I’ve been dabbling in the world of affiliate programs as a way to make some extra money lately, and so far I’ve already made 10 bucks by getting an affiliate sale for the folks at Clicky. I decided the easiest way to break into this field though was to just sign up for affiliate programs advertising products and services that I actually use. So far I’m using Hostgator for my web hosting, Go Daddy for domain registration, and Clicky Web Analytics for tracking my site stats. I’m pretty happy with all of them, so I can feel comfortable enough whoring for all of them without feeling too guilty.

I wouldn’t use Go Daddy for web hosting though. I’ve heard too many complaints from people using their hosting packages, and for the most part it’s too basic for those of you who are truly serious about building a good website, especially one that might be PHP-SQL driven. Still, I signed up for their affiliate program since I’ve had a good experience registering my domains with them.

But, in order to do that I had to first apply to become a member of Commission Junction, one of the largest affiliate networks in the world. When I got accepted I went to access my account page and almost went insane. CTRs and EPMs and EPCs and what the F___ is everyone talking about here??? There was so much information jam packed into one page I had no clue where to begin. I finally managed to figure out how to generate an affiliate link after tearing my hair out for an hour, which wasn’t easy considering Go Daddy apparently felt the need to provide 3 million different types of affiliate links and banners that I could use to promote their goodies. Ugh. All this business crap gives me a headache.

Eventually I’ll post review articles relaying my experience with these companies, which should serve as decent landing pages for all those interested in using the same services. I also added their banners at the footer of my blog now, so feel free to click on them and gimme some lovin’.

Seriously though, if you want to try out a service for free, Clicky is your best bet. You can use their premium service for three weeks without paying or providing any payment info, a smart move because they even hooked me in after my premium trial expired. The stats they track is not as exhaustive as Google Analytics, but the design is done so well that you can find out just about everything that’s going on (real-time) at your blog/website with just a quick glance. They have a basic version that’s free, while the premium version is less than $2 a month (if you sign up anually). Again, I’ll write a more extensive review in the future when I have more time.

Ok, I think I’m done whoring for now.

For the first time since I started blogging many moons ago, I finally put up Google’s Adsense on my site. This I do, 4 years after its release, with the Internet now completely saturated with these types of ads everywhere you surf, during the worst advertising slump since 2000. I’m brilliant.

Oh well. I’m obviously not going to hold my breath waiting for the money to roll in, but I do think the process of learning how to place these ads on my blog has been a good learning experience for me. Some experts say bloggers should wait until they start drawing significant traffic before they start placing advertisements on their blogs. But because monetizing your blog involves so much more than simply slapping an ad in the header, I think it’s important to learn as much as you can early on, so by the time your site does generate respectable traffic (if it ever does), you’ll have already learned the most important aspects of what makes for successful online advertising, and how you can make it work for you.

Personally, I’m treating this as an experiment to see where it might lead. If the stats show people clicking on the ads despite the low number of traffic I get, that bodes very well for the future. On the other hand, if 6 months goes by without a single clickthrough, it’s either a sign that this particular ship has LONG since sailed, or that I need to try another approach. Regardless of what happens though, the bottom line is I’m never gonna know for sure unless I try. Success is usually a trial and error process, and I’m finding that I can learn a lot more through my mistakes than if I had signed up for a $2,000 seminar that offers little more than the common sense knowledge your mother should have already taught you.

The good news is that I’m venturing into an area where you don’t automatically have to be first to succeed, just one of the guys who makes it all the way to the finish line. Blogging is a marathon more than anything else, and most bloggers eventually either give up or burn out within a relatively short period of time. If blogging is something you think you can do blindfolded with one hand tied behind your back for the next 20 years, then the future definitely bodes well for you. Endurance is the name of the game, and very few people truly have it, especially when it comes to blogging. Even I burned out and stopped blogging altogether for almost a year, and I’m the kind of guy who loves to write.

Even doing what you love though can be a laborious pain at times, but then again, nothing worth having in this world is going to come easy. It’s usually a long and arduous process, but I’m confident those who believe the laborer is truly worthy of his hire will eventually reap the rewards they’ve worked so hard to obtain.

I only hope I’ll be one of them.

As I travel around the blogosphere, I’ve come across numerous tips and advice on how to successfully blog and develop a strong readership. Some of it involves developing a community of friends on social networks that could potentially bring an onslaught of massive traffic to your site. This can be done once you establish a mini-network of friends who can collectively Digg, Stumble or Reddit your blogging content, with you of course agreeing to do the same for them in return (sort of a you scratch my back, I’ll shave yours arrangement).

Some people can be really good at this for whatever reason. Me on the other hand… I can’t make friends in real life, I’m supposed to do it on here? My ass. I begged just ONE acquaintance of mine to stumble my blog so I could get a boost in traffic and of course I got blown off. Obviously this isn’t going to be a winning strategy for me right now. Ahhhhh, if only I were a hot babe, how easier this would all be…..

But anyway…

A few of the blogging experts I’ve encountered also recommended getting an outside web designer to develop the look of your blog for you (and also assist in optimizing it for search engines). Look, I don’t want no designer touching my private goomie gammies, capice? The thought of a third party having access to my code like that just doesn’t give me any warm and fuzzy thoughts, ya know?

But I can understand the rationale behind it. Blogging, or rather, professional blogging is HARD work. You’re basically doing the work of three people largely because it’s a three pronged process: promotion, maintenance and content building, all of which can be full time jobs unto themselves. And because I spent so much time on the former two for the past couple of weeks, I left myself little time for the latter.

Obviously, that will have to change as I try to find a way to balance these three aspects to blogging. But now I’m sorely tempted to just say “You know what? Screw it, it’s time I started BLOGGING, PERIOD.” It doesn’t matter that I still don’t really know who I am as a person, much less what the hell my niche should be. I think I need to just get up and go, and let the words flo’. Maybe this way I’ll somehow be able to create something coherent and interesting enough to attract a readership larger than the 5 people who regularly visit the NPR website.

I don’t know who first introduced the idea of using “10 tips to fill-in-the-blank” posts to draw traffic to your blog, but obviously it was authoritative enough that almost every blogger on the planet started taking that advice to heart. Now all you ever SEE are posts that tell you how to do everything from monetizing your blog, to bringing in tons of new readers in 10, 20, 25, 27, 33, 101 easy steps.

Not one to lose out on the fun, I decided to join in by contributing my own advice to successful blogging, but in just ONE easy step. Are you ready for it? Here it is:

Step One: Be Original.