The post title will mean nothing to you unless you are a Monty Python fan!!
So in its short lifespan, blogging has taken on a whole new meaning. In some areas it has gone from a place for one to share their daily life in whatever their chosen subject is, to a full time avenue for entrepreneurs to spam their wares and make a ton of money from the practice. Now Richard Windsor is no different in that department, as a byproduct of this fabulous hobby of ours, I was able to work out that there are also opportunities to make some money while I share my thoughts and views with you all.
Splogging
As you may have seen throughout this blog, I coined a term called âSploggingâ. Splogging is a combination of the two words âSpam and Bloggingâ, an art form where a spam blog is loosely presented as a spanking blog, but what they are in actuality is a resource for making money. There are countless examples of this and I actually suspect that many more will come along the way. Some entrepreneurs in fact have created a whole network of splogs where they can market their wares. Other people such as myself market websites in a much more passive way.
Before I go any further, let me point out that I have no problem whatsoever with splogging. I know that this post has the potential to upset some folks who make splogging an art form, but I most certainly will not be a hypocrite. My SPANKING GALLERIES blog most definitely, and to a lesser degree my SPANKING PICS AND VIDEOS, are both built around the concept of splogging. My reason for having separate outlets is done basically because I wish to keep this particular blog free of spam. THE HOUSE OF RICHARD WINDSOR was created to share my personal journey in the spanking world, if there is something out in the spanking world that I wish to talk about that also just so happens to be something that I have an affiliate program for. One thing that I will not do on this particular site is turn it into a splog, basically because I believe that it can detract from my personal views and feelings. Just recently I had read a spanking article that included 24 links to affiliate programs within the article itself. Unfortunately my interest in the article waned because my feeling was that there was little merit to the actual article itself, other than to cram in as many spam links into one post as was humanly possible. This particular site will not go down that avenue because this blog is about my life in the spanking world, and my views and thoughts within it.
Commission
Some of you may even be clueless as to what I am talking about here, so let me fill you in a little bit. If you look to the right side of this site you will see a bunch of links to spanking paysites. Now these banners arenât just links, they are opportunities for me to make some money LITERALLY on the side of running a spanking blog. Now I have tried my absolute hardest to minimize the amount of links on this site, and I am always trimming it down. My feeling is that too many banners make a site a very unsightly place to be, or in the least can make a site resemble a video arcade with all the flashing lights.
Because my affiliate programs have become pretty successful I am actually toying with the idea of removing all banners totally and selling ad space instead. Already a couple of sites have come forward asking me what my rates are for advertising space. There are several sites on the Internet that are dedicated to spanking who sell ad space already, and of course if I do this as well then other splogs are sure to follow along. (In fact just by merely mentioning it I know some other sites will snap the idea up immediately)
How much does Windsor make?
What are the numbers that we are talking about here? Well, you have to remember that aside from this site, I have the same links up on several other sites. Even though 50% of all sales come from THE HOUSE OF RICHARD WINDSOR, I do have to consider the fact that the other 50% comes from my other sites. At this present time my series of blogs are bringing in $400 a month. Last year I averaged $310 a month ($3,760 for the year), but those numbers are a little skewed because HOT MOVIES didnât pick up until the last 3 months of the year. Based on the last 4 months average of HOT MOVIES, the total this year is probably going to reach an annual income total of around $5,000 for the year for all affiliate links combined.
So maybe you can see my predicament there when it comes to selling ad space. If I was to remove all links and sell ad space, there is an awful lot of money that I need to make up, a number that seems to increase each year. I wouldnât rule out the possibility, rather what I would do, would be to retain the 3 best sellers and then average out what I would need to make to make up the difference on the rest of the links that I remove. Without getting too deep into it, I then have to work out whether I would be selling for 4 sites, or would I sell per site. As you can see, I have some serious decisions to make in that regard!! There are many, many decisions that come along from running a blog, it may surprise you just how many people are trying to get a link to their sites without an affiliate program. We have to be honest here though, it doesnât make much business sense at all for me to do that and pass up the $400 I am already making each month. There are many sites and vendors that are personal friends of mine and of course I give them link space on here free of charge, and I always will do.
Totally ironic as well being that I had this post planned, but yesterday alone I made $83 from sales. $83 bucks in one day, totally amazing!!
Who buy dat?
One thing that I have often pondered is just who are the people who purchase these sites that I earn my commission on? My educated guess is that it is not the regular readers of this site, rather it is the people who stumble across the site who are searching for spanking material. Despite it currently looking a total mess right now whereas links are concerned (See the comment regarding looking like a video arcade), I do believe that the biggest potential has to be my SPANKING PICS site. The site itself gets over a thousand visitors a day, but perhaps most importantly 25-30% of those visitors come directly from search engines, which of course are the people who are looking for spanking material. Compared to my other sites, 25-30% is a huge number when you consider that this site only gets 7% of visitors from search engines.
Tricks of the trade
Now what are some of the tricks to running a successful affiliate program list? My number one concern has always been quantity, Iâm from the old school that believes that less sells more. Perhaps one reason that THE HOUSE OF RICHARD WINDSOR sells better than the other sites is that it only has one quarter of the banner ads that my other sites have. The same applies to posting pictures from paysites, if I was continuously posting pics from paysites then I think it would defeat the purpose of what I am trying to accomplish. Rather than persuade people that they may wish to buy more from a particular site, they will just sit back and wait for me to post the free stuff. Balance is a tricky concept there though, because website owners want the audience to see what they are offering. Many sites allow sploggers such as myself free access to their sites for us to pull their weekly updates and then promote them. Now while I say people such as myself I should qualify that, I only have free passwords to two sites. That is because I only promote affiliate programs on a part time basis, it is only a side piece to my blogs. Other sploggers get significantly more access, and so they should, because their entire reason for being in the first place is to promote affiliate programs on a daily basis. They certainly earn that right far more than I do.
The trade off
Now what do website owners get out of this process?
Now I have no scientific data on this, it is only the opinion of one man. The average reader probably has no idea whatsoever just how much a paid advertisement will cost on a website such as this. Based on the knowledge that I have acquired I do know what the rates for paid ads are. So when you look at the blogging spankosphere, it is a potential goldmine for website owners. It does come with a price though, that is for sure.
The commission that an affiliate partner such as myself earns is very high per sale, make no question about that. If a website owner has to pay me a commission then they are taking quite a hit initially, especially if it is combined with a free password for promotional purposes. In fact it is probably safe to say that they make very little money from the actual buyer, if that buyer came directly from me. The benefits to that though are easily measured to start with, and of course the first one being free promotion for their sites which can cost an arm and a leg elsewhere. Then of course they are only paying out for the promotion when somebody makes a purchase, whereas with a paid ad they have to pay for it regardless if someone buys it or not. The other benefit comes from whether it is an immediate sale or whether the sale is delayed. I only get commission on immediate sales, I donât get the commission if a buyer saves the website to make a purchase at a later date. Again, I think this is a fair trade off, firstly because the commission that is paid out is substantial, so for the small percentage that purchase at a later date the website owner in essence has received free promotion, however, in the grand scheme of things, it only brings down the commission that they pay out by a fraction. The other benefit is that if someone buys a subscription for a short period, then returns at a later time when their finances are in better order, once more I would not get a commission on that.
Morally I have considered the pros and cons of the whole affiliate process many times, and at the end of the day I really believe that the process is totally worth it all around. For the website owner, not only do they get free promotion, but they have an open ended source to promote their material, something that they wouldnât get if they paid to have an advertisement listed. In the promotion department I think that website owners make out the best in that area by far. As mentioned above though, it does come with a hefty price with what they have to pay out. But this is a commission that is based on guaranteed sales, website owners only pay out when something is sold, period. If the promotion a splogger is putting out doesnât sell then they get nothing for it, as simple as that. So in my opinion, and my opinion alone, I think that the trade off is PERFECT for all parties involved. The free promotion is only paid upon when there is a guaranteed sale, which makes pretty good business sense if you ask me!!
Website owners of course want you to promote their material which is why they offer an affiliate program in the first place. Despite all of the faults that I may have, generosity is not one that I lack in. There are numerous blogs and bloggers that I have personally set up with the affiliate program process, in fact some of which I have spent hours on the phone with to set up their commissions, all done out of kindness, nothing more. There is a later business opportunity there for me, but Iâm afraid that one I canât share, lol, I have to keep some of my success secrets đ Needless to say, if I can make $5,000 a year from putting in a reasonable effort, just imagine how much money I can make if I totally apply myself to it. Creating a large network and an equal following isnât that difficult, and once I start to make my own videos later this year, I will already have a network to promote those videos already. One day the Internet could actually be my full time job.
You want a piece of the action?
So what can you do about it if you want to start promoting websites? Well Uncle Richard is going to help you along there. My email address is listed above for any HTML questions, but if you want to make money from blogging, this is where you start. You have to sign up, plain and simple, and you have to provide your social security number. Yep, everything you earn will be taxed at the end of the year. However, there is money to be made out there. The most important thing that you must do when you sign up is remember the password that you signed up under, and of course your username. This information you are also going to need to manage future sign ups and your access to CCBill. After your initial sign up, all you need to do on subsequent ones is to enter your primary affiliate code, your username, and your password. Once you do that then they sign up sheet is automatically filled in and you only have to hit accept. One question that is asked is also vital on the subsequent sign up page, and that question is âMerge under account (your primary affiliate number)â, always say yes to this because it will be the difference between getting one check a week and several. Most importantly though, you want to manage your account under one sign in, because when you go to CCBill you can manage everything under your primary account number.
There was no time in my life did I ever expect that I would be receiving a weekly check in my mailbox from my commissions that were sold. My early projections for the year are $5,000, but to be really honest with you, if I donât make double that this year then I will be disappointed with the effort that I clearly would not have put in. A lot of this none of you will even notice because these promotions wonât be featured on this site, there will only be links, but my immediate goal is to network all of the sploggers into one place, kind of like the Universe. There is an immediate problem with that though, and that is the placement of the link. While I would anticipate making sure everyone has a fair turn at the top of the page, my fear would be that the reciprocal link is buried so far down the page that you would need a bungee rope to try and find it.
That is a work in progress and quite honestly Iâm not sure how it would work, especially being that every splogger is in it to make money, so sharing links with other people who splog to make money, it somehow just doesnât seem that people would be willing to share in such a manner. When I originally set up the Universe, not a SINGLE splogger wrote back to me when I pushed for link exchanges. That is no word of a lie, not a single splog responded to my inquiry!! Now other splogs did immediately contact me looking to get their blog listed as they wanted to be linked everywhere anyway, but I have to admit to being really surprised that not a single splog that I contacted cared to respond at all. So you can understand my apprehension in setting up a network similar to the Universe, I just donât know if splogs are ready and willing to share their links to other sploggers.
Now for you webmasters out there, here is a tip for you. Join up with Hot Movies!! It is very slow to start with, but if you have the dedication to ride it out the long term payoff is awesome. It is only a 25% payout, but to give you some type of idea, in January I had sales 21 out of the 31 days. Here is a link to the sign up page, you all know the deal, so show a Brother a little love if I am about to make you a bunch of money đ
