Rosalind Gardner Reviewed

On February 20, 2009 Rosalind Gardner announced the latest update of her Super Affiliate Handbook. The book, first published in 2003, has gone through many updates, which helps explain why it remains ClickBank's top-selling information product in the affiliate education category.

"The new version includes Wordpress 2.7 examples, SimpleScripts installation information, a much simpler way to assess niche and PPC potential and more," Gardner wrote last week about her latest release.

For those of you not familiar with The Super Affiliate Handbook, this affiliate marketing standard covers everything you need to know to achieve Super Affiliate status marketing other people's products online.

What is a Super Affiliate? Someone who earns $100,000 a year or more.

Who is Rosalind Gardner, you ask?

Canadian "Ros" Gardner is entering her 11th year as an internet affiliate marketer.

A 22-year air traffic controller, she ventured online 1998 a year after clicking on a banner ad in 1997.

"That ad read "Webmasters Make Money" which was too enticing (and at the time, quite unusual) to ignore, so I clicked on it and found myself on the affiliate program signup page for the One and Only dating service network which included a cursory explanation about affiliate marketing," Ms. Gardner told Kris Jones, of Pepperjam Network, in an interview.

"Recurring commissions of fifty percent of the monthly membership fee sounded like a decent prospect, so I started a little dating service review site for singles called Sage-Hearts.com."

Like so many who turn to the internet in hope of earning money from their home computer, Ros had no knowledge of html, FTP, or any of the technical aspects of internet marketing.

She also said of that time: "I am not a salesperson, I wasn't interested in selling anything either."

But she rolled up her sleeves and set about learning everything she could about online marketing. She must have been an apt pupil because she came up with an idea for an online review site. Within a month, she had it up and running.

Visitors to her site used her affiliate links to go join the dating service she reviewed on her site. Within a month Gardner received her first check.

"When I got my first check for $10.99 I was convinced affiliate marketing was real." By the end of the first year, her earnings climbed to $5000 per month.

By 2000, Gardner's monthly earnings hit $10,000 per month in affiliate commissions and she quit her job. In January 2007, her income exceeded $70,000-in a single day.

Today, Rosalind Gardner spreads her affiliate marketing strategy between various affiliate niche sites including, but not limited to: affiliate niche marketing, travel and, of course, her dating review site.

She supports these sites with niche-related blogs. And she runs affiliate seminars, is often a speaker at affiliate marketing events, as well as writes a column for Revenue Magazine.

In one of her articles there, she conducts an imaginary interview with an affiliate marketing hopeful. The problems she finds with his site are the same today as when this article first ran in 2006.

I see the same errors committed every day three years later. I invite anyone serious about starting an online affiliate business to read Gardner's Entrepreneur Sees the Light.

Another quality of hers that I appreciate is that she doesn't pretend she or anyone else can expect to achieve her level of success working a few hours a week at their home computer.

She described her work schedule in a 2008 interview:

"Once every couple of weeks I put in one to three long 'working' days during which I spend several hours writing blog posts, articles and product reviews; days that are followed by long stretches of primarily free time for travel, gardening, hiking and otherwise having fun."

Sounds pretty good. But she adds:

"Even on the 'off' days, however, I often make time to respond to blog commentary and support tickets that cannot otherwise be handled by my assistant. Because I like what I do and do what I like (topical blogging), attending to business on my free-time days never feels like work."

I wouldn't expect to find a multi-millionaire business executive taking long breaks from the day-to-day operation of their business. And although she talks about travel and gardening, I know through my association with successful business owners in the brick-and-mortar world that their "free time" is punctuated with conversations on their cell phones.

Read A Day In the Life of an Affiliate Marketer from Mastermind Lounge for more insight into the affiliate marketing business model.

Back in 2003, Gardner decided to write a book about what she had learned.

That book, The Super Affiliate Handbook, is still available online and is still a hot seller because of the frequent updates that reflect new resources in the market. (The most recent updated version was announced February 20, 2009).

Extra value (and learning) comes in the construction of the eBook itself. It provides the perfect template for any affiliate information product.

You see, by the time Gardner put together this 222-page volume, she had tried countless products and services to that promised to save her time so that she could spend her time doing what she loves best: talking on the phone with fellow marketers and friends, speaking at conferences, and writing her blogs and articles.

She discusses these products and services, letting you know how they fit into her business model. She provides her own affiliate links within her book for readers to get them.

In this way, Gardner earns money each time her book is sold, but also each time a reader purchases one of the products she recommends.

Because she developed a reputation for honesty over the past 10 years, readers can trust her evaluation of the very products and services that helped her organize and run her business.

Here's an example of just one of Gardner's marketing campaigns for a webhosting service.

She is giving away a blog set-up service.

That's right. You pay nothing to have your Wordpress blog set up for you. The only cost to the customer is hosting. And, of course, Gardner is an affiliate for that hosting company.

If you opt for her service will you lose money? Absolutely not! If you are planning to market from a blog there is no better platform than Wordpress.

While there are free hosting options for Wordpress blogs, blog publishers often lose control of the advertising that appears on their pages. This is a no-no if you intend to review and sell affiliate products from your blog.

Other issues with free hosting have been "here today, gone tomorrow." Too often free webhost businesses fold. There can be size/storage limits. Often the pages upload slowly and impatient visitors leave.

Think of the brilliance of Gardner's spin on this affiliate opportunity! If YOU had the time and technical expertise to set up a Wordpress blog for others, offered this service for free, as Rosalind has, imagine the opt-ins you would generate.

More than 12 million websites, many of them blogs, went online during the first 6 months of 2008. Without proper set-up and optimization, statistics show that 44% will fail.

I'd say Rosalind Gardner has come up with a honey of an idea to sell the webhost company's service.

This is just one example of how Rosalind Gardner rose to be a Super Affiliate. Her innovative internet marketing affiliate program makes her an excellent role model for any would-be affiliate.

If you follow her action steps faithfully in her Super Affiliate Handbook, you will build your affiliate business the correct way and never have to pose this question on a forum or marketing membership site:

"Please look at my Landing Page and tell me why you think I'm not getting conversions."

To protect people wanting to earn money online from wasting time, sinking deeper in debt and getting scammed. (Out daughter disabled daughter was lost $6,100 in an internet fraud while trying to get an affiliate business started).

My website Personal Business Protection is a good place for