Posts Tagged ‘123LinkIt’

What is 123LinkIt working on?

August 3rd, 2010 View Comments

If you’ve been wondering what we’ve been working on, this blog post will lay it all out for you. We’ve been heads-down working on improvements to the site and plugin. They have largely in part due to you, our awesome users, who have provided great feedback and direction along the way. (P.S. It’s not too late to submit your own feedback. If you’d like to participate and become part of our testing group, fill out this quick 5-minute survey here). Our top 6 upcoming features and updates (broken up by category) are:

Site Changes:

  1. 123LinkIt Referral Program - We’ve received a lot of requests for this and we anticipate it’ll be ready in September. For commission details, check out our site.
  2. Homepage and Profile Changes – Our homepage has changed! We’re working on making it cleaner, adding more whitespace and clarifying our message. Look out for more dramatic changes soon. Your profile page will also constantly be improving. We’ve already added notifications so you can stay up-to-date on our newest releases. To access this feature, click on “view all notifications” on the lower right hand size of your page when you first log on. Next, we’re incorporating easy to view graphs in your Quick Stats page (look for it this Friday).
  3. New Sign-up Process – We’re changing the sign-up process and both current users and new users will realize the benefits. Current users will have an opportunity to add more details to their profile and new users will be able to create an account using their Twitter or Facebook account.

Plugin Changes:

Version 1.0 pic

  1. The “Lazy Person’s 123LinkIt” – As dubbed by a user on our GetSatisfaction page, this greatly anticipated feature will launch in our next upgrade or our 1.0 version. This will synchronize all your posts (old and current) and automatically insert relevant, timely in-text affiliate ads without requiring you to approve/disapprove each suggestion.
  2. Improved Plugin Settings – Some of which include being able to blacklist advertisers, remove links easily, etc.
  3. More Keywords and Links – The new version will have more keywords and products to link to which will help increase the monetization potential of your blog.

We’re keeping a couple of other projects under our belt until they launch so we can surprise you. However, one I will mention is the launch of our own API that will allow other sites and services to utilize our service for their own needs.

Which one are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments!

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: ,

Can’t find matching keywords for your posts? Now you can add them!

June 28th, 2010 View Comments

123LinkIt plugin no affiliate links screenshot

Is that a common screen when using our WordPress affiliate plugin?

If so, there are now two ways you can change that! First by adding your own keyword suggestions to our database and next by recommending which advertisers or category of products you’d like us to focus on.

1. Adding your own keyword suggestions

Suggest affiliate keywords

If you can’t find relevant keywords or phrases that match your content and would like to add your own, this is the perfect feature for you. Navigate to your profile (this will soon be available within the plugin as well), click on Suggest Keywords (screenshot to the left), and select “Suggest More” next to the corresponding advertiser. Type your keywords in the field box provided and we’ll add them within 24 hours.

Let’s do an example together. Let’s say I want to add “fitness program” to the P90X program. I would look under Advertisers for P90X, click on Suggest Keywords and type that keyword into the field box provided (see below). It’s that easy!

Note: The keywords and phrases MUST be relevant to the advertiser. One of the keys to success of affiliate marketing is matching appropriate keywords and ads to advertisers. Irrelevant links don’t perform and we want to ensure we’re always providing you with as many opportunities as possible to make money from your blog.

2. Recommending advertisers

If there are specific advertisers like GoDaddy.com or BestBuy.com you’d like us to add, let us know here and we’ll do our best to add them or a similar advertiser. We’re adding as many as we can and will make your suggestions a priority if you share them with us.

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions, ideas or comments!

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: ,

Philadelphia Magazine features 123LinkIt as “Startup to Watch”

June 4th, 2010 View Comments

123LinkIt in Philadelphia MagazineWe’re excited to announce we received a mention in June’s issue of Philadelphia Magazine! We’re grateful to be in such good company with other amazing entrepreneurs and startups. Check out the online link or click on the image to the right for a close-up.

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: , ,

More Goodies in Version 0.5…

May 15th, 2010 View Comments

Our latest changes does NOT require you to update your plugin but don’t worry – it’s still jam-packed with new features. These include updates to your profile and the affiliate plugin.

Profile Updates:

New Profile sub-menu

  • First, you’ll notice your sub-menu changed (see the picture on the left)! It now includes an Advertisers Database. What is this exactly? You can now view the advertisers in our system as well as the keywords connected to them. This is useful if you want to search what advertisers/keywords you can promote while drafting your blog entry.
  • Going back to the top of the sub-menu, there are more changes. Your Quick Stats now has more information on your commissions. Click on it to discover the advertisers, the sale price, and more.
  • We’ve also updated our Payments page. You can now specify if you’d like to be paid by PayPal or Check and add in the necessary information so we can send your payments.

Plugin Updates:

We now have a version of our WordPress plugin just for MU users! We’ve had a lot of requests for this version and even though the big WordPress 3.0 release is coming out soon that will include MU features, this allows you to get it if you’re not planning to upgrade.

And our final update for now – our algorithm can now detect special characters. You may have noticed that we couldn’t pick up on numbers, dashes, and periods but now we can! For example, we can now recommend affiliate links for P90X and BestBuy.com as well as 1-800-Florals .

The best part about this new tweak is you’ll have even more recommendations to choose from after writing your blog entry.

Questions? Feedback? As always, you can find us at support@123linkit.com or at our online community.

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: ,

What’s new in Version 0.4?

April 23rd, 2010 View Comments

In case you haven’t seen it, our new 0.4 release is now available. We had to take our site down for two hours last night (1AM to 3AM) to push through the updates. The three new changes are:

1. (This is the one I’m most excited about)You can now use the 123LinkIt affiliate plugin for your WordPress pages! This was the most commonly requested feature we had since we launched our first version 7 weeks ago. Your wish is our command. Upgrade to the latest version and give it a whirl right now!

2. Forgot Your Password option- Not a major update but we had to manually reset our users passwords before. Users can now request their own password change.

3. Plugin is now set to appear right below the text editor. Some of our new users had problems viewing the plugin correctly and it’s now set to appear beneath the editor as default.

As always, your feedback and ideas are always welcome. Questions? Visit our Zendesk page and let us know how we can help!

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: ,

123LinkIt Wins First Place and $10,000!

April 22nd, 2010 View Comments

We’re excited to announce we placed First in the Graduate/Faculty/Alumni category of Temple University’s Be Your Own Boss Bowl yesterday. We’ll be receiving $10,000 in cash and prizes that will go towards growing the business and marketing our beta launch.

How did we get this far?

We entered our business plan into the competition a few weeks ago and it received glowing scores from the preliminary judges. We learned we were finalists last week. It was a GREAT feeling as we entered the previous year but did not make it. Back then, we only had an idea. We’ve come a looooooong way since then. We rounded out our team, started developing the software, and as you know by now – launched 7 weeks ago.

Yasmine Mustafa, the founder and presenter, had a really good feeling 123LinkIt was going to win. “As soon as the judges started nodding, I knew they got it. Our unique selling proposition is clear – affiliate marketing is complicated and time-consuming. Our tools make it dead simple and saves bloggers a lot of time. Who won’t want to make money from what they were already doing?”

We won’t have gotten this far without help from A LOT of people who were involved in refining our pitch and getting us ready.  The support we’ve been getting has also been astounding – thank you all!

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: ,

Announcing our New and Improved Plugin

March 24th, 2010 View Comments

You asked for it! And we listened!

Check out the spanking new look of our 123LinkIt affiliate plugin (click on the picture below to view a larger image):

Nice and simple, isn’t it?

What exactly has changed? There are two new features and a few minor adjustments. Let me start with the BIG one.

1. You can now add affiliate links AUTOMATICALLY! That’s right. You no longer have to copy our links and embed them manually – we’ve made it even easier. Instead, add all the links we recommend or check off the links you don’t want and click “Add Affiliate Links” – that’s it!

2. Our links are now prettier! We cloaked your links in our previous releases – but they were way too long. That’s no longer the case. They’re now much shorter. Here’s an example using GoDaddy. Hover your mouse over the link and you’ll see the difference.

Those are the two main features you were asking for. To take it to the next level, we anticipated what else you would like and added even more capabilities. These new features allow you to manage your links easier. They include the following:

  • You can designate whether or not you want an affiliate link cloaked. We thought about making this standard but we weren’t sure how you’d feel about it so we gave you the option. Please tell us what you think in the comments below or our GetSatisfaction page.
  • Same for nofollow tags. Instead of making them standard, you can choose which links to add nofollow tags to.
  • Open links in a new window. A few of our users emailed us and told us they were setting this up manually. We want to make the 123LinkIt experience as easy as possible so you now have the option right within the plugin.

We could have stopped there…but why not keep going?

So we added one more feature – you can now add MORE THAN ONE affiliate link to a keyword. Clicking on the radio buttons on the bottom of our plugin will allow you to place either one link per keyword or an affiliate link on ALL the keywords. We’re going to allow you to choose the number in the next few releases. We decided to roll out this feature in the meantime to hear what you think.

Finally, you may be wondering how this is going to impact your old affiliate links. Your old links will still work. To cloak them with this format, they’ll have to removed and added again – unfortunately, there’s no way we could get them to update by themselves.

Let me take a moment to cover a couple of questions you may have about the new functionalities…

1. Question: Will you remove OTHER links in my post if I click on “Remove affiliate links?”

Answer: No. Your other links will stay intact. We only remove our links. Caveat: WE WILL NOT REMOVE OUR OLD LINKS. These will have to be removed manually. Note: You do not have to uncheck the links in your table to remove the links we added in your post. Just click remove and they’ll all be removed instantly.

2. Question: What if multiple advertisers are recommended in my table and I click on “Add Affiliate Links” without unchecking the other boxes?

Answer: If you receive multiple advertisers for the same keyword, we will automatically select the first advertiser that appears in your table. Their links will be added to the first keyword that appears in your post or to ALL the keywords if that option is selected. E.g. if GoDaddy and Network Solutions appear for “domain names” in that order, we will choose GoDaddy and add their affiliate links to however many times the “domain names” keyword appeared. Tip:Use the EPC columns to decide which link to select (you can sort them by highest to lowest by clicking on top of the column). I would add the advertiser with the highest 7-day or 3-month EPC, whatever you prefer. The higher numbers represent advertisers who are performing better for the current time period.

So how do you like the new look? Please share your comments below.

Thanks! :)

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: , ,

123LinkIt Affiliate Plugin Demo Video

March 19th, 2010 View Comments

UPDATE: The latest demo version featuring our 0.2 release can be seen at http://www.123linkit.org/blog/demo-video-of-v0-2-release/.

We’ve received a number of questions about how our 123LinkIt WordPress affiliate plugin works and we thought – what better way than to show you? So we put together a demo video that shows you how to use the plugin to add money-making affiliate links. We also take you through how to install the plugin, create an account and add your API keys – all in only 2:30 mins. Next time, we’ll shoot for 1:23 mins ;)

So whether you want to add affiliate links like GoDaddy, EA Store, Priceline, Quickbooks etc. just to name a few – here’s a quick overview.

Note: There is no sound.

123LinkIt.com How It Works Video from 123LinkIt.com on Vimeo

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Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: , ,

123LinkIt: Two Weeks In…

March 15th, 2010 View Comments

It’s been an extremely exciting two weeks since we launched our alpha! We had initially planned to market our tool to the 150 people who have signed up to be notified about our launch and mention it periodically on Twitter and Facebook. However, the conversions didn’t result in enough data to help us with testing so we submitted the 123LinkIt Affiliate Plugin to WordPress this past Wednesday.

Things immediately changed. In fact, we had almost 170 downloads and 80 account signups in the first day alone! You can imagine how ecstatic we were…that is until we learned our tool didn’t work :-/

It turned out WordPress renamed our zipped file which caused the plugin to break. Alex and I spent the night testing it and pushing through the updates needed to get it fixed. The days since have been a whirlwind! Our goals for this alpha have been to get data flowing through our system, fix bugs and get feedback on new features – and we’re meeting all of them. Our traffic and downloads are also continuing to grow and we’ve already started tracking commissions.

What’s our goal for the following two weeks? We’ll be focusing on making the plugin even better with more automated features. Stay tuned for more updates!

And last but not least – thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. We’re grateful for all your feedback and ideas and we couldn’t have gotten this far without you!

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: ,

How 123LinkIt works…it’s as easy as 1-2-3

March 6th, 2010 View Comments

So we’ve received a few questions about how 123LinkIt works. No one has specifically asked why they should use us but I’m going to tell you anyway! :P

It’s only fair I explain how our affiliate plugin works in 3 steps given our Company Name so here goes:

  1. First, you install our plugin (currently available for WordPress.org with others to be released soon). Step-by-step installation directions are displayed on our download page.
  2. Next, you can either open a previously launched blog post or start writing a new one. When you’re finished, click on “Add Affiliate Links” and a list of recommendations will appear for you to choose from. (P.S. We’ve received feedback that users would like an automated feature that does this automatically for previous and new posts. This is something we’re currently working on – thanks for your suggestions!)
  3. After the link has been embedded, you’re good to go! By this point, we’ve already cloaked the affiliate link for you and added nofollow tags so your blog isn’t penalized by search engines.

So to get to WHY you should use us, I’ll also give you 3 reasons (again, it seems appropriate):

  1. We make it as easy as 1-2-3 to get started in an affiliate marketing program or to manage one (okay, we promise that’s the last time we use that reference…in this email at least ;-) ). You don’t need to sign up to an affiliate network or apply for advertisers – we take care of all that for you.
  2. So you can start building a passive income stream (or increase it)! What could be better than spending an hour or two writing a blog post and then collecting residual revenue from it? That’s what motivated me to create this plugin in the first place and if I can do it so can you! Soon, I’ll be posting a blog article on how one post has helped me generate more than $6,000!
  3. Because as part of our alpha launch, YOU will get to shape what the service becomes. It’s early enough that you can tell us what you want and don’t want, what features we should add, and the list goes on and on. By being one of the first ones to use us, you also get bragging rights when we hit it big :)

There you have it! Again, please free to reach out with any questions/comments/feedback – whatever. Thanks again to everyone who’s contributed so far.

Posted in 123LinkIt Tags: , ,
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