Affiliate Marketing Niche

Affiliate marketing can be tough if you don’t have traffic or SEO. And as always, some niches do better than others so no matter what you’re niche is, do a little research before choosing which affiliate to promote.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be “working” two new affiliate links for 2 completely different niches. One will be Equifax and the other will be some sort of diet pills. Not sure which one yet but I’ll figure that later. I’ll be using the links on 2 of my other blogs, and possibly creating pages just for them.

I would love to know how you decide what affiliate links you are going to use and whether or not you have a strategy behind it all.

When I accumulate stats, I will post the who-what-when-where.

Create a Simple Banner

I get asked this question a million times so I thought it was high time I answer it.  It’s super easy to create a banner.  Just have an idea of what you want in your head….image, colors, etc.

First, I recommend Paint.net.  It’s free and super easy to use & it’s what I’ll be using for this tutorial.  You can also use Gimp but it’s such a memory hog and I don’t like things that slow down my computer.

Step 1

Open your paint program and select new.  Enter the dimensions of the banner you want to create.  For this tutorial, I selected 125px X 125px.  It’s the most common size.  I also increased the resolution for a more crisp, clean banner.  I put 300 because that is a very nice quality but you could use what ever.  The default is 96.

Now that we have our shape, it’s time to design.  This is pretty much where you can do what you want.  You can use the line, circles, text, etc to create the image you have in your mind.  I wanted to incorporate my logo into my banner but I didn’t want it to over power what my site was about so I decided to create a translucent type look with text overlay.

I wanted the entire banner background to be black to match my site.  This is where you click on your color, the little bucket, and then fill your square with that color.  Got it?!

So now I want to import my logo.  You click on layers, import from file, choose your picture that you want to import (if any) and viola…..it’s in your square.  Position it where you want and move on to the next step.

Since I’m going for a translucent look, I need to make my logo lighter and less visible.  I do this by clicking on Adjustments, then Hue/Saturation, then lowering the lightness to my desired look.  Hit Ctrl-d when done.

Finally, I add the text of my choice with the color of my choice.  I chose white for this banner and basically put it on top of the logo.  You can align it how ever with your font choice.  Hit Ctrl-d again when you’re finished.  That’s it!  You’ve just created a banner.

It’s really simple to use and you can create just about anything.  Remember to use the standard sizes for creating your banner.

• 125 x 125
• 468 x 60
• 250 x 250
• 88 x 31

So what does the finished product look like???  Here ya go!

Once you get really good at this, you’ll be able to create them for other people charging a flat fee!  Before you know it, you’ll be able to buy the moon with all the money you’re making from designing banners and headers, etc……woohoo:)

Meeting My Blogging Idol, Wendy

From the get go, I have been a huge fan of Wendy Piersall from Sparkplugging.  In fact, you could say I’m pratically a stalker!  I think she knows this already (especially since Jennster told her that I love her…thanks jenn.) but was very nice to me despite it.  One of the main things I wanted to do while at Blogher was meet her and I finally got to.  Super nice as I expected, beautiful, and carried a rockin’ tattoo…didn’t expect that.  Isn’t funny how you portray a person in your mind and then meet them and find you were A) either completely wrong or B) exceeded your expectations??  She is cool, what she does with her network is cool, and if you don’t know who she is, then you are not cool.  I’m so glad I slathered some blemish acne cream all over my face because I would have hated to have a blemish while taking this picture of me and her together!!!

This is at Guy Kawasaki’s party……it was nice and the food rocked!

Just as a reminder, Wendy and her team launched SparkplugU the other day where you can sign up for online classes for a variety of topics.  If you payed any attention to those twitter tags she handed out, then you’ll notice she had a coupon code on there for a discount!!!!!  If you didn’t, go find it and use it!

I also met Shannon from Momsational, a part of Sparkplugging.  She was very friendly, airport/shuttle helpful, and just a joy to meet!!

Networking with other bloggers and companies was by far the best thing I got out of Blogher and I can’t wait to attend the next one!  It was great and it allowed me to meet my blogging idol:)

Deadwood Magazine Theme

Awesome magazine theme from Graph Paper Press!  This is a $39.99 value and the theme has all sorts of functions to customize so you can have your site looking perfect in no time.  Oh, it’s called Deadwood and I love everything about it.

I actually bought this intending on using it and then went a completely different direction than planned so now it’s up for grabs.

I just want to say thanks to Thad for allowing me to give it away:)

AND, if any of you want to submit a guest post, please send them to lori at thecowboyshack dot com.  I’d love to have some to put up while I’m gone because I am just not going to have the time!!!