Harry Blogs

Recently I had applied for top CPA networks and as per their policy they straight away rejected me. I did manage to get accounts with them later by calling and telling them about my experience in this industry. On further discussion over the phone, I was informed by most of the CPA networks that applications from India get rejected AUTOMATICALLY. I felt bad after hearing this because I obviously don't want my countrymen to be treated like this. I have accounts with the Industry top affiliate and advertising networks and they require lot of documents like your photo ID proof, credit card scanned copies etc.

I tried to dig in to this with few of my affiliate managers and I was shocked to know that I am the only Indian in their network. I am not sure if they are lying, but the way they have had trouble paying me direct in to my bank account does show that they have very little or no experience dealing with banks in India. On further investigation, I was told that these networks had suffered lot of losses due to fraud done by Indian affiliates and advertisers. Most common fraud is using fake Credit Cards, generating fake leads etc.

If you are an Indian and would like to really make it big in the make money online business then you need to be serious with what you do. Most of the networks are in contact with each other and getting blacklisted in one of these networks means getting blacklisted in most of them. You might think you are a pro black hatter and guru in coding  but you cannot hide. A single red flag and your account will be banned. This means that you cannot get in to that network ever in your life. As a young person, you might not care a bit about it but this will affect you in future for sure. Even today I get messages in my linkedin network to visit a web page for career guidance and when I reach this page, all I see is a MFA page with no useful information whatsoever. Getting spammed by people in network of people with over 10 years of experience in IT is really spoiling your own reputation in the market. You might get a few pennies with those AdSense clicks but you are really missing the real picture. You will see some amount in your AdSense account but you will never get it. Just a few days before getting paid, your ass will be banned! All those hours you spent on spamming people's inbox will go wasted.

The point here is, whoever you are and wherever you are, you have to be serious when it comes to making money online. The Internet Marketing Industry is not a  place where you can fool around and not get caught. If not today, tomorrow! Your dream to make money online will be ended pretty soon.

I had written a post on why I won't buy an iPhone but I have got it finally a few months ago. Actually my wife gifted it to me and she was not aware of the fact that I do not like the iPhone . It's an iPhone 3Gs and she got it at a good price from Pune at around Rs 38,000. I am using the Phone since 4 months now and I would say I am impressed by the phone for sure. Why does it impress me? It's not necessary that whatever features I like about an iPhone will be liked by you as well. I am listing down the plus and minus points of iPhone for me. You can see if these relate to you as well.  Most of points will be compared to my previous phone which was a Blackberry.

Good things first:

1. I love my affiliate network apps on the iPhone. I can check my Azoogle and Neverblue stats from the iPhone wherever I am. My old Blackberry phone did not have this feature. But it seems Azoogle now has an app for Blackberry as well.
2. My monthly bill has come down by Rs 800. I had to pay Rs 900 for Blackberry Connect services. I am on Airtel, so their unlimited Blackberry plan costs you Rs 900 per month. On the iPhone I use GPRS which means I have to pay just Rs 100 for the unlimited GPRS plan. I don't see much of a difference in the speed though, so I am happy with this.
3. With an iPhone you can never get bored. Yesterday, I was at the new HDFC Bank, Kanjurmarg office and as usual they kept me waiting for a few hours. With an iPhone, you can play games, play around with different apps and do lot more to spend your time. My old Blackberry had just one brick game. Nice game but one gets bored with it after some time.
4. There is no doubt that an iPhone looks stylish and grabs attention. I have a 3Gs with a white back panel and it looks quiet impressive. I don't think there is any phone that looks as good as an iPhone with a white back panel.
5. iPhone has an inbuilt iPod with a superb sound quality. The headphones are super cool, the best you could ever get.

Now the bad things about an iPhone:

1. Battery life is not good. Till date, my experience with Nokia phones has been good after Blackberry when it comes to battery life. No phone can beat the Blackberry in terms of battery life.
2. The worst thing in an iPhone which I personally hate is the lack of a keypad. The iPhone has a good touch screen pad but nothing beats he Blackberry keypad again.
3. An iPhone can be used as a modem and data storage but its not easy. You need to do some research on the Internet and load a few apps and play around with things to use your iPhone as a modem and a portable hard drive.
4. Loading and unloading of songs is not that easy. You need iTunes on your computer to load songs in an iPhone. Many times you find your favorite song on your friends computer which you would love to have on your phone but this won't be possible if your friend does not have iTunes installed. Also, if you are not good with handling the application, you can manage losing all your stuff on your iPhone very easily.

You can see that the list of Goods is more as per me but for many people out there, a bad battery life and lack of a solid keypad can be a BIG problem. For others, who are game freaks, want to listen to songs, watch movies and  play around with different apps, the iPhone would be the best gadget. Just make sure that you carry your charger wherever you go.

Is the AdWords representative's location responsible for your Geo Targeted ads getting disapproved? If you ask me this question then I would say yes to it and yes it's really frustrating. To cut the long story short, I'll try and explain what exactly is happening. I feel Google should find a solution to deal with this situation ASAP.

Here's a scenario: Lets say I have a website which offers SEO services for people in New York. I create a campaign in AdWords and target it to people in New York only. So if someone from NewYork clicks my Ad, He/She gets to see my NY website. Lets assume that my NY website is www.nyseosite.com, so I want people who click my ad and are from NY to reach www.nyseosite.com. Accordingly my ad would be displayed like this:

Headline: Seo Services in New York
Line 1: Quality SEO For Your Website
Line 2: Starting From $49. Contact Us Now!
Display URL: www.nyseosite.com
Destination URL: http://mytracking202tool.com/seoservices

I also have a website which provides SEO services for everyone who is not from New York. So if someone not from NY wants to visit my website, he gets re-directed to www.myseosite.com. Simple!  The AdWords guys do not understand this.  Most of these AdWords representatives are either in Ireland or India. So what they do is try and visit www.nyseosite.com using whatever tool/browser they have and because they are not in NY, they OBVIOUSLY get to see my www.myseosite.com website and NOT www.nyseosite.com. Now they feel that my display URL in the Ad above is wrong and should be www.myseosite.com and NOT www.nyseosite.com. Such ads are disapproved even when they are 100% legal. Sending emails and explaining stuff  to AdWords reps does not help. It seems that they are trained in this manner so there's nothing they can do about it. I tried to find a solution for this online and seems like no one has a solution.

Are you facing a similar problem? If yes, have you resolved it already? Please let me know.

This would be the most exciting news for cricket lovers in India. This years Indian Premier League Tournament will be available Live on YouTube. At first, this sounds to be a great news for people working in offices and having access to Internet but don't get too excited. Looking at the way we work here in India, I am sure that most of the companies have already blocked access to YouTube in their network. YouTube uses loads of bandwidth and if employees start watching cricket matches on YouTube then the Internet Bills won't look that much pretty.

Companies with unlimited bandwidth have nothing to worry but I am not sure how many would have that in India. Also, the speed would be an issue if most of them keep watching the match during work hours. Good news for ISPs and PPC advertizers though. YouTube now allows PPC advertizing and there is loads of money to be made this IPL season. ISPs will earn more because of the bandwidth that will be used. As per my knowledge this would be the first sports event that will be aired live on YouTube.

People staying abroad who have no access to Set Max or other channels broadcasting IPL would be very happy with this news. Internet speeds are too good outside India and there are no limitations. So this is a very good news for people who want to watch IPL 2010 & IPL 2011 and are not in India.

As an Internet Marketer, this news has already got my brain working in different directions in terms of monetization. Do you have any plans to watch IPL matches online this year? Do you already know how to bypass your office firewall and access YouTube? Do share your comments.

Affiliate Summit West 2010 was held at Las Vegas from 17th January 2010 to 19th January 2010. Affiliate Summit is basically a 3 day conference where all Affiliate Networks, Marketers, Gurus, Bloggers etc. come together. The event has parties, conferences and sessions hosted by top marketing experts.

There are a few awards given away every year and the award winners for 2010 were quiet interesting:

• Affiliate of the year: Nicholas Koscianski (Nicky Cakes)
  
• Affiliate Manager of the year: Matt McWilliams (ShareaSale.com)
  
• Exceptional Merchant: eBay Partner Network (WHY????)
  
• Affiliate Marketing Advocate: Angel Djambazov
  
• Best Blogger: Jeremy Schoemaker AKA ShoeMoney (Yea! Well Deserved!)
  
• Affiliate Marketing Legend: Scott Jangro

I am happy to see Nicky Cakes and ShoeMoney win the awards but eBay Partner Network? EPN has literally made thousands of affiliates unhappy with their serial bans and new commission structure. But does this mean people are still making a living from EPN? For me, EPN drives less than 10% of my total affiliate income.  Anyway, it's always good to see pictures and videos from such events. John Chow shares one of the videos at Affiliate Summit and this is all about the parties at the event. Hope you like it.

I quit my day job around one month ago and things have been pretty smooth since then. One thing I have learned during this period is that all days are not same in online business. Sometimes you can make up to $1000 in profits and the next day it might be around $100 only. I had 15th January as my target date set. My target was to earn the amount I was making at my day job and guess what. I made a bit more than double that amount till the 15th.  It feels great to achieve my targets and now its time to raise the standards.

Talking of raising standards and making difficult decisions in life, I give some credit to this man called Anthony Robbins. Many people laugh at him and some say he talks BS but I really don't care about what others have to say. I am a BIG follower of Anthony Robbins and I never miss his posts from his blog.  I would say that this man is somewhat responsible for me taking the brave step to quit my day job and take some personal decisions as well. I always go and watch his videos whenever I feel low or de-motivated. There are times when your day at work is bad, you fought with someone and feel as if you are alone in this world. In fact, I watch Anthony Robbins talk every day in the morning and it makes me feel stronger, more confident which in turn makes me work much harder to reach my targets.

So January is going good, learning LOT of new things which will be shared on this blog for FREE. Stay tuned for loads of information on making money coming your way.

Have you heard of Shoemoney? Shoemoney is a well known Internet marketer from Nebraska who is also well known public figure now. Shoemoney's real name is Jeremy Schoemaker and he became famous when he started telling people how to make money on his blog. Shoemoney's AdSense cheque got really famous among people and everyone started following his blog for tips and tricks to make money online.

Shoemoney was once fat, in debt and lost his job. Reason why he lost his job? He used to work on his own websites at his work place? LOl!! Does that sound familiar? If you have a day job and also make money online then I am sure you also do the same at your work place .  I've been following Shoemoney's blog since 2005 and it has been a great learning since then. Not everyone shares their tricks on how to make money online but you will find Shoemoney sharing some of the inside tips of his which do help people to make money online. Shoemoney makes millions of dollars from his online business and would like to teach how to make money online to people like you and me.

Shoemoney is now launching his new system called 'The Shoemoney System'. This system will teach people how to make money online.  I was on live chat with all others where Shoemoney was answering questions related to the system. The Shoemoney system is for anyone and everyone out there who wants to make money online. If you are planning to start with making money online or you are already making loads of money online, this system is for you. For beginners, the system will teach how to start of with making money online and different ways to make money online. Advanced users and Internet Marketing Professionals can get benifitted by using the excellent tools provided in the Shoemoney system. These tools are not available anywhere and have been developed considering Shoemoney's experience and expertise in the Internet Marketing domain.

Learning from someone who has proved to be a genius in this field will be a great experience for sure. There is no doubt in my mind that people joining The Shoemoney System will change people's lives for sure.

The Shoemoney System was open to a few people few days ago. Shoemoney chose people with no Internet Marketing knowledge whatsoever and guided them to make money online. Isn't this great? Shoemoney has already started sharing videos with experiences of people already using the system. You can watch the Videos free on his website The ShoeMoney System. The system wil be launched for public on January 26th 2010 so book your seats right now! I am sure that this system will be for limited people and it will be full as soon as it is launched. So book your seats now and do let me know your thoughts on the free videos.

Wordpress Multi User

Lately I have been playing around with Wordpress Multi User (WPMU) platform. WPMU helps me to quickly create and test various landing pages. The best part is that it allows me to have my keyword in my domain name. It takes around 15 minutes for me to create a landing page in WPMU which is really nice.

Till date I have been using WPMU on a dedicated server which has no other sites hosted. Yesterday, I tried installing it on a server which also hosts different sites and I was not able to install WPMU. I uploaded all the files, created a database and it gave me this error "Problem in wp-config.php - $base is set to BASE when it should be the path like "/" or "/blogs/"! Please fix it!" . Once someone sees this error, he/she would go to wp-config and edit the file accordingly but this is NOT the right way to do it. Editing the wp-config file will NOT help so do not touch it. Wordpress has this beauty of configuring the wp-config file automatically and hence any manual change in the wp-config file is not recommended.

This issue is caused because the installation of WPMU does not like other wordpress installations on the same server. It keeps referring to the wp-config files from other website folders on the same server. This is not great news and does not mean that WPMU will only work if there is only one website hosted on a server.

To resolve this problem follow the steps below:

1. Open wp-blog-header.php file in your favorite editor.
2. Comment out the line AFTER this line:"// WPMU Runs installer if things aren't set up correctly".

   So your line 9 and 10 now looks like this:

   "// WPMU Runs installer if things aren't set up correctly
   //if ( !file_exists( dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-config.php') && !file_exists( dirname( dirname(__FILE__) ) . '/wp-config.php')) {"
   

3. Now comment the second last line which is a } (Line 24 or 25)

Continue with your installation as you normally would . Undo your changes if you face further issues post installation.

I spoke about making money from health products this New Year. Lot of top Affiliate Marketers promote health products as soon as New year starts. This is because of the resolutions set by people to lose weight, get nice abs etc. Promotion of products does not mean just promoting any product. Here are a few points you should consider when you are not sure which products to promote:

1. Choose the product which has maximum profit for you. For e.g. If you have product A which pays you $35 per sale and product B which pays you $40 per sale then go for product B.

2. Look at the landing page carefully. Does the landing page look confusing? Can the user easily fill up details and buy the product? Can the user be convinced with whatever is mentioned on the page? Put yourself in the customer's shoes and then decide which landing page will work the best.

3. Check for payouts. I usually prefer networks which pay me ASAP and without any hassles. My top preference is wire transfer. You can choose your affiliate network according to your preferences.

To make your job easier, I have listed my favorite Health Product Affiliate Networks.

1. NeverBlue - These guys have a HUGE range of products which you can promote. Their Affiliate Managers are the BEST and will help you with whatever you need.

2. MarketHealth - MarketHealth has the best beauty and health products with good commissions. Its easy to get approved with them. MarketHealth also provides some nice articles along with FREE Hosting for you to use on your website. This means you can start making money with them without any kind of investment.