Affiliate Marketing.....The Journey continues......

It's been a while since I posted my low cost internet marketing journey on this blog. There are a number of reasons why this is the case. After my first sale on Amazon, almost 2 years ago....I lost focus and put most of my energy into another business venture.

=======>Fast forward to the present time.........

It seems like while I was in hibernation, I had managed to earn my first check on Amazon...and surprise surprise, also got my associate account closed because I failed to respond to an email that needed confirmation that my niche site was not for children under 13.

The good news is that the helpful members of staff at Amazon advised me to open another account as  well as that I was to be paid for my old efforts.

==========>Which brings me here...........

How Am I doing Affiliate Marketing Now?

Nothing much has changed. Upon resuming, my first instinct was to find a person that I've always looked up to online...i.e Robin.  Her methods have always resonated with me. There's no "shiny object" syndrome with Robin and that gives me peace of mind that with her I can build a long term business.

I was using as many free resources as possible in the past...with a huge success on Hubpages BUT as it turns out all my hubs were deleted eventually. It seems like all web 2.0 sites always act in this predictable manner. One minute writers are earning good incomes with them and then, boom!..with no notification whatsoever, their webpages are offline.

Robin started her affiliate marketing career using free pages as well. I was relieved  to find out that she now teaches that one must own their content by writing for their own self-hosted Wordpress sites.

Getting your own Wordpress site is not expensive at all. It is a worthy investment considering the risk of writing on a free platform like Hubpages. 

Needless to say, I am done with Hubpages and now write on my niche site which I've paid hosting for.

I still swear by the Jaaxy Keyword Tool and also apply what I learn at Pajama Affiliates (Robin's group).

This blog will keep me focused and will also help me to collect my thoughts, diarize my affiliate marketing journey and just sharing the tools that I use along the way.

Besides paying for the training that I will need now and then, I still plan to do this business on a low budget, combined with discipline and sweat.

I will share where I am with my first WordPress blog soon. Till then.....

My Jaaxy review

Today I decided to write my own Jaaxy review.  I'm quite excited with using Jaaxy.  In actual fact, this tool is so easy to use they should have called it "Keywords for dummies". Last year I tested another very good tool, however I realized that it was too detailed and maybe only suitable for pro's.

The huge plus for me is that this tool is not as intimidating as many tools I've seen before.  It is actually much more simplified. Even the  Google Keyword Planner is not as simplified as Jaaxy.

It basically assumes that you are new to keyword research and SEO.

========>Get free 30 searches from Jaaxy

How does Jaaxy work?

Jaaxy is so easy to use, I'm certain that my 9 year old daughter can use the tool just as easily if I showed her how.  There are only so many factors that you need to understand with the tool.  Jaaxy's results are based on exact matches only and does not use broad phrase matches.  I'll use the below image to explain how to do keyword research on Jaaxy.

After logging in into your Jaaxy account, you will see a form where you populate the niche or article idea that you want to do keyword research for, in this case "best keyword tool".  Once you press "search", the tool gathers low competition keywords that are close to your enquiry.

As you can see on the results, the first keyword to show on the report will be the same as  your enquiry and will be highlighted in yellow.

Let us assume that you want to write an article, Hubpage or even a Squidoo lens about the "best keyword tools".

The main stats you need to bother yourself with to determine the viability of your keyword idea are only 2 i.e monthly searches and QSR (different blog coaches will give you different opinions on this, I use the information given by the Jaaxy owners)

Needless to say, monthly searches represent the number of times surfers searched for a phrase or word on search engines e.g "best keyword tools" received an estimated traffic of 160 a month.

The QSR (Quoted Search Results) represens your competition.  This is basically the number of websites competing for the same keyword on Google.  Jaaxy has this innate ability to deliver this statistics directly to you in the shortest time possible (click of a button).

What I've learned is that I need to target keywords with a QSR of less than 400. (Again Jaaxy training advises as such - but we aim for a much lower figure at our Master-Mind group)

Coupled to the QSR tool is KQI i.e  "Keyword Quality Index".  It basically interprets your monthly searches, traffic and QSR and indicates whether you stand a chance of ranking on page 1 of Google with the keyword.  The color indicator green means that you are good to go and can use the keyword, the yellow indicates that the keyword is good although it will need a bit of work from your side. Red is really a no go keyword as it is too competitive.

In fact, the KQI is the only column you need to bother yourself with if you are a visual person.

Kyle (co-owner of Jaaxy) stresses the fact that a keyword need not have 1000s of searches in order for you to benefit. Low search volume almost always means low competition. If you build lenses, or a niche site targeting these low volume/low competition keywords the traffic will add up eventually as you will be ranking for most of your targeted keywords.

This is the tool that I use for my blogging, and I would be completely lost without it.  I enjoy organic traffic to my blog without having to worry about paid advertising.

Another nifty feature that I love about Jaaxy is that it lets you take a view on your competitors (these would be the top 10 ranking sites on Google -for the particular keyword). I don't use it that much but it does have good to know info:

I started with Jaaxy using their free trial. You get the same features as the paid membership, however you are limited to 30 searches.  That is actually a lot of articles.  If you refer other free members you will get more search credits, therefore you can remain a free member for longer

Try Jaaxy today for free