Tag: affiliate marketing

Premium Series: Ninja Affiliate Plugin Review

In my Premium Series I’m taking a look at Premium WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that I personally use, either for myself and for others. All opinions are my own and not influenced by affiliate commissions or anyone connected to the product.

Ninja Affiliate is a WordPress plugin from MaxBlogPress that allows you to create easy redirects to affiliate links and automatically link keywords to affiliates. For example, my affiliate link for this plugin is
http://www.maxblogpress.com/go.php?offer=lifegoggle&pid=31
however I have changed to
http://blogtechguy.com/go/maxninja
because it’s easier to remember, easier to type, and looks nicer.

It helps a lot with very long affiliate links, ones like you get from Amazon that are very long.

However the best feature is that often I don’t need to remember the affiliate link at all. For example if I type AWeber now it should change that to my affiliate link automatically. The screenshot below shows you what I have set up for Max Ninja Affiliate, but you can choose whatever keywords you like for each affiliate links.

Max Ninja Affiliate

For the keywords, you can choose a maximum you have per page (I have 4 automatic ones maximum), use nofollow, open in a new window and exclude them from appearing on Pages (so sales pages etc can be excluded, though this can also be set on an individual Post/Page basis).

You can also choose the wording used in the link, and, if you want, have a drop down in the formatting icons on the write/edit Post page.

Often people are worried about people stealing affiliate commissions, especially if you use a service like Clickbank and don’t use EasyClickMate or something similar. So you can also cloak links if you wish,

The settings page tracks raw clicks and unique clicks but (of course) cannot measure conversions. It does give an indication of how well your links are working, but a report by post/page would be more useful, especially if you write about an affiliate product quite often.

Finally if the affiliate changes your affiliate URL, such as when they change affiliate management system, instead of having to dig through every post and page to find the links or run a database query, you can simply change the original affiliate link URL in Max Ninja Affiliate and it will mean all the other links will automatically work again. This saved me a lot of time when Thesis / DIY Themes changed system.

Overall I’ve been using this plugin for a while now. It’s simple to setup, can insert links automatically, works like a URL shortener and is a great time saver and aid for sites that use affiliate links. I also use it to save me adding other frequently used links, not just affiliate links, so it is even more useful. For $37 it is an excellent investment.

BTG logo Summary

Where I use this: Right here on BTG.

Pros: Easily create short URLs; Simple to use; Can automatically link keywords

Cons: Sometimes links words in headlines within posts, but a minor gripe.

Cost: $37

From: Max Blog Press (affiliate link)

Harnessing The Power Of Affiliate Marketing

Whichever way you look at it, there are ways to make money online with your blog. Whether you are looking to sell your services by engaging your customers, or provide a product online which people pay for and download, you probably have a number of ideas about ways to generate revenue, if you are not doing them already.

Affiliate marketing is arguably the baseline of ongoing profit, when it comes to your blog working on your behalf, night and day, to generate revenue. While most blogs use other people’s products as a secondary source of income, by gaining commissions, it is actually possible to run a business solely on the principle of selling other people’s products.

Here’s why affiliate marketing is an extremely useful way of boosting your blog income…

It enables you to boost your productivity online, with minimal effort.


While sound affiliate marketing choices involve more than simply sticking a link on your blog and hoping that people will buy through you, the effort involved is still quite low in comparison to creating, producing and marketing your own products. This is because the people who have developed their own products have usually devoted time and energy to perfecting them, and will be more than happy to enable you to promote the products on their behalf, using their resources.

It offers the opportunity of generating revenue through third parties, without any associated risk or pressure

When you offer people’s products through your site and generate commission, you are acting as an advocate of the product and stating your recommendation to your clients. However, you are not bound to any contract or expected to sell a set number of products, and the time you spend upon the third-party wares is entirely up to you.

You don’t have the in-built shyness associated with pushing your own products and services

Most of us feel uneasy when it comes to selling our own products, as we feel naturally inhibited about telling people how great they are. When you sell on behalf of other people, it’s much easier to wax lyrical about their products and services without struggling to find a balance between promotion and arrogance.

It’s widely acknowledged that people respond well to recommendations by experts, and as an expert in your own field you are likely to be able to sell openly and honestly, advocating products which you believe in, without holding back.

In its most simple form, affiliate marketing opens your business up for the generation of extra revenue. At its best, some blog owners find that they can sit back and let their site work on their behalf, as a primary source of income. Strong affiliate marketers use their blog for generating reviews and previews, providing comparisons between products, supplying suggestions for customers and generating feedback on their site.

Letting tools do the hard work for you

Most sites that offer affiliate schemes have all the tools for you. Some even have emails and blog posts already written (though it would be much better to write your own), others have free content to offer as a bonus to your readers, and most have banner adverts for you to use. It’s very easy to get set up and started.

By taking some time to choose the right, good, relevant products to promote, and getting a suite of services set up on your site, your blog will be able to bring in extra revenue with a small amount of effort, and provide an enhanced service to your customers when they come along for support and advice about the best products to purchase.

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