Being that most affiliates and affiliate managers work from a home office setup, this is a handy 10 tip guide for balancing it all out… 

Working from home has gained in popularity tremendously over the last few years. With E-mail, instant messaging, texting, cell phones and all the portable devices that make them accessible every minute of your day, more and more people are able to work outside of the office, spend more time with their families and less time commuting. However, with this newfound system of convenience comes a much greater need for self-discipline. Here’s a brief list of some things to remember while working from home:

simplehuman | blog: 10 tips for working from home

Mashable has put together another great toolbox, this time focused on analytics packages…

From analyzing your RSS feed to counting page views to visual representations of where your visitors are clicking, there is no shortage of companies looking to help you better understand your web site?s traffic. In our latest ?toolbox? installment, we analyze (pun intended) the wide variety of applications and tools available for keeping tabs on how your sites, feeds, blogs, emails, or even your intranet is performing.

analytics toolbox - Mashable

 Even Google is getting into the fortune cookie business…

Google Fortune Cookie - Googlified

WebWorkerDaily has the run down on the latest version of Plaxo.  The changes certainly look promising if you’re using platforms which sync with the service (Google Calendar, Outlook, LinkedIn Premium). Alas, no GMail sync yet…

Plaxo has finally lifted the veil on Plaxo 3, opening their new interface and strategy to the world for public beta testing.

If nothing else, Plaxo is one of the biggest from-evil-to-useful stories around. As Plaxo VP of Marketing John McCrea says in an interview with Robert Scoble, they’ve moved away from their “overly viral” focus to a model focused on sync and sharing.

Hands On With the New Plaxo - WebWorkerDaily

 James does a great job of blogging about SEO, search and affiliate marketing at the InsureMe blog.  Here’s a pretty valuable post about avoiding SEO Landmines…

Yesterday Matt McGee shared some of the SEO lessons he has learned in his post SEO ?Don?ts?: 20 Fatal Mistakes You Must Avoid to Succeed. The post addresses some of the most common mistakes, scams and oversights that lead to classic cases of SEO fatalities. Some of my favorites (and most common affiliate mistakes) are:

1. Don’t reply to the SEO spam you get via e-mail.
6. Don’t waste your time submitting your URL to search engines.
13. Don’t ignore usability.
17. Don’t plaster your link all over blog comments, guestbooks, etc.
18. Don’t fret over keyword density.

InsureMe Affiliate Blog: 20 SEO Landmines that Could Leave You All Blowed Up.

Video is hot and face time can drive higher conversions.  If you run a marketing program that is highly personal in nature, you might want to consider including personalized video greetings (you can limit the amount of time visitors see the greeting, etc) with the Bubble Guru service. 

I’ve tried this out on CostPerNews, but the audience there really doesn’t fit the type of crowd that would benefit (or provide higher conversions) from something like this.

However, you might have an affiliate site or blog that could… 

Kevin wanted to introduce me, and you, to Bubble Guru, a service that allows you to record brief videos and add them to a page. These videos then appear in small ?bubbles? on the page, either automatically or when a link is clicked, and allow you to share a brief video message with your visitors.

Bubble Guru Adds Video Greeting to Your Web Site | Marketing Pilgrim

 Ah, the age old discussion… is it ethical, right or kosher to place affiliate links in posts when mentioning a specific product.  There’s always been a healthy discussion around this topic, and here’s another viewpoint on the debate…

But that?s the great thing about sharing online test results? If the tests are conducted in an honest and scientifically valid manner, there can be no bias. The results are the results. Affiliate or not.

The Conversion Doctor Blog � Blog Archive � Can an Affiliate Link Invalidate Split Test Results?

Performics has a number of advertisers who offer data feeds.  If you use those in your marketing programs, check out the list linked to below for more info… 

Performics has over 125 advertisers with product data feeds available.  If you wish to receive any of these data feeds, please contact affiliate support (affiliate@performics.com).  We never charge affiliates for use of these feeds but we will start you off with just a few if you’ve never received them from us before.  Also, you can get a nightly feed of new promotional links from all of your Performics advertisers delivered via a service we call OrangeLinks.  If you haven’t done so already, login to ConnectCommerce and sign up today!

Performics Affiliate Blog: Performics Advertisers Offering Data Feeds

Carsten Cumbrowski has the best run down and explanation of Google’s new Pay Per Action platform.  He’s thrown in some nice data, comparison reviews, and historical analysis…

Google announced today via a press release that they expand the Google Pay-Per-Action beta program to include beta testers around the world. As of today are willing advertisers and publishers outside the United States able to participate and apply for a beta account.

Worldwide Expansion of Google Pay-Per-Action (CPA) Beta

If you thought Twitter’s 140 characters were tough parameters for getting your point across, have fun with Yahoo’s new 70 character restrictions!

If you use YSM, make sure to login and change your copy (or you’re copy will be snipped short!).

Starting today, Yahoo Search Marketing is limiting the amount of copy characters in their ad descriptions from 190 characters to 70 characters.

Yahoo Search Marketing Shortens Descriptions

If you utilize blogs in your affiliate programs, or if you’re an affiliate marketer who blogs, there’s a couple of different options you have for creating a post.  You can either go directly to your Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, etc interface or you can find a 3rd party app which allows you to create entries and then sync up to publish.

My favorite way to blog at the moment is Windows Live Writer (as a Linux fan, it takes a lot for me to admit that).  However, the Windows Live Writer really is fantastically simple, quick and easy to use.  Plus, you can throw in screen grabs, videos, maps, pics, etc much quicker than through say the Wordpress entry maker.  And the ability to blog while offline is always a plus.

There are a few other options out there that do similar things, so if you have a suggestion leave it in the comments.  Currently, Live Writer is only available for Windows Vista and XP.

So, if you’re using a Mac or Ubuntu, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

Windows Live Writer Beta

Jason Calacanis not only can provoke SEO’s to take up arms, but he’s also good at making fat bloggers take action as well. Jason recently started a “fatblogging” meme in the tech geek world, aimed at cataloguing his and others’ experiences of losing weight with Weight Watchers like inspiration from fellow bloggers.

While you don’t have to convert to fatblogging-ism officially, it’s always a good thing to keep an eye on what you put into your mouth. As computer slaves, it becomes very easy for affiliates to fall into the trap of sloth and poor eating. I speak from expert experience.

So, here’s a great article from Men’s Health (applicable to everyone) on how to plan out meals for a week and then not have to rely on the pizza delivery person every night during a long coding session. My wife is a physician, so I basically eat like a bachelor due to her hectic schedule and my inability to plan ahead. But, I’m heading to the grocery store this evening to give this a try!

Thankfully, we have a culinary solution that’ll perfectly fit your budget, schedule, and diet. The plan: Set aside 20 minutes on Sunday to fulfill our 16-item shopping list, then forget about your wallet — and collection of takeout menus — for the rest of the workweek. By following our 5-day menu, you’ll have the precise number of ingredients to create 10 fast, flavorful meals, all of which are designed to help you build muscle and melt fat while saving you money. (The average price of 10 meals eaten out: $85; the total price of our meals: $47.96.) Each night, you’ll simply prepare a quick and easy dinner, and then creatively use the leftovers to assemble the next day’s lunch. Call it the mixologist’s guide to eating. The best part? While the other guys are stuck on hold in drive-thrus, you’ll be rolling through the express line with your next 10 meals in tow.

Shop Once, Eat For A Week - Men’s Health

Fraser Edward’s podcast with David Bain of 13 pillars included a discussion of useful tools for online marketing. Although that wasn’t the main topic of the show, it is definitely a nice collection of auto responders, keyword trackers, directories, plugins, etc that you might want to take a look at!

Following the original blog post Edward sent me an email asking about some of the sites David mentioned in the interview and so I have collected together the links we discussed which form a helpful list of some of the best resources for internet marketing. Sorry for the delay in getting this together!

David Bain - 13pillars.com - Video Notes - Fraser?s Affiliate Marketing Blog