The One Man Corporation

Simple, basic SEO tips for better quality free traffic

2011-11-19T22:53:00.012-06:00

I learned 3 huge things about my website www.kaptainmyke.com this week.

#1 Keep titles of pages under 65 characters.

#2 Try to remove these STOP words from the names of sections, names of products: A, am, an, and, are, as, at, be, by, com, de, en, for, from, how, in, is, it, la, of, on, or, that, the , this, to, was, what, when, where, who, will with, you, your, me, mine. It's hard when the name of a product is "I Love New York". I try to say "New York Love", for example. Let the description of your product tell your reader what it's really about.

#3 Try to remove () ' " : ; ? ! ~ @ # $ % & * from titles of any web page. Commas are ok, hyphens are ok.

Start with that and you should notice significant SEO traffic. Google and others penalize sites and pages that contain those characters and words.

My Cafepress, Zazzle, Printfection, and Skreened stores all showed significant jumps in traffic according to my analytics reports for the past 2 weeks. I should note to you that Cafepress uses their own H1 tag for products, so be sure you don't have your own H1 tag in your shop template, or you will have dual h1 tags on web pages.

If you own CPShop, this is how you remove those characters from your titles and breadcrumbs: Marty.net message board

I hope this information helps you as it did myself. As always, if you do major changes to your website, generate a new sitemap.xml file and resubmit changes to google webmaster tools.

Updated KaptainMyke Blog

2011-11-10T18:22:00.001-06:00

New updates to KaptainMyke's Blog:

http://kaptainmyke.blogspot.com/

Thank you!

MIA, SEO, and WTF

2011-02-13T11:58:00.000-06:00

Sorry folks, we've been a little busy relocating our central main office to Seattle, WA. We have been reincorporating in a new state, changing over some new policies and introducting new products and services. We will be posting more new content and relevant data soon in the few weeks to come. Turns out, we have learned a few new things about SEO and Google's new algorithms. Also, in the future I'd like to point out a few deadly phrases we've come to learn and hate: double keywords and decimal points in Adwords campaigns.

Who knew $0.15 is waaaay off from $15 when it comes to PPC ads. OUCH! We lost a lot of money last week when an campaign got switched from $0.25 down to $0.15 cents...only it was $15 per click the next 4 days.... Lesson learned, and someone got yelled at.

Earn 15% Selling Products from KaptainMyke or any Cafepress Store

2010-08-04T09:21:00.003-05:00

Earn money selling KaptainMyke Brand t-shirts and gifts!

Post links to Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Linkedin, Bebo, emails and more!

How it Works

Click here to sign up for the Commission Junction Affiliate program.

1. You are given an Affiliate ID, or "PID" number

2. Create your AP links

3. Place YOURPID with your Account ID found in Commission Junction's control panel at CJ.com.

4. Start Earning 15% Commission!

Start NOW

It's that easy!

Lower Apparel & Gifts for Summer Season at KaptainMyke

2010-06-08T16:50:00.003-05:00

Summer Apparel prices reduced for 2010

KaptainMyke Brand has discounted our entire inventory for the summer to save money for the college kids and school children who want to dress themselves better. Now our prices closely match the marketplace prices at Cafepress. This means we have re-entered the marketplace for all KaptainMyke Brand t-shirts and gift inventory.

Are you in Summer School? Help us help you dress better as you take that test, throw that spitball, hurl up those whiteout bottles or staplers up at the ceiling tiles and have to pay for the end of year banquet in your co-op economics class since the district had to pay for repairs to the classroom.

So what if you got in-school suspension? At least you now sit in a corner cubicle staring blankly at that cheap varnished plywood wall in a KaptainMyke Brand logo tv show or movie inspired fan t-shirt. For a limited time, KaptainMyke Brand t-shirts and gift inventory at Cafepress will be re-introduced into the CP Marketplace. This gives you time to take advantage of savings for the spring and summer. Thanks again for helping us help you dress better in school.

At the advice of my esteemed fictional attorney, this is not a confession letter. The events portrayed in this blog post are entirely fictional and any names used have been changed to protect those individuals who did not do such events, at all. Those said fictional characters are sorry for the fictional teacher imagined in such a fictious post.

Check out our summer apparel sorted by children, womens, and mens t-shirts: http://bit.ly/dnbYFX

ABC Lost T-Shirts Collection featured at KaptainMyke Brand Apparel Site

2010-06-08T16:03:00.002-05:00

We hope you enjoyed the series as much as we did around here at KaptainMyke. We actually have Sunday night as "Lost night" and watch an episode so we can re-experience everything since the beginning all over again.

If you are a fan of the series, you must get a DHARMA Initiative Orientation Kit, which includes Season 5. On [Blu-ray] or DVD: Lost: The Complete Fifth Season Dharma Initiative Orientation Kit Or you can pickup just the Fifth Season (Collector's Edition with Bonus Disc and DHARMA Luggage Tag)

KaptainMyke Brand Officially Licensed Fan Merchandise ABC LOST t-shirts are selling fast right now.

The top selling t-shirt and gift designs currently are:

http://www.kaptainmyke.com/cgi-bin/store/cpshop.cgi/losttvseries.kaptainmyke.7116401+not-pennys-boat-lost.html

Original LOST tv series underwater Lighthouse Station hatch door displaying Charlie's hand with "NOT PENNY'S BOAT" logo across front.

http://www.kaptainmyke.com/cgi-bin/store/cpshop.cgi/losttvseries.kaptainmyke.7087369+i-heart-lost.html

Funny fan design with words "I LOVE LOST" featuring the Oceanic Airlines logo in place of the "o".

http://www.kaptainmyke.com/cgi-bin/store/cpshop.cgi/losttvseries.kaptainmyke.7087527+drive-shaft-lost.html t.html .7087527+drive-shaft-lost.html

Original LOST tv show design available on t-shirts and gifts across front that reads, Drive Shaft "You All Everybody". Drive Shaft is the one hit wonder British rock band started by rock god Charlie Pace and brother Liam Pace.

http://www.kaptainmyke.com/cgi-bin/store/cpshop.cgi/losttvseries.kaptainmyke.7092671+the-island-lost.html e-island-lost.html

Original LOST tv show design featuring a silhouette of passengers walking and falling off the word, "LOST" with island uprooted showing palm trees, Black Rock, Oceanic plane, a pillar of black smoke, spiral, and the numbers.

http://www.kaptainmyke.com/cgi-bin/store/cpshop.cgi/losttvseries.kaptainmyke.7115870+dharma-initiative-polar-bear-club.html

Original LOST tv series "Dharma Initiative Polar Bear Club" logo across front.

Polar Bear Magnets just $3.99 !

http://www.kaptainmyke.com/cgi-bin/store/cpshop.cgi/losttvseries.kaptainmyke.7127641+we-have-to-go-back-lost.html

Original LOST tv series screenprint featuring the popular phrase "We have to go back - back to the island", with 6 figures over letters with passenger silhouettes falling, palm trees, helicopter crashing, airplane, and Black Rock pirate ship with the infamous island, uprooted across front.

BREAKING: KaptainMyke Brand Pulls Products From Cafepress Marketplace!

2009-10-09T16:06:00.003-05:00

We waited long enough

It was only a matter of time. As the incoming commissions sank lower and lower to the pit of my stomach these 4 months, so did my loyalty factor to Cafepress.com.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, this person gives clarification regarding Cafepress.com's recent company restructure. Further reading will have you learn even more at this link entitled, "Cafepress Virtually Lays Off Thousands of Shopkeepers by Wolfstad.com.

Ok but I'm a consumer, not a storeowner.

What does this mean to you, the customer? Nothing. Except that you'll be paying lower prices for the same exact merchandise. That, and I feel that KaptainMyke, the owner and designer of the screenprints, deserves the same markup and cost that we've maintained for almost 5 years, and not accept a 30%, sometimes even 40% loss of incoming hardearned commissions.

Furthermore, we at KaptainMyke feel that it's "not fair" that affiliate driven websites that sell our products make more money than we do being that they make 15% and we make 10%. God Bless America and it's Capitalism!

"You mess with the bull, you get the horns. "

So in retaliation we have finally decided to sell all Cafepress related merchandise from our own websites, and not allow them to be marketed or pushed via the Cafepress Marketplace. The main difference is lower prices to the consumer, and retained earnings to the KaptainMyke Brand. We don't need Cafepress working to advertise our products for us anymore if it means we compete against ourselves. We just need Cafepress to continue distributing and filling orders, and nothing more.

"Oh yeah? Well take that!"

In essence, we have decided to cut you off, Cafepress - not the other way around. Remember who's the boss, Cafepress. Remember who's the boss....

As of the date of this post, it will take 2-3 months for search engines and the existing KaptainMyke Cafepress Marketplace links to organically disappear.

One more example...

Besides, would you pay $22 for a white graphic logo t-shirt in the Cafepress Marketplace, or the same exact product for $19.95 at KaptainMyke Brand directly? Yeah, we thought so. Also, value priced white shirts are just $10 at KaptainMyke Brand. You can't even buy a value priced white t-shirt at Cafepress. They discontinued them through their marketplace sometime a year or two ago...we kept them in inventory ever since.

We are in a Great Depression.

Their answer to recession? Most likely. I don't know much, but I do know the US Government is full of crap and so is Cafepress's executive department.

I also know my reports don't add up, sales income from Cafepress is down, and my Google Adwords Campaigns suddenly were costing 3 times as much to keep up. Either way, someone is making serious profits at Cafepress.

KaptainMyke Brand Expanding

Eventually, when enough ticked off Cafepress storeowners walk away and move all of their art and merchandise to:
Combotique
MySoti
NinjaZoo
Printfection
RedBubble
ShirtMagic
Skreened
SonicShack
SpreadShirt
ThatTShirtSite
Wordans
and our favorite, Zazzle

...then Cafepress will end up firing a bunch of staff, removing product lines and skyrocketing prices. Oh well! We have to do what we have to do to keep saving customers money and having us keep our jobs, too!

KaptainMyke Brand prefers American Made apparel printed on Skreened and Zazzle products.

Because waiting stinks.

Any questions can be emailed to me directly or talk to us via Social sites, too.

-KaptainMyke

YOUR LOCAL NEIGHBORHOOD COAL PLANT IS KILLING YOU

2009-09-03T09:36:00.005-05:00

Built in 1958, the WA Parish Electric Generating Station is located in Thompson, TX off US Highway 762.

Originally this plant produced 185 MegaWatts of electricity by conventional means of gas (fossil fuels). In 1977 it was converted to coal, producing 690 MegaWatts of electricity.

This document is to inform you of my findings by using simple online searching I conducted as a basis of why I developed neurological problems slowly over time, progressively getting worse now at 29. I have lived here since I was 3 years old.

View this document here:
http://www.broke-off.com/coalplant/waparish.htm

Thank you

Updated KaptainMyke Blog

2009-07-31T14:13:00.000-05:00

New updates to KaptainMyke's Blog:

http://kaptainmyke.blogspot.com/

Thank you!

So now my Adwords clicks are "Marketplace Sales"

2009-07-17T17:23:00.004-05:00

Say it isn't so!

I find it very fraudulent that 3 sales that can be tracked back via Google Analytics and my Google Adwords campaigns....and all of them were marketplace sales via Cafepress today.

I noticed one in particular, a dead giveaway...my "Flash Gordon Red Ringer Tee" Adwords campaign specifically tracked 1 click that and I got an "you have a sale" email and of course....a ringer tee, and a toddler t-shirt of "Flash Gordon"...both $2 ala "marketplace sale".

ANY Adwords click is and should always BE "shop sale". Period, end of story.

This is bullshit.

Anyone else care to comment on this?

Thanks.

Attention: To those SK still in Cafepress Marketplace!

2009-07-14T06:47:00.005-05:00

I am still here with you. I feel I'm one of the few now. For those of you who are lost and have no idea what I'm talking about: Cafepress.com recently went from allowing all shop keepers setting their own markups to now a measlily 10% markup on products. This outraged the entire work at home force who are artists and create their own designs and sell them at print on demand service sites such as Cafepress. We lost our bonus tier structures, cookie overrides on sales, and trust in our "boss".

Let's talk about two key things I want to mention here.

Reshape Your Links
First of all, you should always tell your customers to go to http://www.cafepress.com/KaptainMyke and never http://shop.cafepress.com/sk/KaptainMyke anymore. Replace "KaptainMyke" with "your shopname", e.g. Cafepress makes more money than you do if you point your visitors to the marketplace at this point. Save the customer money and have them support you instead! Just tryin to help! You can still have a $5 markup on the following products and you still undercut Cafepress: light t-shirt, jr ringer shirt, ringer tee, white t-shirt, yellow t-shirt, green t-shirt, organic fitteds, baseball jerseys. The other products I'd recommend a $1-2 markup on so you undercut CP.

Screw those greedy bastards and stop pointing customers to the MP, damnit!!!!

Adwords
Secondly, forget Adwords! You think you can compete with Cafepress's $1, 2, sometimes $3 PER CLICK MAX BIDS on some products? Nevermind my $0.49, sometimes I'll splurge on a good one at $0.56 per click myself. That still costs me over $500-$600 per month on my little campigns for me. I wonder where they got the extra money to pay for these advertising campaigns now? Hmmm. Oh well, I'm stupid and I could never figure out stuff like that, right? Arg!

Recesssion 2009
Yeah, only people with jobs are buying your products, ladies and gents.

Meanwhile,
I'm staying in the marketplace only so I can use Cafepress for their own monopolizing tactics at customer exposure. I have since renamed my shop at Cafepress to "Shop KaptainMyke.com for CHEAPER PRICES! ! !" and that has seemed to send more "shop sales" my way than "marketplace sales".

Just always be one step ahead, people!

My KaptainMyke Brand Skreened Gallery of t-shirts has sales daily now.

By the way, "SHOP http://www.kaptainmyke.com/ FOR CHEAPER PRICES ! ! ! "

bye

-KaptainMyke

Everything I said before in this blog...

2009-06-17T07:34:00.004-05:00

nevermind.

Since Cafepress changed:
their marketplace algorithms,
10% mandatory markup override of a marketplace sale,
cookie overrides,
and bonus tiers...

Nevermind. I'm looking at my options now...see keywords.

My feedback to Cafepress Marketplace Changes...

2009-06-17T07:33:00.001-05:00

This is a quoted post I made on the Cafepress.com message forum inside their site. I copied this in case their moderators or admin deleted it or edited it.

As a top seller, I want others to hear my story. I look at my gross sales, so I know Cafepress must hear my voice. If not, well, I'm ashamed to be sitting in front of this ocmputer from 6am to 5pm M-F week after week like it were a regular job to anyone else....

Anyway, here goes:

I am 29 years old. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, or MS for short in 2005. I had to quit my very high paid salary job as a network administrator becase of mental trauma and stress.My son was born and we had to move. I couldn't really work, so I NEEDED to find a job working from home. I know there is others out there like me, too. I can't get away from someone who doesn't have a health problem my age nowadays...

I found Cafepress and... yada yada, now I have a headache.

You, Cafepress - have been giving me a SALARY as my own CEO of my OWN company since 2005! Thanks! At $5-7 a shirt...this was a regular job now for my family and myself. I felt blessed!But now, with my MS getting worse and medical bills going up... now apparently I'm losing my job, too? - like 10% of our Nation? I can't already compete against myself as I already do against other shops. You just gave me and the 40 million other shops a 10 or 20% paycut to all of us. I pay for my Adwords campaigns, facebook, etc.. all that now costs me triple! Nevermind our bonus tier structures suddenly dropped for all of us, too. KaptainMyke is very sad.

Thats my feedback.

A Guide to Cafepress Markup Commissions

2008-08-14T14:15:00.007-05:00

Cafepress.com has custom markups that you can set on all your custom made Print on Demand products. This is a familiar territory with competing websites as well.

Unspoken Rules?

Let's get right to it without beating around the bush. This is merely advice speaking through the window of experience and, nothing more. Seasoned veterans at Cafepress who have been around for a while typically have the higher markups than new shops who have just opened their doors.

Rebuttal Alert! Hey, but that's not true! What if you are a great designer and it has nothing to do with how long you've been around!?!

HOT TIP! Ah, it's yet another trick on the mind with the analytical thinking of a person sitting at home or work on the computer shopping. If you have only 10 sections of a few products with $10-15 markups, a potential visitor is going to think to himself, "Who the hell are you?"

If you have been around for two or three years (maybe longer), you now have most likely 200-500 sections containing hundreds of variations, styles, and colors. The potential visitor now sees thousands of products at a higher price. Hmmm, that must mean quality. That must mean you can be trusted. Maybe now he's thinking, "Wow, you've been at this for a long time. Look at this large selection of products! I think I might buy from you." Don't you do this when you shop online? I know I do. What makes my customers any different? They are just like you and me because we are all consumers.

When you start out, you gotta learn the ropes anyway. Take it slow and I'd start with a $2-3 dollar markup. Build up that inventory and fill the store with coupons from this guy. Remember, your free coupons are paying for your Cafepress markups anyway. There is a free coupon feed you can integrate into your shop. Do a Google search for "cafepress coupons" at any day or time to post up new ones. (new window)

Go on, give yourself a raise! You've earned it, 'ol boy or gal...

If you've been around for three or four years, I'd start going higher on the markups. Make sure your Internet presence is strong, though. As long as you are constantly advertising and promoting yourself, I'd go with a high markup tier on your products. Go fer it!

A $15 button or sticker?

Of course, I wouldn't do a $10 markup across the board. A product that is already $2 or $3 at cost is just not reasonable with such an extreme markup. The lower the cost on the product, I'd recommend choosing your markups by percentage. A $2.50 item should be commissioned at no more than 50%. Remember, (usually) these items at Cafepress are for that little "extra" to meet or beat that coupon that's burning a hole into their computer screens.

Oh, while I'm reminded of this - I personally would never pay over $5-$7 for a bumper sticker. Markup your commissions and look at the final selling price to your customers. Would you pay that? If you wouldn't, neither would your potential customer.

Adjust Accordingly

SUPER DUPER HOT TIP ON FIRE!!! Open up your Google Analytics accounts if you got 'em folks....90% of all large successful Cafepress stores reach at least 85% new visitors versus 15% repeat visitors. At least 5% of the repeat visitors are your competitors. Trust me...

My point? If most of your traffic is new visitors, most won't know it if you've made a change to your site or Cafepress store! Change your markups and give them at least 2 weeks. Check your saved email sale reports (if you got 'em). If not, enable email notifications of sales at Cafepress and save every one of them from now on. Now you can start seeing waves of your 85% new visitor reach and whether or not they will pay your price you've set. Sales will go down if they think you're too high.

If your sales slow down, go back, lower the markups a little and wait another few weeks. If you want solid results, wait an entire 45 day period from the 3rd day of any given month of the year.

I have no sales! I only make $10 a month! What gives?

Another possibility of zero or low sales is you are selling a product that just won't sell, low promotion, no advertising, or you just plain suck. Sorry, I have to be honest here!

I've made hundreds of designs that haven't sold at all before. I've made some that have only sold one in an entire year. It happens. It's what makes the world unique and different. One might think your design is crappy, but another peroson will absolutely adore it. Just don't take it personal! It's just business.

What do you do? You make a TON of options for them. Make a blue version, a red version, a blue with orange version, a PINK version for the ladies....give people options and make more designs! You're fishing your castnet of creativity and design in Cafepress's ocean of a marketplace. Maybe somebody will see your vision or humor.

I myself make some rather bizarre or twisted types of what I consider "humor". Call it dry, call it dark, call it what you want - it's KaptainMyke.

The rumor mill is spinning

I heard numbers. I've heard $12-15 markups, even as high as $25 per product! These guys are making some money! Lordy! they also got thousands and thousands of sections, grandfathered in from the recent Cafepress section limits on shops.

If you are a great designer or author, people will pay your price if they want it bad enough. Again, if I want something bad enough, I'll pay that extra dollar myself. So will your potential site visitor.

Be creative

A great and creative example of an extreme markup is the $100 Shirt at Cafepress. Does he sell any? If so, how many? Comment here if you read this, Mr. $100 T-Shirt Guy. I'd really like to know.

The sky's the limit with your imagination.

The SLOW SEASON

The dreaded slow periods of any luxury retail website that sells products (that we all don't really need) suffers from this period twice a year. When? After Christmas and after school's out.

Period one: January to April. Period two: May to July. Things start getting good when grade school and college returns every fall. Then, Christmas comes again!

It really IS the season to be Merry at Cafepress!

At Christmas I'd hike up any markup you got currently by $5 or more (at least!). People will pay anything during Christmas time. Why? I do, why wouldn't anybody else? Consider it your bonus for the year. Everyone typically has received some extra money during this holiday
season at any job. Albeit tips, wages, bonus checks, or "Jelly of the Month" club memberships.

Inflation's a B!7@%!

This is 2008. Gas is high, groceries are high, shipping costs are OUTRAGEOUS, contract work, services, etc., etc., LIFE - everything is going up in price.

Why don't you?

Blogging for Cash

2008-08-11T17:49:00.006-05:00

A good rule of thumb for making money on the Internet is a simple one. "If you are required to pay money up front, it probably is a scam". This rings true 90% of the time, I'm afraid. I've read it, and I've experienced it first hand.

Urban Legend Alert! A 16 year old high school sophomore buys first car with cash earned by blogging and taking surveys. While I have not seen absolute proof of this, there may be some truth to this recently started and wildly popular urban legend...

People get paid to take surveys on the Internet, all the time. And, successfully, too. However, most of the time it's a website that offers to sell you a list that contains companies that may or may not offer surveys. The real successful survey or secret shopper companies are the free ones, inside the stores you wish to survey or shop for. Don't be shy! Just ask somebody in customer service if they have a secret shopper or survey program. If they don't, they probably have a company they outsource. They'll tell you.

Get rich quick schemes or business ideas being sold on ebay are obvious paths of destruction if you don't set them up right. Ponzi schemes are the worst. It all implodes eventually, or when the new customers stop signing up. Unfortunately, a lot of people get stripped of their bank accounts with hopes and dreams to become the next self made millionaire. Try to get it for free first, if you can. Sadly, it's the selling of the information that make all the monies at the end of the day.

HOT TIP! Self made millionaires are usually by accident. Real success comes from the next proverbial "Pet Rock" or "Slinky". Society is bored too quickly, forgets and always is ready to move on to the next "thing". Wait 30 years and it's just called "nostalgia".

There are always exceptions.

Cafepress for example, is free - but you'll earn more by paying the $6.95 fee per month while running a premium shop. Technically, it's free if you sale at least one or two items a month. The fee pays for itself if you have a markup that earns you a return on investment (ROI). CPShop isn't free, but it guarantees you better SEO if you use it creatively as I and so many other shops have done. You have to pay Adwords if you want people to click on your ads, right? The list goes on and on...

Ebay charges fees for listing auctions. Obviously, your ROI is guaranteed as well - but only if you sell your item. You could pay an extra $19.95 to run a showcased gallery auction listing, too. This guarantees you at least 1-200 extra hits by visitors.

Best Intentions

I read and skim others blogs all the time. The ones with the photos of little Lola's first birthday are adorable. Blogs have now shifted from personal to business, like MySpace kinda did. People in Hollywood now throw out a Myspace URL instead of a business card. Sometimes, the business card is the Myspace page. It's nice to see a new trend with companies or entities becoming more personable to its potential buyers and readers by starting blogs now.

One thing important that I cannot stress enough is try to make money on your blog if you can. All you cafepress storekeepers out there still using the old "?pid=3041422" tag need to update your links to Commission Junction links from Cafepress's new affiliate program. If you are signed up with CJ, please update your links so your CJ checks get bigger in the mail. Anything even related to Cafepress at all should be updated with tracking links looking something like: "http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-2387222-10462227?sid=3041422&url=http://www.cafepress.com" , like mine.

Sign up for CJ if you haven't yet. You'll need to be approved (takes 1-2 days) and then you can generate your links via Cafepress's program. Look at my link...its custom with tracking, but it trails off ending with url=http://www.cafepress.com . To promote other shopkeepers, you'd just add a "\shopname\section#" after the trailing cafepress.com.

Here's the signup page to be a publisher through CJ: https://signup.cj.com/member/brandedPublisherSignUp.do?air_refmerchantid=1585594 .

HOT TIP! As a rule of thumb, you don't want to link to other people, products, or sites unless they are going to make you money. Unless they are putting your links on their sites as well (crosslinking).... It's considered wasted ad space, or the other guy gets your hits for free. Zazzle and PrintFection, and others to date don't really have a good affiliate tracking system yet. I say yet....because it just has to change soon. My reports aren't showing up to par with my "Zazzle Star" asterick mark after every url. http://www.zazzle.com/kaptainmyke* . But, they are currently making me money, so I promote them. Cafepress earns me more money, so I devote my 90% to them as my primary distributor.

Hey, this is America. Nothing's free.

HOT TIP! It's okay to give free information, but outweigh it with the money making links. Talk about anything you like! Start plugging in Amazon Associates links to keyword text in your paragraphs, too.... It is relatively easy to create links with their automated API. Signup today! http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join.

HOT TIP! Affiliate marketing is a lot like throwing out a big cast net in the Internet's creek or pond. Toss, pull, and see what you grab up when you check your reports at the end of the month. Note, I said month.

Nothing can take a full effect after a day, even 7 days. Wait at least a month before making any drastic changes. This can be applied in business, life, or website design. Sometimes, if you make too many changes at once, you really don't know what one thing made the biggest difference.

Passing on information to help others can and will reward yourself as well! - Especially in Affiliate Marketing.

Blogging is free. Sign up for free. Use the free tools in front of you. I repeat, the one thing important that I cannot stress enough is try to make money on your blog if you can. Use Ebay, Commission Junction, Amazon Associates , and anything else that is related to what you are writing or selling.

Read this article if you haven't yet - http://onemancorporation.blogspot.com/2008/07/commission-junction.html. I try to explain in detail some creative ways to market other people but you make money, too.

I just told you all this. For free.

Viral "Buzz" is Free.

2008-08-10T12:23:00.013-05:00

RE: RE: [FWD] OMG THIS ONE YOU HAVE TO READ OMG LOL!!!

Every morning I wake up, I get at least two emails forwarded from my neighbor. With him it's a hit and miss for me, because I've seen just about every forwarded Internet fad email since 1999. Remember the 2-story outhouse? How about the five versions with different signs for both floors? The phallic sand castle? WOO WOO Bubb Rubb guy? TubGirl? Goat.se? The one's that get me are the urban legends that get started and passed around...

It's Okay to Pee in Someone Else's Pool

So, every morning it's a 50% chance that I've seen it, and 50% chance it's not true. I already have Snopes.com open and ready to go before I click his emails... Then depending on the context
of said email, I'll go ahead and click "reply to all" to the fifty something people he spammed and bust the urban legend with a link to Snopes.com. I know, I'm terrible. How to people have time for this? People complain they can't pick up a phone because they're too busy, but they can read and contribute to this email? I almost forgot... Did you know it's not true that the water will turn purple if you pee in a chlorinated community public pool? Well, I'll be!

Oh, It's Magic

As a whole, society has been on high alert of these forwarded and spam junk emails. We've evolved so fast with cell phones, blackberries, palm pilots, and all that etc., etc... This makes it even harder to get through the beaded curtain of someone's inbox. Okay, so what if you are a businessman who really, actually, positively has the next greatest thing to show others via email? You have no doubt in your mind, that what you have to say or sell is very important. You must forward it to others. So how are you going to do that when it's hard to convince people to click that magical "open" or "read" button?

HOT TIP! Your best friend will read any email you send to them. So why don't you start with your best friend? Your friend knows other people you don't know. You know people your friend doesn't know. It happens, that's why there's billions of people on this planet.

My best friend comes over to my house with an empty pickle jar. He asks for some well water and he fills it up. He pulls out the lid from his backpack with a computer part shoved inside with 2 wires hanging out. He plugs it into a surge protector out in my shed without warning. The jar starts making the water turn white and little bubbles started forming. I said, "Woah! Hey! Don't set my shed on fire, Beakman! What the hell are you doing?!" To which he places an airtight straw through a rubber grommet in the lid and attaches a balloon. The balloon starts airing up. "I just created hydrogen, dude. My class at school is working on a project and this is it."

Um, what?

A week later I stumbled upon some ebay auctions about similar items, and this ebook. Coincidental? I emailed that same friend about it and he said "yeah, the technology is there, and the Internet is now helping others spread the knowledge out there". He's a conspiracy nut with that story about a man who disappeared in the early 1900s who had a pending patent on a water powered engine. Insert obligatory X-Files whistle.

So ANYWAYS...

If somebody you don't know at all sends you an email entitled, "my car is now running on water"...pfft., "So?". If your best friend just sent you an email with the exact same subject line...you're going to read it and see what they are talking about, right? They just heard about a hot new product that is installed under the hood and now they are getting 70 mpg instead of 15 mpg. For real? How's it work? We gotta tell others! You now send it to your Dad, or your boss...it starts spreading like a new trojan horse virus written last night. So now my Dad and Larry have this contraption underneath Nana's sweet Cadillic Deville.

HOT TIP! Apply this to an email you really want to get out there. It's a trick on the analytical thinking of a forwarded email. If the author promotes himself, eh so, what? If somebody else is excited about someone's work and virally passes it along...it's more effective.

Oh yeah, I still don't know if this thing works or not. I need to call my father. I"ll give you guys an update when I hear something. See, I'm talking about a product I don't even know about... but it gauged my interest because my buddy already came over showing me a peice of it from his university study group.

The same trick was applied to some of you subscribers reading this blog. I have a few email relationships with competiting Cafepress shopkeepers. I started talking one day to a really cool awesome tee shirt site owner via Google Mail asking if they'd be interested in a blog such as this one. I just figured 3 years ago I could have used an information source to help get me started. I sort of fell into what has become of now. If I can help bypass hurdles, obstacles, and potholes along the way for a brand new Cafepress store being opened...then I accomplished what I set out to do.

http://creativegumption.blogspot.com/2008/08/one-man-corporation-blog-to-bookmark.html

You know it's good marketing when I hear about something because a friend told me about it.

I mean, isn't that the most trusted source? "I heard it from a friend."
Well, Mike from The One Man Corporation got it right when he sent out an email to his competitors (other Cafepress shopkeepers) teasing us with some valuable information and an invitation to forward it to more friends. And so, a friend forwarded it to me.
It worked. I got the email and actually didn't delete it! That's a feat in itself. I hate forwards. I always delete them. But, hey, if the first few lines grab my attention, I'll read on.
So check him out. I'm going to add his blog to the sidebar here for future reference. He's got some great tips on making money from home, valuable resources, and insight that can only be learned from experience. After all, he does work from home. And he's sharing his experiences for everyone to benefit from.

I've personally started building better relationships with competitors just by using this technique. This works in a world where all competitors rely on the same distributor for their product. Everyone else needs to stay in business, too, right? If your boss is doing better and the company is becoming more successful, the money is there to start getting a raise. If you suck, you contribute to a sucking company, profits drop, the boss says he can't give you a raise because the company is doing sucky, because the employees suck, which means he's sucking at being a good boss...it's a viscious cycle, isn't it?

Same thing...if your distributor or "boss" like Commission Junction, Ebay, Amazon, Cafepress, ie., WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING OR SELLING, is getting more sales and revenues, then your sales and revenues will go up as well. In the affiliate business, if you help others, then you reap the benefits and rewards, too. It's a give/give relationship on the Internet.

You got a great idea and want to get it out there? For free? Start with your friends and family. You don't have any friends? Stop being a jerk and get some! Simple.

Be that Ying to other's Yang. Yeah, I said it.

Trends in Advertising

2008-08-07T22:07:00.003-05:00

Ever popped in your favorite VHS tape from your movie collection at home? Sure, we all have. Then you suddenly think to yourself, "Wow! Look at those clothes and hair! What were were thinking then?" Funny, nobody thought that...at that time. Everything that is a part of our culture evolves. This especially affects business, fashion, technology, food, or any service. The world moves with waves and changes...even in advertising. Let's reflect on a brief history with a few points I'd like to bring up and cover...

War and Protest

The fifties were a nation about being patriotic, and worried of being blown to mushroom clouds. War posters and magazine ads were simple and to the point about everything. Things were just starting to get good. Aw, hell... I'm too young, I don't care to start with the fifties, sorry. Check your local library or Amazon.

Do I see a Pattern?

The sixties were their of own era. Most of the people worth talking to that were a part of the sixties do not truly remember the sixties. Advertising methods were all about distorted wavy text, peace signs and bright pretty colorful flowers. Patterns on everything was hot and very much in style then. There were patterns on dresses, wallpapers and flooring of the typical American home. Kitchen appliances were cream or white. The color television was starting to appear in certain corners of neighborhoods. Patterns were all over concert posters, festivals, books and magazines. Car magazine ads were simpler, yet effective in getting the message across while advetising their $1,800 car. There were no concerns of drugs, gas prices, or safety issues then.

Wood Panelling

Then, the seventies came rockin' in. This era was more about clearing the fog of the sixties. Really cool things starting happening then. Color TV was more popular and affordable, music was thriving, people were getting treated with a little more equality. Everything was bright, colorful, and very much in your face. Patterns evolved more into floral patterns. Wood panelling came around and soon everything was wood panelled. Walls, furniture, home electronics, TV sets, even cars - were wood panel. Kitchen appliances were now yellow, and pastels were huge. Again, car magazine ads were simpler. Cigarette and liquor magazine ads were a huge business, mostly consisting of the rugged rocky mountain cowboy man or a contemporary casual business man/woman. In my opinion, the seventies were bland when it came to advertising or reaching out to a target audience.

Silver and Black

The eighties were a fast paced businessman's world. Computers and technology started to appear in the home. Everything was digitized, electronic, or techno-esque to look more "state of the art" and advanced. Wood paneling was now being mixed with black. Kitchen appliances were white or black. People were trying new things, new companies were developing, everyone was trying to catch up to each other. Beepers and cell phones appeared and put us all closer together, yet so far away. Sony and Nintendo came around the block soon afterwards. This started keeping rich eighties kids indoors more often, and paler. Coke ad campaigns and Max Headroom will sadly be missed by some of us. Only hackers like Matthew Broderick were using The Internets at this time, so online advertising wasn't ready yet. IBM and the PC was leaping ahead of a little guy named Apple, who didn't advertise enough in the eighties. As a farewell to advertising a failed spokesperson, Jack in the Box blew up Jack.

We don't even know

Somebody decided that we should just take the last 30 years and mix it all up in a big jumbo bag of culture vomit... and so the nineties were born. The nineties were a period of people trying to
figure out their own unique thing. Company mergers were splitting up from the eighties due to the economy frowning upon monopolies in business. Cell phone companies were born left and right. The advertising methods sometimes attacked each others technologies, plans, and coverage areas. A new form of advertising in the early nineties was realistic computer generated bus wrapping ads. Crystal Pepsi was the first wrapped ad around a bus. The Internet really took off in the late 90s and changed the world in a way we'd never seen before. In 1995, Ebay was born and changed the way we sold anything on the Internet, even to this day... Napster is born out of a Boston University by Shawn Fanning. A world of peer-to-peer file sharing explodes, with advertising and banners from within the "free" services running like a virus across the world's web.

I still miss Pee Wee's Playhouse and Crystal Pepsi. Anybody in the computer industry was cashing in on "Y2K Proofing" of your American Home PC. In a pre-Geek Squad era, the little man was making more money than the yet to be invented corporate computer fixer upper giant...

Old is New

The millenium was all about us shutting off or blowing up because of that Y2K thing going around. Nothing happened, so instead we had to make up for the anticipated investments of our society. Things started getting expensive and overpriced from here on out. People no longer paid $40 to install a CDROM in their computer. They'd rather go to the corporate computer store giant and pay $200.

In other news, one word: Enron.

Vince McMahon starts the XFL to reinvent the NFL and we all try to forget, including him. The XFL was a professional American football league that played for one season in 2001. The league was founded by Vince McMahon, better known as the owner of the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment). The XFL was intended to be a major professional sports league complement to the offseason of the NFL, but failed to find an audience and folded after its first season. This is another example of a great promoter and producer, but lack of need or want to reinvent the wheel.

The Here and Now

Today, everything is all about reflecting on the past. Advertising has evolved into everything we do or say. Everything is all about vintage, old, worn down, or roughed up. Car manufacturers billboard ads have taken the eighties road, reverting back to simplicity with bright colors and stripes to get your attention while you drive your $2,500 car. Car magazine ads took a 180 degree turn instead and used computers to show all the pretty gadgets and gizmos under and inside the cars they sell for $50,000. Companies once again started merging again and beating out the little guy. AT&T, Barnes & Noble, Geek Squad, Starbucks, Dell, and other large conglomerants once again dominate the consumer markets. I guess they didn't pay attention to the eighties as much for that one. Jack in the Box brings back Jack, and is successful. Apple reinvents the computer, the walkman, and the phone - all in one decade. We'll see if history repeats itself as it always does. Again.

Vince McMahon buys every wrestling entity and becomes one big wrestling conglomerate. Probably one of the best promoters and film producers to date, whether you love or hate wrestling, Vincent Kennedy McMahon does his job and does it well. This man makes millions,
even billions selling hot WWE merchandise related to DVDs, toys, clothing, and tickets to sold out shows worldwide.

Video games and gaming brought new life into advertising again. Coca-Cola and online gambling giant Bodog ran ads that were appearing within video games such as Grand Theft Auto series
and more. In the future, look forward to real-time, rotating ads in games that future gamers will play. Google's next ad frontier may be inside videogames at the Wall Street Journal shows reports that Google is in talks with Adscape Media.

Napster came back, this time legal, legit, and 100% free from scandal...with a 7 day trial for unlimited downloading. (Which is a great service, by the way.) Competitors such as Limewire catch on and do the same thing, with advertisements built in. However, many users still opted to use their old free downloaded and out of date executable...still downloading illegally for free all day and all night. Just be sure to not upgrade, and log off when you're done, right?

"The world's an imperfect place. Screws fall out all the time..."
-Judd Nelson, The Breakfast Club

Please enter your account number, again.

The world is getting too fast now. We need to slow down. Databases are running together. My father and I have the same first name, but not middle name. I am not a junior. However, sometimes our credit and bill collector calls seem to run together. This is good for one of us, and bad for the other. That's just an immediate example how our society is getting lost with one another. You call customer support, but most likely you're going to talk to somebody overseas. Hey I'm not knocking anybody oversears, they need a job and to have to work, too.

One thing now that's important is "100% customer satisfaction" and a human responding to an email or telephone call. When you campaign or advertise, try to throw in somehow that you are
still around for them when they need it. Many people still think it's important to support customer support. I'd rather help out a local businessman than an corporate giant, or an outsourced company, wouldn't you? You'd rather get hired by an employer than a temp agency recruiter, right? Anybody looking for a job in 2008 knows this problem. You fill out a million forms with your past employment history, sign up with hundreds of recruiter agencies, when really it'd be much simpler to just email the damn resume straight to the employer. Suddenly, your SPAM folder just exploded into your inbox. Better get Panda Antivirus and Security or AVG Free Edition... Crap.

What does all this mean?

You have to pay attention, everywhere. Look around you when you leave the house. Look at colors, shadows, styles. What is going on behind the ad you are studying? Billboards, bus ads, magazine ads, taxi cab ads, web site ads...they all start to run togther now, don't they? Everything looks old, vintage, and "stylish". Even television and commercials are doing the "film scratch" technique, to give a vintage feel to film. This was borrowed from genius filmmakers who in the past five to ten years have pioneered that in their horror films.

Sometimes, being original and looking to the past can propel you forward into a very successful marketing and advertising campaign. Just remember, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. YouTube, Adwords, and MySpace have been used as very succesful marketing vehicles for the creative artistic individual. If you sell tee shirts, are a musician, an ebook writer, or anything related to a creative side - you might want to revisit these avenues for you and your business.

Pick your favorite colors, and pick a time period. Theme it the way you like, but stay simple. Rough it up a little, and remind people that you are there for them 100%. Now go to it, get out there and advertise! Here's some advertising books for you to check out and read over. You have many more options to choose from in this day and age than our past competitors ever
could or would have.

KISS

Keep It Simple Stupid

GoogleBase Your Products... Now.

2008-08-05T10:46:00.013-05:00

Let's be friends, Google!

Another free service from Google is GoogleBase. You don't even need a website to list your products. If you have hundreds, even thousands of products to sell, you may do so by uploading a spreadsheet from excel. For the more advanced programmer, you can utilize the API built in from your website to Google's servers. You can learn more about it, and with documented help from Google by clicking on this link here.

You will need to do this procedure once a month, every month, every 30 days. I repeat, keep it up and make this a regular monthly "chore" for your business or products you are selling.

From the website:

Product Search connects your products to the shoppers searching for them, helping you drive traffic and sales to your store. Your products will appear on Google Product Search and may even be displayed on Google.com, depending on your items' relevance.

Using Cafepress and Googlebase Together

Those of you who are selling books, gifts, or other products such as tee shirts at Cafepress - listen up carefully. There are a variety of tricks you can do to get your products listed quickly and effectively on GoogleBase...

There is a free tool you can use called CafeToolbox. This is a service written and maintained by a Cafepress shopkeeper, so support him and donate via Paypal if you are a fellow shopkeeper using his tools. If you do not have a Paypal account (it's free), you can still support him by purchasing a product from his official store, CafeToolbox. Create an account (also, free) and plug in your Cafepress store details. Depending on the size of your shop, it will create a downloadable file you can send to GoogleBase.

Large Cafepress Stores

If you are a large store, you will most likely hiccup the CafeToolbox web server, and have a 20 MB text file to download, such as myself. GoogleBase starts running into problems when you upload a file greater than 6-7mb. I do a little playing around in excel and notepad to split my file into 2 smaller files.

Personally, I'll tell you what I do, and maybe this can give you some ideas of your own. This is a really big secret I don't think others have tried out besides me. I haven't seen anyone else do this method yet...

I am a Foxpro programmer. Anybody heard of that? It's an ancient archaeic programming language Microsoft used in the early 80s. I became proficient in it by learning and coding a bill collection agency's database that was written in FoxPro 2.6. This language is so old and ancient that nobody uses it anymore...except me.

Keep in mind, you have to know a little bit about rows, columns, excel, and some programming to do this trick. This is a really ugly and nasty way to do this.... Maybe you personally know Visual Basic, or Visual Studio, C+, Visual FoxPro, or even MYSQL... In theory, you could import everything into an online MYSQL databse and inject your code or strings using the following methods....

SUPER DUPER HOT MEGA TIP! First I download my 20mb text file file from CafeToolbox. I then put it in an incoming directory on my computer and run a program I wrote. It imports the file into these columns and rows, much like MS Excel. I figured out a way to go back and rename key products to give more search engine spotlight. For example, all my Callahan Auto Parts tee shirts are sucked out, renamed to "Tommy Boy Movie Callahan Auto Parts Tee Shirt" . The renamed products are injected right back where they were inside this comma delimited text file.... This program looks for certain strings and I wrote logic that renames and adds the corresponding movie or tv show's name - and affix it to the prefix of each product name. Brilliant, no? It is, especially when you have to go back and rename 32,000 products! Here's an exact string from my code: replace all title with "Seinfeld tv series "+title for title="Jackie Chiles ". There is a field named "title" and my string searches for text I ask for. There's hundreds of better ways to do this, but I've been trucking along ever since and have been too lazy to write a better program. As I make a new design, I go back into that program and add it's new movie or tv product, and what I'd rename it to...

The Name of the Game is to Rename

HOT TIP! I rename my products for search engines to find me better, outside the Cafepress engine. You can apply this technique so you can be more descriptive in the titles of the products. Why? Because sometimes Cafepress fields for product titles aren't long enough. What if you have a "Official Super Duper Awesome Product With a Really Long but Necessary Title" Dark Blue Short Sleeved Tee Shirt? Is all that text going to fit in the Cafepress word box when you are creating your product? Exactly.

After my crude renaming program runs, it counts all the records, divides in 2, and copies out 2 split up files for me. I then log into my GoogleBase account and upload my 2 files, kmyke2.txt and kmyke3.txt. I now have my 32,000 products renamed with my own titles, in 2 smaller txt files. Within hours my thousands of products are listed for free at GoogleBase.

You Mean There's Other Search Engines?

HOT TIP! Next, put it over at MSN Live Product Search, for free. Again, CafeToolbox has a MSN product file creator as well. However, I do not modify that file. I immediately download and then upload to MSN. For some reason, my crude programming techniques corrupt the file for MSN and Mr. Gates doesn't like my file. So, eh., oh well, click, send, upload. Google's nicer to me than MSN anyways.

Did you take my previous advice, fellow Cafepress shopkeeper? Did you also get a PrintFection account? Again, CafeToolbox has a PrintFection tool generator. (This guy's awesome, donate to him, please.) For that one, I have a modified FoxPro program again, this time conforming to PrintFection file layouts for GoogleBase. I rename those products and spit out a modified PF file for GoogleBase.

HOT TIP! Wait a minute here, you can't have but one website profile per GoogleBase account. I know! My GoogleBase account for my Cafepress files are with my KaptainMyke (at) Gmail account. I signed up for another account at GoogleBase and set up another website profile for my PrintFection store, called KaptainMyke2 (at) Gmail.com. Sign in, upload the PF file, log
out - log back into my primary gmail account.

All of these techniques invole a little understanding of excel, text files, some programming and understanding file layouts. If you know Foxpro, Basic, or any flavor of MySQL, and are into the Cafepress way of making money...then hopefully I just gave you a brainstorm. ;-)

No Website? No Problem

HOT TIP! If you don't use the advanced techniques I covered, you can still go to CafeToolbox, download your Cafepress file, then upload it at GoogleBase for free, without even owning your own web site.

HOT TIP! If you are a large store, and don't understand the tips I covered, open your 6-20mb text file in wordpad and go somewhere in the middle of the file and CUT half the file out and PASTE into a new wordpad document and save as 2 seperate smaller text files. Be sure to keep your formatting and word wrap OFF. Don't touch or do anything else. I mean it! Another alternative is to create an FTP account and upload your files via secure FTP protocol.

HOT TIP! Use Adwords and drive traffic to your products posted at GoogleBase.

HOT TIP! CafeToolbox has tools for MSN Live, iOffer, Yahoo, and Google. Get to it! Go, sell then, now!

Conclusion

HOT TIP! This article covered using Cafepress and GoogleBase together. You can use GoogleBase and list any products you have to sell. These tips and tactics were for large stores, large numbers of products you are trying to sell, and sales with a high volume. If you are much smaller, your methods will be simpler and easier with fewer products to deal with.

You can use GoogleBase to sell and use the file uploads by using APIs from almost anyone, such as Ebay or any other website. Most likely, each third party company will have their own API generators so you can develop custom links that work between you and whatever your business needs. Use Google Checkout as another alternative for increasing online sales.

Happy uploading! Good luck to the webmaster and creator of CafeToolbox. I speak for most of us currently using your tools when I say, "We hope you reach your goal, and keep it up!" Thanks!

More information can be found by going directly to the official website, CafeToolBox.com.

The Potential of Cafepress and You

2008-08-02T08:58:00.007-05:00

Know Your Competitors

McDonald's watches over Burger King, Jack in the Box, and Wendy's, right? The shops that I have my eyes on have been CultClassicTs, FlippinSweetGear, BurnTees, Detour Designables, Media Tees, Shirtees.Net, SpeakUp Designs , Barry's World, KA Designs, and ShirtVille. I'm sure these guys make a decent earning per month. I have no idea, but Juan can't help but assume.

Earning at Cafepress

During spring and middle of summer, i.e., slow season, I sell anywhere from 10-15 products per day at Cafepress. During Christmas season last year, there were periods where I sold over 65 t-shirts a day at Cafepress. Christmas makes 65% of my entire year's sales, it's funny... When I do payroll in March each year for myself from my corporation, it's amazing to see a year to date (YTD) earnings over $20-25k. Little do most know after that, the sales slow down - so your adjusted year to date (YTD) income is slanted.

The Flow of Cafepress products

A luxury item such as t-shirts aren't as important suddenly after college tuition fees, groceries and GA$... How about the maxed out credit card bills from Christmas? Sales pick up of course, during the tax refund season of May-June...For only those 2 months. School's out for summer, people are at the beach and tanning, not in front of a computer. Sales pick up again before school, usually good around August and start of September. This applies to most products that aren't a necessity in life. Sure, clothing is a necessity, but marked-up clothing with custom graphics aren't.

The rude/crude/violent themed t-shirts and products won't and don't sell as much, because their products are banned from little Johnny's elementary school. Capeshe?

$50k in net commission sales at Cafepress is a long reach, but I won't say it's impossible. Remember, what matters most of any business is the bottom line. It's not just Cafepress that gives me a check. You have to use everything together, as one happy family. Amazon , Adbrite , Paypal, Ebay , Ebay Partner Network , Cafepress, Commission Junction , ClickBank, PrintFection , Zazzle ..... bottom line figures can reach you to whatever limit you set as your projected goal. You, as a business man should make and set goals for you to follow. It's the best way to get to them....I'll have articles about all of those topics. Soon... I'm just a one man corporation, remember? ;-)

It costs money to make money.

If you spend $900 a month on Google Adwords, and it returns you an extra $2,000 in net sales, that's worth it, right? Google Adwords can make fortunes or destroy them. I personally lost $350 in one day for poor Google Adwords keywords and budget settings 'ala Commission Junction links. Be careful with your keywords. Very careful...

TIP! What also matters, especially for luxury items, you need to set ad scheduling Monday-Friday, 8am to 11pm so you don't waste money. Go looser on the weekends, or preferably, not at all, since people are out and about shopping or whatnot. When you're working from home, the world's quieter and different Monday through Friday. This is because everyone's at college or
work...most likely, on a computer.

TIP! Don't max out the Google Adwords during the slow seasons of luxury items for sale on the Internet. You can't polish a terd. If people aren't buying, damnit, they're not going to buy, okay? It's not your fault, it's George Bush and the economy's fault. Use your guns during Christmas. Consider it your bonus for the year from Santa Claus.

Never kiss and tell.

I've been asked numerous times how much I make each month. Have you ever asked a woman how much she weighs? You'll get the same reply from several businessmen.

A prude and polite businessman does not disclose figures if he doesn't have to. You typically don't want to disclose your sales figures to competitors. This is because it's already on public display how your competitor markets him or herself. By checking up on your competition, you have an idea of what they make by doing what they do. Corporations are private companies, and do not have to disclose gross sales or figures. If a company is public, and trading on the open market, they are required by law to release such accounting and paperwork to the general public record.

That and, the entire focus on this blog is to teach you to reach your arms out farther and dig deeper into the Internet's coinpurse. Using everything together gives you a bottom line figure that reaches closer to the projected sales goal you set.

I really feel confident these tips and tricks that I will be covering over the next few months (as we gear into Christmas soon) are going to help a lot of others out. The advice I give doesn't just apply to Cafepress. You can use these tactics for anything related to selling products online that aren't a necessity, like toilet paper or gasoline. You have to work harder to sell products people don't need.

The Commission Junction Class Action Lawsuit

2008-08-02T08:49:00.004-05:00

Class Action Lawsuit

Carrier v. ValueClick, Inc., et al.

No. 2:07-cv-02641-FMC-CTx (C.D. Cal.)

Settlement Recovery Center et al. v. ValueClick, Inc. et al.

No. 2:07-cv-02638-FMC-CTx (C.D. Cal.)

Those of you who are current Commission Junction publishers should check your reports a little more in detail. Apparently, as of this morning, word has gotten out that hijackers and hackers have been stealing publisher's commissions by use of 3rd party software scripting. The interesting twist in this story is that Commission Junction has been looking the other way while it's been happening over the last five years. What does this mean to you? Commission Junction might owe you a settlement offer.

Who does this affect directly?

If you signed up as a publisher with Commission Junction between April 20, 2003 and July 22, 2008, and were publishing ads on any website, you may be entitled.

Great, now what?

My opinion on the subject is this: Well, that sucks, but what can ya do? I guess the silver lining on this cloud is that it's nice to know that I was making possibly even more than my reports and checks have been in the mail. It can only go up from here, right? The major concern I have is that Commission Junction will recover, and everybody gets back to doing what they do.

On a business standpoint, I highly doubt Commission Junction will fall from this blunder. They are way too big and support millions of advertisers daily, worldwide. The settlement is a slap on the wrist, warning them, "Hey. Hey? Come on, now. Heeeeey."

Nothing Personal; It's Just Business

It's somewhat similar to the Class Action Lawsuit filed against Netflix in September of 2004. Some guy thought Netflix promised him unlimited DVDs for a low montly fee, and thought he could get them all in one-day shipping. It was a complete technicality that Frank Chavez was trying to capitalize off of. As a subscriber of Netflix, I opted out and asked for nothing. What do I care? I been renting videos from them since 2002. I watch a movie, and send it back. Why do I want a peice of their pie? Netflix learned hard that contracts can be very literal, and has been doing business fine since.

Apples to Oranges

I realize, of course, this situation with Commission Junction is very different. A global entity looking the other way when unethical business practices are taking place is quite different from one man trying to pinch off someone else's pie. This is Corporate America! Welcome to scandals, corruption, and greed! Weed out the bad apples, and sell the good ones.

For more details, you may go to the official website concerning this class
action lawsuit: http://www.cjsettlement.com/

Making money with Cafepress and other Print on Demand Services

2008-08-01T11:07:00.013-05:00

Getting Started with Cafepress

A variety of services on the Internet involve "Print on Demand". Print on Demand is a technique that involves using a machine that presses a design or word onto a product with heat transfer, such as a tee shirt, mousepad, calendar, wall clock, mug, hat, sticker, poster, or anything else your heart desires. Print on Demand (POD) is another common term used for digital printing.

There are a vast selection of websites out there that offer this service. Some require a minimum order, which can be costly. I'm going to recommend three of the best sites that offer this service for free. You get to place your own creative masterpeices in their marketplaces and sell for a profit. After a 45 day customary holding period for commissions, you get a check in the mailbox.

Don't worry, the 45 day hold on your hard earned commission check is due to possibilities such as: credit card declined, a return, an exchange, a misprint. This is common for these types of services.

For those of you with limited creative talent and can't draw a stick figure if you tried, you still can make money by selling other people's products. You must have some sort of understanding of HTML and tracking codes for reporting. I'll explain those techniques later.

The first Print on Demand service website that I highly recommend the most to anybody out there is Cafepress.com.

My primary business source of income, KaptainMyke.com, is distributed by Cafepress. A privately owned company, Cafepress has been around for quite some time now, since 1999. I opened my first cafepress store in May of 2005. It started out as a free store, limiting you to just one design across many products. This limitation also includes no customization or anything beyond the free template supplied for your store.

TIP! Free stores can bring in anywhere from $20-50 a month if you are a good designer and offer tee shirts that people want.

SUPER HOT TIP! Stay away from categories that are too popular and overcrowded. I would avoid these categories: Religion, Pets, Holidays, and Cars. Why? There's too many designs, that's why!

You want to find a niche, a topic that not many people have products for, but something people are searching for like crazy. You're probably now thinking, "Okay, then what niche should I do?" That's the part where your brain comes in. You have to find your niche. Look around Cafepress and see who's the most popular shops, and why. This doesn't mean do what they are doing, this means do something like what they are doing.

Niches

While on that subject, the tee shirt business can be stressful and competitive. Others will always use your ideas and either spinoff another shirt from it, or blatently take your idea. It happens, and you just have to accept it sometimes. To combat some of that from happening, Cafepress has made its affiliate program, so others can still profit from the same ideas - equally.

KaptainMyke.com has released some of the most original, and unique ideas to the movie/television related genre of tee shirts. Some people, even licensed, official tshirt companies, have had movie studios (like Universal Studios) shut down our products due to copyright infringement and produced their own licensed official copies of our ideas. It happens. Some of our tee shirt designs were the first ever, from forgotten 80s movies and tv shows. I know, because I did my research. Surprisingly, waves of variations of the same movies and shows started appearing across the Internet. You can't point your finger to others saying they took your idea, especially if you are in the movie/tv related quotes genre, since you get the idea from said movie or tv show that actually owns the idea in the first place!

Doing fan shirts by fans for fans can be a tricky business to deal with. You have to be careful and know when to back down when dealing with copyrights. Some studios allow it. For example, the 1980 release of Flash Gordon had underground unofficial tee shirts swarming the streets and media. Everyone was free to make "Gordon's Alive?" shirts in order to push and promote the movie's release. The same thing happened yet again, this time in 2006 with the power of the Internet - Snakes on a Plane, the movie. Cafepress partnered with Snakes on a Plane and New Line Cinema and allowed fans to make SoaP fan merchandise, as long as you didn't feature a face or actual images from the film. The name of the movie itself created widespread promotion, like a virus across the web. Cafepress storeowners, including myself, made a decent income during that season of the movie's theatrical release.

Viral fan base is what makes our pop culture so vibrant and different. After all, if it wasn't for the fans, nobody would buy the movies and tv programs on DVD, right? We as a modern society should believe in spreading the love of American cinema by making fan merchandise inspired by pop culture, movies, and television. Support your favorite movies and television shows by reminding others in society of them! Someone walks up to you and asks, "Where is that from? What is that? It looks familiar to me." Mention the movie or tv show it's from and that person walks away thinking, "OH Yeah! Now I remember!"

Most likely, that person will go rent or buy the film. It works. Sometimes movie studios and television studios do not agree.

So what do you do? Keep designing, keep coming up with new ideas and stay ahead of the competitors! Tread lightly. Stay under the lawyer's and studio's radar, follow their rules and accept that sometimes studios don't agree with viral marketing techniques in order to further promote their movies, toys, games, dvds, and related streams of income for them. It takes convincing to let the studios realize they ultimately make the extra profits as well, sometimes way above the "little man's cafepress shop". -Wink.

Back to basics

At Cafepress, for $6.95 a month you can upgrade to premium shop status, with multiple sections and design choices. After you start making money, the monthly fee is paid for itself and you forget there is even a fee.

HOT TIP! One of the biggest recommendations to trying this program out is by getting a domain name, and setup hosting for it. This is because you are going to want to do way more than anybody else with your cafepress store. With it you can have custom graphics, rich, vibrant flash panels, your own templates, your own links and promotional methods...the list goes on and on. Remember the old saying, "You get what you put into it"? It rings 1000% true with Cafepress. If you know a little something about web design and photoshop - you are going to be very, very successful with Cafepress.

HOT TIP! With your own brand new domain name and webspace, you have to get CPShop. You must, must, must get it! Again, I am clearly telling you in blue and white: If you want to make serious money with Cafepress, you must get CPShop. I honestly don't think I could have been near as successful without it. 100% total customization of your scripts and pages. You can add in your own keywords, descriptions, custom shopping carts, and even sell other people's products by making seperate store ids. The fee is $19.77 to get the script. The scripts are easy to understand, and there is a support forum for help. Marty, the creator and site administrator, will help you and even log into your hosting panel to get you up and running. This man has went above and beyond getting other members setup, such as myself. Thanks, Marty! For $15 Marty will even install it for you on your own website.

HOT TIP! Also, for search engines sake, try and make your domain name say exactly what you are selling. If you are selling tee shirts about the sixties hippy culture, make your domain be something like: hippylandshirtco.com or teesfromthe60s.com. This makes you top spot on Google or Yahoo, no matter what.

I did not take this route myself, in setting up KaptainMyke.com. Learn from my mistake. Why didn't I do that? That's because my domain (kaptainmyke.com) started off as a photoshop forum in 2002. We would have photoshop wars against the site admins and owners of 2gnt.com, a car forum community. (hi, Dino!) I formed my company, moved the forum to that site, and because KaptainMyke.com had unbelievable page ranks (at that time, mind you) - I turned that domain
name into my tee shirt company. The rest was up to me, so I got lucky keeping traffic during the switchover of sites.

SUPER DUPER HOT TIP #1 ! The biggest secret to search engine ranking is STAY UPDATED. If you keep doing updates to pages weekly, no wait - daily, hourly, whatever, and offer very descriptive titles, links, and texts...you are going to soar above the SEO clients that pay thousands of dollars a month for search engine ranks.

SUPER DUPER HOT TIP #2 ! If you are selling a red tee shirt about a flying monkey doing handstands while holding a baby doing the macarena, you better make sure your link and page title are aptly named, "Flying Monkey Handstand Macarena Baby Dark Red Medium Ringer Tee Shirt". It's such a pain in the butt to go back and rename each product at cafepress, but DO IT. Spending that extra hour retyping exact descriptives of your product at Cafepress will make Google and Yahoo find you better, faster...and at page 1 on search results.

But I can't design or draw a stick figure! What am I supposed to do with Cafepress?

Sell other people's products! Cafepress now uses Commission Junction. I have written an article on getting setup with CJ. You may read all about it here. The commissions will start small, as it did for me. After 6 months into the program, you can earn a decent check every month just by selling other's products from Cafepress. You'll have to figure out what works best for you by promoting and marketing products effectively.

TIP! Start a Blog, or a Squidoo Lens, or even a Myspace Page about something and start plugging in people's tee shirt designs with links wrapping through Commission Junction to the marketplace or products at Cafepress. It's easy! 16 year old kids are buying their first car just by blogging all day in their room after school! It costs nothing to start a blog, myspace page, or a squidoo lens, so get on it!

Are you a good writer? Publish Books with Cafepress and sell them.

Cafepress has an inhouse book publishing department. There are no setup fees, black and white books with full page color covers. You can choose from Saddle Stitch, Wire-O or Perfect Bound binding options. There are 5 book sizes to chose from. Pricing includes book production, order management, fulfillment and customer service. You choose the retail price and earn the difference between the retail price and our base price. At $.45 cents a page that is a reasonable rate. You set your markup and make a commission off every book sold.

TIP! If you are a good writer, and you have a major selling book at Cafepress, other people will sell your book for you using the Commission Junction program from this article I mentioned before.

TIP! Recently, Cafepress has changed their volume bonus structure and affiliate percentiles. You now make full commission off affiliate driven sales. This means that when others sell your product for you, you now make 100% commission instead of sharing 15% from the affiliate!

Printfection and Zazzle

There are several print on demand websites found on the Internet. (Google, new window)

HOT TIP! Other "Print on Demand" Services I use are: PrintFection and Zazzle . I receive checks in the mailbox once a month from those two and Cafepress. It costs nothing to get started with any of those 3 companies. Zazzle is backed by Google partners and investors. Printfection is a newer player in the market as well as Zazzle, both providing state of the art printing techniques. Over the past 2 years I have tried to slowly migrate designs from one to another. I started that by accident, with the intentions of contingency, in case Cafepress ever went bankrupt or out of business. What ensued instead was two additional, smaller paychecks in the mail from home. ( edited )

Design Shoes

SUPER HOT TIP! Do you love shoes? Maybe if you can't design or draw, you can be a shoe designer? Zazzle.com has started shoes! As of August 1st, 2008, Zazzle has partnered with Keds Shoes. You can now design your own women's and kids tennis shoes or slip on shoes. KaptainMyke.com will be introducing the a fresh line of eighties (80's) themed Keds slip-ons and sneakers. A launch date for the new KaptainMyke Keds (KMKeds) is currently not available yet as of the date & time of this article.

Conclusion

This article primarily is to introduce to you the world of print on demand services available online. There are many ways you can be successful, but it starts with you dedicating serious time and effort into these programs. For the past three years I have literally made this an 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday job everyday in front of the computer. I'm not rich, but I can pay my bills and business expenses. The rest of life such as gas prices, diapers, baby food, electric bills and groceries are yet another story. Your success will show if you can devote the time and discipline.

Domain Name Registration

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If you want to do more with the Internet, you're going to need your own little corner on the Internet. It starts with getting your own domain name. Most people by now have heard of GoDaddy. Here you can register your own domain name for less than $9.99 a year.

TIP! For the novice who doesn't know anything at all about HTML or designing webpages, you can register a domain and forward it to your blog or free webpage.

For example, my corporate website is Broke-Off.com. Sometimes, it's hard to explain to people there is a hyphen in the url. What? What's a hyphen? You mean, like a DASH? To save myself the pain and trouble, I registered BrokeOffInc.com and it forwards automatically to Broke-Off.com. It's so much easier now to tell people to go brokeoffinc.com now.

You can apply the same principle to a blog, a myspace page, or anything! You can forward abc.com and have it land on xyz.com. It's easy! GoDaddy offers all these options for free in your control panel after you have signed up.

HOT TIP! Buy yourblogname.com for $9.99 and forward it to your free BlogSpot Blog. Now you can tell others to just go to yourblogname.com and it will redirect and forward to your blog.

GoDaddy.com also offers web hosting packages at low low prices. Smaller webhosting packages start at less than $5 per month. You save even more when you pay for a year in advance. I'll discuss webhosting and cheap design techniques later in subsequent articles on this blog.

Having your own website allows you to:

Upload and store your own images
Create your own rich, dynamic web pages
Setup your own advertising - extra income!
Your own email address on your own domain
Free tools
Create a discussion forum for a community
Sell products or services
Create secure password driven pages for controlled access
Be more creative
Establish more relationships with other sites to crosslink
Own a more personal, absolute web presence
Backup your own data, peace of mind
100% Total control of your own space

HOT TIP! Don't limit yourself to just one domain name, either. Most people get a MYWEBSITE.COM url. If you have a great domain name that is available, try to snatch up the other remaining domain extenders....such as .ORG,.NAME,.BIZ.,.US and so on. Forward those extender domain names to your primary domain name.

Commission Junction

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One my favorite money making vehicles working at home is Commission Junction. It's ironic, that in 2003 I was kicked from CJ because I didn't make any money after a duration of 6 months. I got pissed and was like, "whatever.", right? Yeah, I actually typed that, sorry. So yes, if you don't make any money, they weed out the loafers in their database. Who knew?

Fast forward to 2006. One of my primary sources of online income drops their inhouse affiliate program. Guess who they were outsourcing all affiliate driven sales to? Commission Junction! I try to sign up, but they already have my email on file. I can't login or get my password either. Now what do I do? I called them up and explained that I needed my account reinstated. A week and new application process started all over again, I'm back in.

From the website: "Maximize your revenue opportunities by developing sustainable relationships with top-tier advertisers. Perform and get paid for every sale and lead you generate. For qualifying publishers, take your program to the next level with our industry exclusive solution for top-performers. Join our unparalleled network of publishers and learn more about our commitment to the long-term success of top-performing publishers."

Sign up as a publisher. What you do is you search the marketplace for Advertisers you are interested in. Maybe you want to start a blog about cars. You search for car parts, accessories, auto loans, anything your heart desires - and click "Apply to program". You will have to read some terms and conditions on some advertisers. Most advertisers approve manually and you must wait until you get approved.

Apply to advertisers and place their ads on your blogs, myspace pages, even Google Adwords accounts! Some people have literally made fortunes doing that technique. Google has rules about linking to affiliate driven links sometimes, but you can do redirects on your own webspace for those situations. (I'll discuss that later)

TIP! Look for advertisers that offer leads. Some of the best programs on CJ in my experience are advertisers like GameFly, Service Magic, and PerfectMatch.com. These advertisers will pay you anywhere from $1.50 to $25 just to get someone to type in their email address for a free or trial service! GameFly pays you $6.50 if someone signs up for a free 30 day trial. I know, because that's how I signed up!

By the way, Gamefly actually is a great service if you are into video gaming on your PS3, Wii, Xbox 360 or whatever you play. Personally, I have wasted so much money on a $60 game that turns out sucks because I can't pass the first level. With GameFly you can keep one at a time for just $15/month as long as you like.

HOT TIP! People sometimes can't get a credit card or bank account. If you have a site or offer a product that is only available via credit card, you can recommend your visitors to get a All Access Prepaid VISA card , which is another advertiser that uses CJ.

HOT TIP! People need things repaired on a home. Houses fall apart, it's true! We had to do some repairs and maintenance on our 15 year old house. We had some flooring that needed to be put in, we needed a termite inspector, etc. We found a company called Service Magic. They found us contractors in our local area. We're talking about top notch professionals, too. Certified, guaranteed, insured and bonded companies recommended by only the best. Service Magic is an advertiser in the Commission Junction marketplace. If you know somebody who needs some repairs on their home, send them an email with a link to Service Magic. They pay publishers anywhere from $1.00 to $10.00 per lead. You can apply this logic to anybody that needs something. I'll tell you later how to use some of these tried and true methods using your CJ links on your own webspace and domain.

You have to be creative and use your CJ ads in a way that draws attention and interest. It works, because we get a check sometimes twice a month from Commission Junction in the mailbox.

Getting Started with Google

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This is about getting started with some free tools. My primary email is a Google Mail account, which I highly recommend people to use. Signup is free. A lot of the services I am going to review and cover are offered for free by simply logging into your Google Account. Gmail offers outrageous storage space and peace of mind. My last footer message in Gmail read, "You are currently using 797 MB (11%) of your 6981 MB."

For those of you with no webspace or hosting, you can upload your images for free with Google Picasa and start posting on a free BlogSpot account (owned by Google, Inc.). Once you have your presence established on the Internet, you can now put up Google Adsense ads and Adbrite ads that deliver a check right into your bank account or mailbox. Put your ads on your own webspace, your Myspace page, your BlogSpot Blog, or anywhere else you have an account that allows 3rd party links.

I'll discuss later about web hosting and owning your own domain names. Right now, this article is for the novice with no knowledge whatsoever behind HTML or designing a webpage. BlogSpot
offers templates and guides to help you stumble through the painless process of setting up your "Internet Presence" as I prefer to call it.

If you produce or sell a product, you can list it for free at GoogleBase, where your products are listed at Froogle.

TIP: If you notice, none of my linked words in this article are to affiliate driven hotlinks. There is one affiliate driven link I made in this article, and that only pointed to Adbrite. See my tracking number I.D. ? You'll have one too, once you sign up as a Publisher.

Knowledge is Power

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If you do a Ebay search for the word, "ebook", there are over 3000 results at any given moment. Information being sold. It's taken me some years and downloads to realize something: the information you obtain is only what you make of it.

It's exactly like the lyrics from "Sunscreen Song" by Baz Lurhman :

"Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than its worth."

You can download and purchase all the ebooks in the world, but 2 facts remain for anybody:

#1. Your results may vary, and #2. You get what you put into it. You have to work hard, show determination, and don't give up. If you don't know something, learn it. Try to get it for free, first.

The real profits sadly come from the authors of the ebooks. You can try all the methods you can from the information inside of it, but the real money maker is passing that information on to others. Inside any ebook you read in Adobe Acrobat Reader contains underlined clickable links for you to signup on. That link, in turn, contains their affiliate tracking I.D.s. If you sign up or buy that product the information is indicating, guess what? - The author just made a commission, sale, lead, or profit...from your click.

If you have information, and others can/would think it to be valuable, you must market it and tell others about it. You must write your own ebook! Slip in all those links and underlined
words. Do anything to advertise and market it. Hypnotize people into buying it or reading it! Get it out there!

Remember, even if your E-book gets downloaded illegally, given to friends and family for free, or passed on to others via email....you're still making money off the amount of residual income being made from the links and tracking IDs embedded from within the ebook as others read and click.

Knowledge is power.

Introduction

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First of all, let me introduce myself and who I am. I am a nobody. Just like you, just like everybody else out there who isn't a celebrity or rich mogul. Let me also begin with this right away: I am not a writer. Again I reiterate: I don't write well at all. I used to, back in high school. I can't now because I'm too evolved from the Internet. Texting on my phone has ruined me as well. My grammar and spelling are terrible since I stopped reading books. It's been proven if you read often, you write and spell often. The old saying "if you don't use it you lose it" comes to mind.

I've been working at home successfully since Februrary of 2006 after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I've researched and tried methods while working at my dead end job since Janurary of 2002. I incorporated my own Texas based corporation on October 5, 2005, appropriately named, "Broke Off, Inc.". I'm not rich, but I pay bills.

The purpose of this blog is to teach you a few things I've learned over the years on the Internet. The biggest difference that seperates me from anybody else out there telling you this stuff is simple: free information. Everything I'm going to tell you is from me to you, for free. I'm not asking anything in return, but to give you my knowledge as I've learned it and will continue to learn. Some of the real secrets behind all of this hoopla with affiliate marketing, traffic, hits, search engines and more is sometimes right in front of you. Even though I'm going to give you this information for free, I'm still making money by giving you these tips. How? You'll find out soon enough, trust me.

A lot of you already know these tips and tricks. That's fine. That means I am not trying to reach you as my target audience. For those of you who do not know some of these tips, then I have accomplished my goal. Some of these tips aren't groundbreaking secrets at all.

Finally, my disclaimer: I write only opinions regarding what I have experienced and found out on my own. Your results may vary. I've lost money, I've gained money. Some of these methods didn't work for me personally, but otherwise had made other people completely filthy rich.