Writing this blog has been like being on a roller coaster ride. The screenshot below is from the web stats package that comes free with Bluehost web hosting. As you can see the first three months of this blogs growth has been more than exponential. I am immensely happy with this blogs growth as well as what it has taught me about blogging. Although it saddens me to sell this site, you can rest assured that the money from the sale will be re-invested in upcoming online ventures!

Site Stats

Google Page Rank 4

Technorati rank 42,597

Consistently receives 300 unique visitors per day

This is the 70th post,

At the time of writing this there are 353 comments, an average of 5 comments per post.

The First post was on March 14th 2007, allowing the site to become well established while still young enough to be flexible with the topic of content. I personally chose to stick very closely to writing about Affiliate Programs and Internet Scams, but this doesn’t have to be the case with you!

The Price
The bidding starts at $400. I am expecting lots of interested because this is such a bargain so be sure to get your bid in fast! Each new bid must be $20 or more than the previous bid. This is to deter people from bidding “$401″ and is a flexible rule.

What Exactly do you Get for your Money?
I am effectively handing over the username/password for this blog, my Bluehost web hosting account (which in itself cost $160!) and the bonus blog (see below).

All the content on this site will be at your disposal to do what ever you legally please with.

You get my other blog as well for FREE!
The bonus blog is http://videogamesaddictions.com. There is little content on it but it currently sits on page 4 of the Google SERPS for the highly competitive term “video games addictions”. It wouldn’t take much to reach page 1! This domain name is very desirable and grows in value every day. It could easily be resold in the near future for a profit!

Bundling in this blog for FREE ensures a quick and simple transaction and makes this an even more juicy deal for you.

Things to Remember
This site has a vibrant community who love to take part with little reward. On my AdRaker post there are over 60 comments and I don’t even offer a link to top commentators!

This site’s traffic has been doubling monthly but it is very close to the tipping point where traffic will explode. It sits on page 2 of the Google SERPS out of 25 million competitors for the phrase “affiliate programs”. The SEO Book tool shows that 500,000 people search this term monthly. Over taking those few sites to get to page 1 will cause a traffic explosion! It also ranks page 8 for the term “Internet Scams”, and has a productive long tail, with almost every review ranking highly in Google, Yahoo and MSN search. This was largely due to Garry Conn who conducted professional search engine optimisation on the site to ensure a steady traffic flow, even without posting daily.

$400 is the price of a review on John Chow.com but for the same price you will get this entire blog!

Traffic Stats:

Payment
The transaction will be quick and simple. Ideally it will be made via Paypal. Contact me for my PayPal address. If you have a problem with uing PayPal paypal then Contact me as well and we can hopefully arrange an alternative payment method.

Any Questions?
If I have made anything the slightest bit unclear, don’t hesitate to ask with a comment or by Contacting me. I value every individual reader of this site and if I can ask one thing of you it is to spread the word with a blog post or even just a brief mention!

I will be answering comments and questions very quickly and updating this post with the bids. Let the bidding begin!

Update on Bids!
So far there have been 2 bids! Garry Conn expressed a very strong interest also but is yet to place an actual Bid.

Bids so far:

1. *Bidder doesn’t wish to be named: $420
2. Akoemi: $450 (Top Bid!)

The next bid must be $470 or more. Don’t miss out, Contact me with your bid. If you have been ‘out-bidded’ feel free to make another bid!

While reviewing Niche List Profits I actually got déjà vu. Perhaps it’s because it consists of yet another wise guy offering to sell his secrets, or it could be because the name “Niche List Profits “ is so similar to MoneyListProfits. Either way it’s a bad sign.

Niche List Profits is the stereotypical ‘Guru sells his secrets’ site. The entire homepage consists only of hype. There are screenshots of large sums of money and promises that with just a few minutes a week, for 8 weeks everyone can be doing the same thing. There is no evidence of his expertise apart from the screenshots and checks.

Niche List Profits costs a whopping $127 to buy his secret “8 week system” and for that amount of money I would at least expect a video-cast of “Amik” demonstrating his knowledge so we could know he is someone of substance. Allow me to compare it to Yaro Starak’s Blog MasterMind who actually did made video casts and as a result is much more trustworthy.

My take on it all
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that Amik is going to ‘teach’ his sign-ups how to build a site just like Niche List Profits and other small internet businesses that apparently “require almost NONE of your time, no customer service and the best part - no product!“.

For me discovering that he thinks having no product is a good thing sends any vague hopes I probably didn’t have about Niche List Profits swirling down the drain. He clearly doesn’t value customer satisfaction and it makes me think that Niche List Profits probably doesn’t have a product either.

Hype Gone Wrong
Amik may have taking screenshots of money down to a par but some of the things he says are clearly not thought through:

” imagine being able to wake up in the afternoon, go to your real mailbox and find it stuffed with checks (from companies you don’t even recognize because it’s been so long!).” doh!

The only reasons it would have “been so long” is because either you made that money ages ago and they took a very long time to send it to you (a bad thing!); or you only just reached the minimum payout because your earnings were so slow and you forgot even signing up to them!

What does Niche List Profits Actually Offer?
For $127.00 you get 8 coaching calls. Part 1 is the Introduction, Picking Niche and Choosing Affiliate Programs, but there are many blogs (including this one) that give away this information freely. Parts 5,6,7 and are all about getting traffic, which again there are many blogs dedicated to. The other parts are of a small value but definitely not worth $127.

No Privacy
The Disclaimer reveals this terrible truth about Niche List Profits:

“We may use your personally identifiable information to send you advertisements and other promotional information regarding our products and services or the products and services of our third party marketing partners and other communications related to the Site.”

In other words you pay $127 to get spammed. In addition the Disclaimer backs up my suspicions about the hype:

“The testimonials and examples used are exceptional results, which do not apply to the average purchaser”

Conclusion
Niche List Profits is in no way worth $127. I am tempted to add it to the Internet scams list but that would imply you get absolutely nothing for the $127, which probably isn’t the case. There are also a fair number of people promoting Niche List Profits who are revealed by a Google search. Nevertheless, I would not go there!

Affiliate money making programs can be tough to tap into when trying to make money online. There are a variety of questions that need to be answered when choosing which affiliate program to use which I have grouped under certain headings.

The Brand
If you are out to recruit ’second tier’ affiliates then the brand is especially important, but with any product being sold on the Internet it needs to have a certain image, E.g. modern, reliable, useful, honest, fashionable or a ‘brand of the people’. The answers to the following questions should all be positive ones:

Is this program reliable?

What have other people said about this money making program?

What do my readers think about this product/company? (Reputation)

Money Matters
People often make the mistake of putting too great an importance on the commission rate. Naturally an affiliate program that pays 50% commission has an advantage over one with a 25% commission rate, but it is not twice as lucrative because commission rates are only a single factor among many which influence overall earnings.

What are the commission rates?

What promotional tools are available to me?

Is the market too saturated with this product or type or advertising?

Relevance and User Satisfaction
With a blog, this factor has an added importance. A major power of blogging is building up a loyal reader base. Selling a product to a reader that they are happy with means they are more likely to return and may even buy again. Honesty is the best policy.

Does the product interest the visitors to my site?

Is this product really going the help my readers?

Are they going to buy this, be glad they did and return as a result?

Is it so great that they will go and write a post about it linking to my blog? (not essential but it’s a great bonus if they do)

Help and Support
As with any hobby or business we are all at different places along the ‘learning curve’ and so a functioning support system is useful for everyone. There are two types of support system:

1. Those that actively teach new affiliates how to make the sales (like that of SFI)
2. Basic support every service should have where members can ask questions and have any problems they may be having fixed.

Is there a functioning help system to report problems to that replies concisely in good time?

Will this affiliate program help me develop as an affiliate marketer and teach me new skills?

Do I already know enough and have the core skills to make a good start selling this product? (This could be something as fundamental as ad placement)

Payment
This simple part of an affiliate program has it’s own series of questions:

What is the minimum payout?

How frequently do they pay their affiliates?

What currency are the payments made in and what is the conversion rate of that currency to my own?

The final and most important question overall is will it result in conversions?

Conclusion
Given that all of that information is needed to be known about an affiliate program before making money with it, it’s no surprise that people have a hard time getting off the ground with affiliate programs. Nevertheless, with Adsense slumping affiliate programs are once again becoming a prominent way of making money online.

What other questions would you want to know the answer to before joining an affiliate program?