installation and editing as well as more. Some themes are already visual enough you don’t need to design your own. It could really open it up as not only a web design resource, but ultimately a top blogging resource.

Submit Your Tutorials

A cool option that WebDesignDev offers is submitted your own tutorial, you can even get paid for it.

Write a tutorial for WebDesignDev and get paid $100 per tutorial published! Learn more…

Before you write your tutorial make sure to contact Michael that this offer is still valid. Not a bad way to make $100.

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Mark from Me and My Drum

I keep telling Mark to set up a portfolio of his work. He mostly works on word of mouth, so I’m spreading a bit more of a word for him. I needed 125×125 banners made from Mark and he delivered with several buttons that I still use today. Now I am trying to convince Mark to make a header for Contest Live.

He just remade his blog with the WP-Vybe theme and a stunning new header. Get in touch with Mark and tell him BAYB sent you!

Visit Mark at Me and My Drum

Kim from JA Blog Graphics

Kim has a great portfolio of all her banner work. She even updates a blog posting the new banners as well as a link to the customers website. So not only will you receive your banner but possibly a free link as well.

Here are the banners that were made for me:

Take a look at her pricing, it’s very affordable. For a static 125×125 button you will only pay $5. For bloggers 125×125 buttons are so universal you can use it for anything, advertising, Entrecard, or Project Wonderful.

Visit Kim at JA Blog Graphics

Karen C from A Blog of Goodies

I’ve mentioned A Blog of Goodies several times lately. I had noticed she had made some buttons, so while waiting for Kim’s buttons and forgetting about Mark’s work, I asked Karen to make one for Contest Live. I was very pleased and surprised at how much I liked the button and how fast she made it for me.

I don’t know if she officially makes banners for money, but she may do some work for a few bucks.

Do you do design work? Fill out your portfolio and do some work for us and get featured!

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