John Ward, Author at John Ward

Building a Business Around a 3rd Party API

Today I read an interesting post on HackerNews about a price comparison site, PriceZombie, being kicked out of the Amazon Associates program. The Amazon Associates program is Amazon’s affiliate network. Amazon pays a commision for any sales you bring in through affiliate links. Since I have a pretty extensive background with affiliate marketing I have a few thoughts … Continue reading Building a Business Around a 3rd Party API

Tracking Ad Blockers Using Google Analytics

If you’ve read any of my older posts you probably know that I’ve been involved in internet advertising, in some form, for a long time now. Lately I’ve been seeing more and more posts about how ad blocking is growing at a tremendous rate. I still have some sites that make money from display advertising … Continue reading Tracking Ad Blockers Using Google Analytics

The Best WordPress Email Plugin

Thinking about adding a WordPress email plugin to your site? One of the most power marketing tools that anyone publishing online can take advantage of is email marketing. According to the Direct Marketing Association email advertising has an average return on investment of %4,300 in the United States. Email is consistently the best performing media in … Continue reading The Best WordPress Email Plugin

Are Products the Road to Prosperity?

A few weeks ago a wrote a somewhat popular post about my past experiences trying to make money online. I went through the ups and downs of working as an affiliate promoting other people’s products. At the conclusion of the post I said that I wanted to focus on building some type of product. So … Continue reading Are Products the Road to Prosperity?

Setup A Life You Don’t Need to Escape From

I waste too much time online, especially on social networks like Facebook. I saw a quote the other day from Seth Godin: Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from. -Seth Godin This really hits home with me. I often find myself … Continue reading Setup A Life You Don’t Need to Escape From

Going Full-time as a Work from Home Employee

The office I work out of is running out of space. A few weeks ago I was asked if I wanted to give up my desk to become a full-time remote employee. There are a few reason I was chosen as one of the people asked to give up their desks. First of all my commute … Continue reading Going Full-time as a Work from Home Employee

IBM Watson Explorer

I’m going to talk a little bit about IBM Watson Explorer (WEX). A few people have contacted me about what I do at my day job as a Watson Explorer Consultant. Since this is my personal site I don’t usually focus on what I do at my 9-5. I’m going to write a few posts … Continue reading IBM Watson Explorer

Overcoming the Anxiety of Publishing Online

You know the feeling. You’ve just spent a small chunk of your life writing a blog post. As you slowly scroll to the right, your mouse hovers over the publish button. With a finger on the mouse button, you pause for a second. As you stop to think your palms get clammy. The beating in your chest … Continue reading Overcoming the Anxiety of Publishing Online

Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

This is the history of my experience trying to make money online over the past 10 years or so. This is by far the longest post I’ve ever personally written and it’s more of an autobiography than a blog post. I feel like I need to purge some of this stuff from my head so … Continue reading Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

One AdSense Change Dramatically Increased My Earnings…

… and I have no idea what it is. I used to blog actively on my tutorial site, TeamTutorials. In it’s prime the site would see over 100k page views per month. Even in the prime the site barely met the $100 Google AdSense monthly payout threshold. After 2-3 years of not posting it now … Continue reading One AdSense Change Dramatically Increased My Earnings…