Networking, it’s very important. Go to a conference, get together with link minded individuals and it could lead you virtually anywhere. Especially if your “friends” will go along with anything for a quick buck.
Don’t mind me, I’m just rambling.
Isn’t it amazing how popular Shoemoney Tools have become recently? All of a sudden every big name blogger has been using them and they’re great. Oh and by the way you get access for less than $20 for 1 month only. Take John Chow for example, he made more than $2000 in affiliate commissions last month by bigging up Shoemoney Tools. I have a question though, if he’s been using them since the TAC how come his PPC spend hasn’t changed that much? The main point of these tools is to help you profit from PPC, if they work for you then your PPC spend would go up, a lot?! His link profile hasn’t altered that much and he’s certainly not using the ping back method. What part of Shoemoney Tools is he using exactly? Doesn’t matter though cos it’s much easier to make money by writing a blog post for your mate and getting affiliate commissions instead. $2000 plus for next to nothing, awesome work! Especially when you’re helping out a “friend”.
This sort of ring leading gets on my tits. It’s aimed at the lowest common affiliate marketer. Somebody who can’t afford to spend $100 (no sign of that $250 a month price increase yet, shock, horror) a month but because his favourite bloggers are recommending something (entirely non biased and nothing to do with any recent networking at a convention or the affiliate commissions) they will throw a bit of money at it just to give it a go. Market research will probably show you that most people will take a punt up to around $20?
Here’s a tip for you, if you can’t afford $100 a month for Shoemoney tools then they’re not really going to benefit you. You NEED a budget to get anything of any value out of PPC, if $100 is too much forget it. Is there value in Shoemoney Tools? Certainly. But only for certain types of marketers. Do I believe that all of a sudden they are the greatest set of marketing tools on the planet because there is an affiliate commission in it? Do I bollocks! I get the impression that if one of the top bloggers took a dump in a plastic bag and tried to sell it you’d suddenly see a deluge of “shit-in-a-bag made me money” blog posts.
I can’t really do anything about all this, it’s just the way the wanky blogosphere works. What I will do though is a series of posts about free alternatives to the various elements of Shoemoney Tools. I was one of the early paid users so I’ve got a good idea of what was available. Over the next few days, weeks, months or whenever I get around to it I’ll offer up some free alternatives. There is nothing magic about Shoemoney Tools, just a bit of text parsing and hooking up to some APIs. The information is out there for free, you just need to know where to look.
6 Responses to “Free Alternatives To Shoemoney Tools”
Chris
October 5, 2008
Good to see you’re still around… was a bit gutted after your last post.
I know what you mean, and I’ve seen all these ShoeMoney tools posts about too but haven’t really looked into it. Would be cool to see the free alternatives you come up with.
Chris’s last blog post..Goals for October
|judge
October 5, 2008
Great post, just wish more people would point out the nonsense in this industry.
I also had the same concerns regarding John Cows post.
I did see the same type of offer on at least 4 other sites where it is also obvious that they don’t use these tools or if they are doing so, they were preforming pretty badly.
It all looks like if your buddies can make some cash, promote them because you will make some cash on the back of them, no time for morals here.
A post on the free alternatives would be great…
judge’s last blog post..JLS
|Paul B
October 5, 2008
Yep I’ll still be here from time to time chipping in when I’ve got anything worth saying. Not so much of a blogger anymore, just random articles every now and then when the mood hits.
|zawadi
October 10, 2008
Right now the Blogshere is congested with so many online marketers trying to get other affiliates to buy from them! that is the Problem… I have been having a hard time making anything online, but we all have to start from somewhere.
I see a huge market and it’s an untapped market, but i just don’t have people I trust to partner with.
The biggest reason most cannot even make money from a shit in a bag is because we are trying to sell laxatives to people who already took a dump lmao
nice blog !!!
zawadi’s last blog post..Raw Foods and Vegan Dishes
|Armen Shirvanian
October 21, 2008
I would imagine that one of the main purposes of ShoeMoney Tools is to spread around the concept of ShoeMoney. One might replace the name with a different name, and it would probably spread around just as quickly, as long as people knew that big site owners like ShoeMoney supported it.
Armen Shirvanian’s last blog post..Quality Builds On Itself
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