One of the ways I got my quality banners for my sites was to make a contest on Digital Point.  Since the contest is open to everyone in the world, you will find many professionals. Of course, the prize will have an effect on who will participate or not.

For around $20, you get a one logo or banner. If you want other type of banners(125x125, 300x250, 468x60) you must offer more money.

In your face

I once offered much more money to get extra sized banners but some American got in my face claiming that I should be ashamed to offer "such a low amount" and other stupid comments. I did not realized it and I increased my prize a little more. This also got me more participants. Of course, the American was still not happy.

But I also told the American that his tone was not welcome and that he was not forced to participate. Also, the amount money could mean a days work for another professional somewhere in the world. For example, an average salary for the same job might be $45k here while $70K in New-York. The amount was not peanuts either for my neck of the woods.

How many times have you participated in a blog contest where it took more time than the prize was worth? It's contest and for fun after all.

I'm only mentioning this because you might encounter this type behavior. Of course, don't offer $5 either for a full pack of banners.

Some tips:

• Offer what you can afford and try to be fair. I paid $10 more to the winner of my contest since he gave me a good service. I did not drag the final step(other banners) for days.
• Make it short 2-3 days or your thread will be forgotten and be on the second page
• Try to give the most information of what you want. Do you need an animal, human, insect, graphic,  just letters ....
• If it's for company, ask for the graphics to be royalty free or better yet, original
• You should add a disclaimer that you won't pick a winner if you did not find what you are looking for or could continue the contest for a few days
• If you need other banners, tell participant what's the main size you want and the other banners will be done after.
• Participants must post their creations in the thread. Try to write a lot of feedback.
• Ask if it's possible to get the Photoshop PSDs(less participants). I did not on my first few ones. I bought Photoshop last month for making ecovers(See Free Movies Legally, AuctionSiteWriter) so I could make my own variation of banners based on those PSDs that I have.

One other way

By becoming a member of PLC, I was able to get access to a lot of site templates and banners thus graphics.

It's much cheaper than doing a contest for every banners you need if you want to create your own niche empire.

PLC vs Contest

PLC: $97(one time)+($29.97/month) =  $456.64 for the first year, $359.64 for the second year. Of course, you can subscribe for the first 6 months. You would have to repay the $97 if you want to register again.

$456.64(PLC)/$20(contest)  =  23 banners

Since you niche empire might have 30+ sites, then it's more cost effective to becomea member of PLC than doing contest for those niches(BANS, phpBay ..).  That's not counting access to a lot of private label rights products that I will be able to resell.

If it's for a flaship blog or site, then doing a contest would be worth it. But the prize should be $50+  to get the other size of banners for doing advertising later on.

Conclusion

Most of time you won't have troubles getting participants on DP. They are fast, might even give you a new ideas and get a cheap banner for your blog/site. Plus, you get extra traffic your blog/site if the prize is much bigger than the others.

You must also consider that adding a banner will make your blog/site more professional looking. That your care for your blog/site.

AuctionSiteWriter
See free movies legally(and make money too)

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Since I have my own blog about contest for the last year, I started to slowly write this post on how to organize a successful blog contest. I see all kinds of methods, good or bad, being used. Some methods could even be very negative to a blog's traffic.

I will write about each points and btw, they are not in any specific order.

1. Don't game the system

Don't ask people to Stumble, Digg or anything like that. In most cases, it goes against the Terms Of Service (TOS) and your blog could be banned. If banned, don't count on getting traffic from those.

2. Keep it short

Make it last for 2 weeks maximum. If it's too long(1 month), a lot of readers will not participate or forget about it thinking they have the time. You can always do another post to remained people it's still on 2-3 days before it end's.

3. Make it simple

No matter the value of the prizes, most are lazy or lack the time to participate. You can go with the more tickets per task method. This way, the longer tasks are more worthwhile to do and everyone has at least one chance.

1 - Subscribe to RSS by email
25 - Make a post about the contest
50+ - Make a video about the contest

4. Give back to sponsors

One simple way is to let bloggers post about the contest itself by listing all the sponsors at that time. Also, don't demand a minimum of words for that post. If you demand something more, do give extra tickets.

5. Don't "force" RSS subscribing by email

Yes, it does make it easier to contact the winners but It does not mean that you can't give 1 ticket to subscribe to the RSS feed by email. A person might still like to get the RSS feed via a reader. The same person can always make a post while losing 1 ticket.

After the contest, most readers will simply unsubscribed giving you a false sense of new readers. If you want them to stay because of your content and not for the contest, have some content ideals in mind.

6. Have an end date

Don't over extend the contest unless you have a good reason. You may had been sick or had family reasons and people will understand that. Not enough participants is not a good reasons.

7. Promote The Contest

You should promote the contest to contest blogs. Be aware that most are doing it for free and are not full time. So, the contest might appeared a few days later. Make sure that the contest is already active/visible.

Depending on the value of your contest, you could make a small donations or pay a fee to promote it better.

I discovered that many contest blogs are now "dead". I started with a old list of 22 blogs and ended with 10 blogs that were still around. I added 7 more.

The list below are blogs that made a contest post since June 2008. Being summer, some might be away on vacation.

In the Contest blog only category or

• Contest Blogger
• The Prize Blog
• RevieWOW
• Blog Contest Site
• My Blog Contest
• Contest Beat
• Blog Contests on the Net
• About Blog Contests
• Link Right Contests
• Blog Contest Central
• An Island Life
• Blog Paradise
• Submit Your Contest
• Prize-a-thon
• Laura Williams Musings
• Contest Canada
• Contest Bytes
• International Freebies & Contests
• Contest Live Blog

Also, use forums(Matthew) to promote contest.

8. Give the prize

Some were giving big prizes but failed to deliver them or something "fishy" occurred when the winner was announced. Your reputation will suffer so don't be tempted to give it to your friend.

9. Contact the sponsors

If you go with sponsors, you should contact the sponsors ahead of time like 2-3 weeks before the contest start. Some might take longer than others to reply to you depending if it's a company or another blogger. Btw, I'm sponsoring contests via 1coolfile.com.

10. Don't have too many sponsors

Having too many sponsors will diminish the benefice for every sponsors. When contacting them, tell them you have limited spots(10-12) to maximize their exposure. Also, give them some info like readers(RSS), type of blog, type of contest...The sponsor might give more prizes depending on those numbers. If you did a previous contest, link it to them if it was successful.

11. Contact the winners/sponsors

When the winners are picked, contact the winner and the sponsor of the prize since you have the email. For example, I won but was required to claimed my prize in the comments of the new post about the winners. Unfortunately, my email was Askimet(bad luck) so could not claimed it. Also, a company might have forgotten about your contest.

Write a simple template to make it easy for you and them.

Subject: blog name Contest Prize Winner's

Message:

Hi,

You participated or was a sponsor in this contest below:

Contest: URL here
Contest's winner's post: URL here
Prize: The prize description

The winner(email here) won that prize. The sponsor(email here) will contact you about the prize soon.

Thank you both for participating in my contest.

Your name here

12. Use the comments

Once the person did the task(s), tell them to leave a comment in the contest post with the task(s) performed. Backlinks might failed and it's simpler for you to track what they did. Think of it as a backup for both you and the participant. Plus, if the person did not subscribe to the RSS by email, you will get their email.

13. Link to winners

When you do the winner's post, link to the blog if it's a blogger that won a prize. Don't publish the email of the winner. Yes, I even saw that.

Example:

Prize A was won by URL here

Prize A [URL here]

I mentioned this because the winner of a prize I gave recently had the same name of a blog that I knew. It was not the same person.

14. Be fair(Enkay)

Be fair with contestants by applying the rules for all. I once had to change the rules in one of my first big contest but I was fair in the way I did it. Nobody cried over it.

Conclusion

The ideal is to make the whole process fun, easier and give a good return for all involved.

Edit 2008-08-28: Added 2 new contest blogs

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I posted it on misfan.com too: News: 1 Cool File (June. 16, 2008)

Major policy modifications were made on 1 Cool File:

• Blogs will be submitted for life from now on. Those with a RSS feed might want to buy the Blog Buffet to get more advantages
• No more reviews will be needed when submitted for free. We have enough feedback
• The 1 year restriction for free/paid no longer exist
• New way to sponsor a blog contest: increased the total prize value and was made easier
• Clarified the type of blogs that won't be accepted. Blogs will still be manually verified

If you have a blog, please do submit it now!

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Note: I was supposed to publish this post early this week but did not have time.

I very like the "Subscribe to the thread" plugin. So while reading the comments, I came to read a new comment left on an "old" post on John Cow: Whats The MMO Niche Coming To?

what is the iq of a monkey, no I'm not kidding, left this comment:

So here is proof that franqui from blogger unleashed is a scammer and doesn’t know what he’s talking about:

1. He finds people that brag about their money obnoxious, yet bragging is the only thing that he does;
2. He thinks Amazon affiliate program sucks, yet now he wants to try it;
3. He makes people buy 100 info domains, and many persons got them deindexed by Google;
4. He thinks feed count doesn’t matter, yet he is very proud nowadays of his feed count;
5. He bashes persons like Yaro Starak or John Chow, yet when John Chow comments on his blog, all he can say is “kudos to you”;
6. His only answer to anyone who contradicts him is foul language, when he can’t really argument his claims;
7. He makes 20k / month and runs hundreds of sites and doesn’t have time for anything, yet he doesn’t hire help (maybe because he can’t afford it?);
8. He thinks that submitting the same article to hundreds of article directories will actually help your rankings;
9. His only goal is to tell his readers to buy Clickbank products through his affiliate links, even if there are cheaper and better options available;
10. He thinks there’s no money in the “make money online” niche, yet he is very proud he got into top 20 for “make money online”;
11. He doesn’t have time for his blog, yet he is almost always there – maybe because he is not actually making any money with other websites?
12. He first hates Darren Rowse, then he loves him for his feed count. Talk about integrity, huh?

There you have it. I’m sure there are more, but I can’t waste anymore time with this idiot.

The funny thing is that he used the Bloggerunleashed for the website.

I will try to reply to those points the best I can:

1. He finds people that brag about their money obnoxious, yet bragging is the only thing that he does;

Vic let it slip how much he makes but he does not post how much he makes per month. Personally, I don't care either way. It just show that money can be made online by others if the numbers they show are true(income and expense).

2. He thinks Amazon affiliate program sucks, yet now he wants to try it;

You missed a point here. Vic always talked about having different money streams and I do too. Also, Amazon does not pay much(4%) compared to other ways where you can have 40-75% commission on every sale. To make the same amount, you would need to sell a big ticket items(PS3) or sell a lot of Blu-Ray's at $0.25-0.50 commissions.

3. He makes people buy 100 info domains, and many persons got them deindexed by Google;

Google changed the rules recently and make it harder for .info. Having a blog/software directory, you will be amazed on how many spam listings I delete every day that are .info. Having a real site(non spam) will make .info more valuable on the long run because it will be harder to be index. It's bad timing.

But here, the ideal was to buy a $1 .info domain by creating BANS that will make $1/day. If we had gone with a .com, we would had to pay $6-10 each domain. Of course, a .com is better and Vic even mentioned it. But, he wanted for people to start at a lowest cost possible. Me, I'm going with .info and pre-owned domains and I posted some results about it.

4. He thinks feed count doesn’t matter, yet he is very proud nowadays of his feed count;

Vic always mentioned that Feed count does not matter much on generating money in the Make Money Online blog field. Readers(majority) tend to not buy your stuff but some do. I know because I advertised on A-list bloggers based on the RSS Feed count but never had a good ROI(return on investment). If you have a blog about gardens, it may be more lucrative because it's another field and type of readers.

Yes, he can be proud that people are reading him and it means that is message/teaching is getting heard. Yes, some read him just for the controversy. I read him to learn things and I do.

5. He bashes persons like Yaro Starak or John Chow, yet when John Chow comments on his blog, all he can say is “kudos to you”;

Vic don't like scammers and out them. He did say that John Chow was good at marketing himself. I never saw the "Kudos to you" comment.

6. His only answer to anyone who contradicts him is foul language, when he can’t really argument his claims;

He use foul language when he agree with them too.  That's his style for BloggerUnleashed. Unfortunately, it's hard to find a place where Vic and the other person could meet in a neutral place so that each could argument each others points.

7. He makes 20k / month and runs hundreds of sites and doesn’t have time for anything, yet he doesn’t hire help (maybe because he can’t afford it?);

Yes, he could hire people but he has bigger project in mind like buy a house and pay medical bills. Plus, he often said he was "cheap" and don't like recurring fees. He want to make sure the job is done right(his "paranoiac" side).

8. He thinks that submitting the same article to hundreds of article directories will actually help your rankings;

That's basic SEO: The more links the better. If you can use anchor text, it's even better. Article directories are not about having PR juice but having many anchor links.

9. His only goal is to tell his readers to buy Clickbank products through his affiliate links, even if there are cheaper and better options available;

Vic mentioned that he don't care if people use his Clickbank links or not. Those are good products that he use daily. Recently, someone suggested another product that was cheaper($100 less) and was good enough that Vic told people to buy that one instead for those with the money. He also offered free alternative that does less. So, Vic is open to new products.

10. He thinks there’s no money in the “make money online” niche, yet he is very proud he got into top 20 for “make money online”;

"no money" in comparison to other fields like gardening/weight loss. He also proved a point that link building is important to rise in the rankings. He will/could be first if he wanted with his 6-7 months old blog. Here Vic, another anchor for you: make money online

11. He doesn’t have time for his blog, yet he is almost always there – maybe because he is not actually making any money with other websites?

He mentioned that he use the blog to relax, take a break. I go watch free movies and Vic teach others using his blog. There was a period that he posted many times per day. Now, he have many domains(BANS) to take care before May 31 plus organizing the contest. He is doing the contest for free to help others.

12. He first hates Darren Rowse, then he loves him for his feed count. Talk about integrity, huh?

Vic don't agree with Darren about still promoting TLA. Darren added a note about TLA. They patch things up since Vic made a video that was posted on Problogger and on Bloggerunleashed.

That's my reply(wrong or right(mostly)). I went from memory because Vic has many, many, many videos now on his blog. The point is that what is the iq of a monkey(funny) only showed part of the picture and misconceptions about Vic blog/message/teaching or what ever you want to call it.

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For the last few days, I'm doing the boring task of "assembling" all my papers(digital mostly but printing them) for my 2007 income taxes. I do take a minute or two to read my emails, feeds and more time to check files that were added on 1 Cool File.

Drive to make money online

While checking my feed today from Blogger Unleashed, I viewed a video made by Vic. Vic may come across as a mean guy but to understand what drive him to make money online and the way he his, you must go watch the video. It's is 22 minutes and 12 seconds of real Vic. I made this post because of this video and of below.

Contests

Some of you know that I sponsor contest using 1 Cool File and I now have a few contest running at the moment. I will be using the feedback from those to improve the site later on. I heard the critic(negative on a particular part) about my site and they confirmed what I thought I should priorities. I'm in the process of doing something about it.

Anyway, one of the blogger that I'm sponsoring minimized the importance of directories in general and link building. My problem is that some of the comments left by participants, thus readers, went the same way too and that started to get me a little mad. Not Vic Mad but mad none the less.

Why, tell me why!!!!

It's simple: the blogger is costing money to his readers and that's from a make money online blog. Hmmm! I wonder when I heard that before.

From reader to doer

To get some of you started, I created a free ebook that I published last week. The basis of it will give you that little push to become a doer and start making money online if you really want to. It's simple really but you must take the first step.

Conclusion

I did not make the grand total but I invested a lot of money in promoting 1 Cool File and my other sites/blogs in 2007. But if you use what I show you in my free ebook, you will save yourself more money by just using those optional tools. I learned it the hard way but you don't have too!

I will now go back to my boring task.

P.S. I push "Publish" while I wanted to "save" it. That's why some of you got the first draft/paragraph. I'm sorry.

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Recently, many bloggers entered in what I call a "big contest frenzy". I have nothing against big contest because I have The contest Winner blog thus love contest too. But, because I have 1 Cool File, I'm often asked to sponsor contest too.

Selling it to sponsors

To help bloggers that want me to sponsor them, I now have a page of what I asked from bloggers. The sponsor want some return on investment(ROI) and that's what bloggers don't always understand. The sponsor maybe looking for: traffic, customers, new affiliates, brand awareness... or all of them.

One blogger that understand how to work with sponsors is Gyutae from Winning the Web. To keep the contest alive and in the mind of readers, participants are asked to do some tasks in relation to each sponsors during the course of the contest. That's the best way to go.

One way to make it even better for sponsors, it's to ask bloggers to post about it by also including the list of prizes and sponsors with an optional anchor text or description.

For example:

1 Paid Review - sponsored by 1 Cool File ($X value)
1 Cool File is a directory for software downloads and also a blog directory/marketplace. Simply submit your blog to 1 Cool File and you’ll have a chance to get your site reviewed.

For that, the dateline for sponsors to answer your request must be determined in advance. Else, those that are added after the start of the contest won't have has many backlinks.

When is it too big?

Gyutae started with $5,348 in prizes and now it's $12,201. So, my prize is now a smaller drop in the bucket. That's the real downside for a sponsor with big contest. With too many prizes, the sponsor visibility becomes greatly diminished. Even if you add the task part, participant may become tired and not do them thus also diminishing the sponsor ROI. For example, my prize is always the second from the bottom but that's because it's related to his blog(win a review). Up to now, I did not have many visits from that original post. Thanks to the task, I should be fine... in theory. I will have to wait and see.

My recommendation

The best is to get around 5-10 sponsors/prizes. Ask participants for a task for each sponsor to get more entries. Make it last for 1 or 2 weeks by mixing tasks and posts. Of course, the total value will be lower but a sponsor my up the prize amount knowing that they will have a greater exposure and that no other prizes may be added.

Conclusion

What about your next contest? Will sponsors be willing to sponsor you again if their ROI was not worth it on your big contest or another blogger's big contest? Will readers expect an even bigger contest from you next time? Are you in competition with other big contest at the same time?

Those are a few questions to ask yourself. Plus with big contest, you will have to manage many prizes thus cutting into the time you write new content.

If you like contest, check out the MISfan.com RSS feed contest.

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For many, a contest is a way to be discovered by new readers, increase backlinks, increase their RSS readers or to give back to readers.

With this in mind, I thought I would use a weapon into my own arsenal: 1 Cool File(PR6) . You see, I want to increase the number of permanent blogs on 1 Cool File but I want real blogs for the 150+ categories.

I'm often solicited to sponsor a contest but my ROI(Return On Investment) is often less than impressive.

Edit 2008-08-21: I since change the sponsoring that it's a lot more simpler.

How will you sponsor my blog contest?

I have a free way and a paid way.

One of the way that bloggers can be approve for free on 1 Cool File is to make a short 25 words review about 1 Cool File. If they do that, their blog will be approve for life. I don't even asked to be dofollow in that review. But in the case of a contest, you would make it so that they must link to your blog and contest post too. Or, you could ask another task like subscribing to your RSS feed. This take care of the free way.

Of course, not everyone want to write a short review on their blog. That's why, I have a small fee of $4USD to be approve for life. Plus, they got their last 5 posts of their RSS feed shown versus 1 post with the free way above. In the case of a sponsored contest, I would give back $1 for every bloggers that used this way. At the end of the contest, I would pick a random winner from those bloggers. I would also give to you $1 per blogger that used that way too. So, I'm giving back 50% of the $4. Depending on the number of entries on your blog, you could have $0, $5, $25 or $100+.

With both ways, the blogger must leave a comment with the link of their blog on 1 Cool File when it's approved. And if they wrote a review, they should add the link too in the comment.

Note: The new blog will need at least 10 real posts in the last 30 days.

I will also post the contest on The Contest Winner.

What about the prize?

You can write a short review/post about the winner. But if you got some money from the paid option, this could be enough to have the equivalent(depending on what you charge) of a real paid review about the winner. In any case, the winner will have visitors from the post or review you will make.

The winner will get from 1 Cool File(need a minimum of 10 entries):

• Option to add a banner(468x60) to their listing making it more visible(Value of $1.50).
• A staff rating of their blog(Value of $5).
• Written review on 1 Cool Review (Value of $15).

Conclusion

With this method, everyone wins:

• Every blogger get a quality backlink from 1 Cool File(PR6).
• You get backlinks to your blog or what ever you asked. Plus, the possibility of some money.
• I get new and real blogs for life on 1 Cool File and use the feedback to improve the site.

Like any advertiser, I want some ROI and by doing it this way, I'm assured to get new blogs in the blog directory/marketplace part of 1 Cool File.

If get solicited again, I will direct them to this post. I don't want to be a prize among too many prizes.

So, do you want me to sponsor your next blog contest?

P.S. you should bookmark this post just in case

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During the last month or so, I tested a new rule on The Contest Winner and yesterday, BloggingZoom asked if they should change something on their site.The timing is good for this post.

The Contest Winner

3 Weeks ago, I added a rule on The Contest Winner that bloggers that wanted to submit a blog contest would need to add their blog on 1 Cool File. Well, I got my first entry today. Previously, I had 2-3 entries per week.

Bloggers don't realize a few things:

• I take time to create the contest post. It would be the same for them to add their blog. And many times, I can't enter in the contest because it's for US resident only because of shipping. That, I understand that last part. So, it's a fair trade for them to add their blog
• Contest are mostly for building backlinks and increase traffic thus adding their blog would also do that on a PR6 blog directory. Plus their RSS feed is shown
• The links are dofollow on both sites
• Adding a blog is free or paid(show more feeds)
  

BloggingZoom

Now, Court and Vic are thinking of allowing bloggers to cut and paste from the original post instead of creating a new 350 characters description. Now, if the blogger write a new description, then it would be better for SEO(search engine optimization) .

My personal opinion is to let the blogger do what they want. Yes, I'm lazy and sometimes I don't want to write a post again. If they offer me the choice, my description might not be cut and paste but it would be shorter than the 350 characters. That would depend on how I feel about the post. But if I take the time, I would benefit on the long run. Being French speaking first, it does take me more time to write in English. Some native English bloggers will take 1 or 2 minutes to write it(Lucky you! ).

Not enforcing the rule would also mean more bloggers will join that may care more about burst traffic. In time, they may understand the SEO benefit. I have an example on BloggingZoom how a new description benefited me.

Conclusion

Of course, not everybody understand SEO and writing a post like this may show them that traffic come in all sort of ways(burst or search engine).

If it's too much "work" for bloggers, then why are they doing contest, joining BloggingZoom or even blogging in the first place? I prefer to think that they are lacking SEO vision. But are you feeling lazy sometimes?

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I have 10 advertisement slots on 1 Cool File: 5 Headers(value of $10/month) and 5 Footers(value of $5/month). Those are site wide.

Prize: Your link will be there for 1 month.

Total Value = $75+

Win a 1 Month Header or Footer Advertisement on 1 Cool File(End: FCBP or Dec, 2)

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I left this on Digital Point forum but here is the offer for you.

No just Americans can have a Black Friday. My offer from a Canadian friend and 1 Cool File

If you have a real blog with or without paid reviews, do direct advertising ..., you can save 66% today only using this special coupon: DP-BLACKFRIDAY

The directory has 150+ categories and each blog can have more than one. See my own blog for example. I'm planning do to a lot more with this blog marketplace and I need a lot of real and quality blogs.

No blog but have a forum with many bloggers for example? Be part of our very limited affiliate program(20% commission) or upgrade to the Platinum Membership to get better commissions! Having a real blog make inclusion into the affiliate program automatic.

Service with 2 Tier commissions:

List you blog for 1 year(20%,5%): $2.50USD/year but $0.85USD with coupon(first year)
List you blog for life(25%,10%): $4.00USD but $1.36USD with coupon
Platinum Membership(35%,15%): $10.00/year but $3.40USD with coupon(first year)

Commissions are renewed year after year on the 1 year and Platinum Membership!
Now, that's a good passive income in addition to be on a cool site

Happy blogging and see you on 1 Cool File

One more thing, I will draw tomorrow a lucky winner of $25USD(PayPal) from those who used that coupon.

Good Luck too all!
For more details.
Affiliate Program
FAQ for the kind of blogs

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