DRUMROLL PLEASE! (turn sound on!)

Only one kind soul was good enough to enter my contest, the fantastic Mr. Jeremy Botter!

I was lucky enough to meet Jeremy in February at Affiliate Summit.  Very nice guy, and I’ve been following his blog since.  Apparently, he’s been following mine!

You can (and should) go read Jeremy’s post here.

Since Jeremy was good enough to indulge me, I’ve given him his choice of prize and he’s chosen to take the generous James Seligman up on a silver Creative Vado.

So thanks to James and congrats to Jeremy!

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In a possible fail of the Disqus comment system (say it ain’t so, @DanielHa!) I’ve been informed that the comments on my original blog post about my contest appear to be closed.

So in an effort to wrap this bad boy up, entries are welcome via comment on ANY post. Deadline is still Sunday.

I’m going to stick with my original way of entering – write a post in your blog about why you read my blog. Link baiting? I won’t deny it. I got a good suggestion from Andrew Wee of WhoIsAndrewWee.com to forget the link bait entry model and go with random or a survey. Good idea, but it’ll have to wait for the next contest. I’ve never been one to change the rules mid-game (unless it meant winning at Monopoly).

First prize is still a 6 month subscription to Trackur reputation management service courtesy of Andy Beal. Second prize is a Creative Vado pocket video camera courtesy of James Seligman. Third prize is 6 months of ad space at FreshySEO.com courtesy of Eric J. Odom.

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If you’re like me and have jumped into affiliate marketing head on, you may not know some of the nuances of using affiliate links. Recently, James Seligman of JMCA Media schooled me on how to really easily set up PHP redirects for your affiliate links to make them a bit more user friendly. Let me share this knowledge with you!

• Open up Notepad or a similar text editing program.
• Add the following code:
  <?
  header(”location:affiliate-link-goes-here“);
  ?>
• Replace the portion in italics above with the tracked link from the program of your choice.
• Save the file as a .php file with whatever name is easiest for you.
• Upload it to a designated diretory or folder on your website. Some possible names for the folder are recommends, deals, however you can call it whatever is easiest for you.
• When you want to add an affiliate link, just add the code <a href=”/recommends/affiliate.php”>Affiliate </a>

It’s that simple! I had head of PHP redirects before but, not knowing PHP very well myself, I never looked into how to do it. Luckily James was there to show me just how easy it is!  And now you have a weekend project to go mask all your affiliate links!

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Announcing a momentous occasion – the first ever contest from TrishaLyn.com! In an amazing feat of social media at it’s best, prizes have been graciously donated by a number of sponsors, mostly through Twitter! Now you have a chance to win, and let me tell you, I wish I could keep some of these!

Prizes:

• First Prize – Six month subscription to Trackur.
• Second Prize – Creative Vado Pocket Video Camera.
• Third Prize – Six month 125×125 ad spot on FreshySEO.com.
• Random Entry “Door” Prizes – 50 custom printed business cards from PsPrint, a Secrettweet.com Logo T-shirt, Create Your Own Reality: The Ancient Wisdom book by Sharyn Abbott, and a fantastic free sticker selection from StickerGiant.com,

To Enter:

All you have to do to win is write a blog post telling your readers why you read TrishaLyn.com and link to both the main URL TrishaLyn.com and to your favorite post. Simple, right? Well for our first contest we’re going low-key. To submit your entry, post a comment with a link to the post. You must submit your entry via comment – e-mail entries will not be accepted! Winners will be determined by the quality of content – because that’s the name of the game!

And, for the random entry prizes, I’ll put all the names in a hat and draw some for the random entry “door prizes”. This will be fun!

Deadline:

I want to give a decent amount of time for contestants for formulate and post their entries, so the deadline for this bad boy is Sunday, June 15th. Two solid weeks should be enough time to get the post refined and posted.

Prize Details

First prize is a six month subscription to Trackur, a great aggregation service produced by Andy Beal to help monitor your online reputation. Track keywords, brand names, branded terms, etc all from one super easy to use platform. I’m already a Trackur evangelist having blogged about it long ago, and that’s only after a 14 day free trial. The six month subscription donated by creator Andy Beal is valued at $108 for the Standard service and is an invaluable asset in monitoring your brand online.

Second prize is the techie talk of the town – the Creative Vado pocket video camera. A direct competitor to the Flip Camera, the Vado is lighter, smaller, and being talked about as the next best thing in internet video. This prize has been graciously donated by James Seligman of JamesSeligman.net. On his blog, James addresses the challenges of running various forums and his dabbling in affiliate marketing. The winner of this prize (valued at $100) has their choice of Pink or Silver for the camera – and should, of course, send me their first video with it to share!

Third prize was donated by Eric J. Odom from FreshySEO.com. The 125×125 ad spot on FreshySEO.com’s homepage, valued at $100, is located above the fold on the right hand side of the page. FreshySEO.com gets an average of 900 unique visitors per week. The blog covers many topics important for SEO professionals and amateurs alike, with frequent updates and helpful information. The winner will have to provide their own banner and the URL for the ad, which will be live for six months on the website, putting your ad in front of over 21,000 potential leads! So make it alluring!

Random Entry “Door Prize” Details

A sweet logo tee donated by Kevin Smith of SecretTweet.com. Secret Tweet allows anyone to post an anonymous tweets through the @secrettweet Twitter name. The shirt (pictured right) is valued at $25 and is available in an adult size requested.

Everyone can use some help achieving their goals, so author Sharyn Abbott has graciously donated a copy of her book Create Your Own Reality: The Ancient Wisdom (retail value $24.95). Create Your Own Reality is a different kind of self-help book, with tips and resources on how to make all the money you want, lose all the weight you want, and be as happy as you want. The book is 208 pages and includes over $99 worth of free bonuses.  More details about the book can be found at www.CreateYours2.com.

For a customized door prize, PsPrint is donating an order of 50 full-color 1 sided business cards. Winner will have a free account created for them at PsPrint.com and an order placed into their account. The winner will be responsible for designing and submitting the cards, either using their own design or one from the Design It! online tool. Help can be provided if necessary. For some generic fun, John Fischer from StickerGiant.com has donated a selection of stickers. Stickers will be randomly selected from their free stickers stash.

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