There are gremlins running amuck in my computer.  I’ve put off dealing with them but the weird and funky things my computer is doing is finely getting to me.  So, I’m going to roll up my sleeves and reformat my computer. This is something I do about every six months or so.  I hate it, but my system runs so much better when I do.  (My husband is rolling his eyes and groaning right about now…)

For some people it may take a few hours to get their computers back up to speed.  For me it takes two to three days (I think this means I have far too many programs but I do use them). 

Please forgive me if I don’t respond to your comments and questions right away.  I will, but it may be a few days.

Rochelle

As you know, on April 19, 2008 I started my test of 30 Minute Backlinks. It has now been 10 days since this test began.

The stats now include a section for how much each site has earned. Yesterday one of these sites got its first commissions. This is the fastest I’ve made commissions for any Build A Niche Store I have. Woo hoo!

Here are the most recent stats:

10 days may still be too early to come to any conclusions. It seems about right that the site with the most toolbar promotion has be most backlinks. It is interesting to me, though, that number of pages from each site indexed in Google is about the same.

Did you notice which site got the first affiliate earnings? It was the site with the least toolbar promotion. I’m started to suspect that you don’t need to blast the directories with the toolbar. It seems that simply submitting it to the one directory repository is sufficient to get the indexing ball rolling.

I’ll post another update sometime next week.

Rochelle

In a recent post, How to Add External Links Alphabetically to Your Site’s Sidebar, I give instructions for adding links to a site’s sidebar. This particular set of instructions will send visitors away from your site when one of these links is clicked, instead of having a new window or tab open up.

In the comments for this post someone asked why we would ever want to send visitors away from our sites. This is a good question. Most of the time you don’t want to do this, but there are times when you do want to do this.

As you know, the point of having niche stores is to send them away from your stores to eBay (or Amazon, or whatever affiliate place you want them to shop at), have your affiliate cookie set to visitors computers, and hope they purchase one or more items. This remains true for the external links you add via the post listed above.

Have I confused you yet? I hope not. Consider this: eBay is a rich resource for articles as well as stuff to buy. They have articles to help people buy, to help people sell, marketing tips, and more. Even better, eBay encourages members (buyers and sellers like you and me, not eBay employees) to write articles. You can add links to your sites that take visitors to the articles of your choice.

Here are some of the many places on eBay where you can find information to link to:

You can use eBay’s own resources (most of which contain excellent information) to drop your affiliate cookie onto visitors computers. Don’t link directly to an article. Instead generate an affiliate link and use THAT link to add to your site. Clever, isn’t it?

You can create affiliate links to eBay by following my instructions for ‘How to Create eBay Affiliate Links.’

Rochelle

You can easily create eBay affiliate links for use in your niche stores or elsewhere. When eBay’s affiliate accounts were still with Commissions Junction (CJ) you could create affiliate links using eBay’s Flexible Destination Tool. Now that eBay has moved their affiliate program from CJ to their own EPN you can still use the Flexible Destination Tool but it is now located in your EPN account and it is now called Link Generator.

Some of the instructions I’ve written instructions for that use eBay affiliate links you create include:

Rochelle