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ClickBank Hotshots For ClickBank Merchants

A Survey Of The ClickBank Marketplace

Are You The Perfect ClickBank Reviewer?

How ClickBank Hotshots Was Built

ClickBank Hotshots Quality Seal

ClickBank Reviewers Wanted!

Top Ten Tips on How to Write a Good Review

How To Build A Review Based Website

Paid Survey Sites -- The Truth

Product Images That Sell

Top 10 ClickBank Merchant Mistakes

What Is So Great About Reviews On ClickBank Hotshots?

Review Of The Rich Jerk

Review Of The Super Affiliate Handbook

Review Of Autopilot Profits

ClickBank Hotshots Squidoo Lenses

ClickBank Hotshots For ClickBank Merchants

Putting a Spotlight on Quality Products

As a merchant you are going to recognize very quickly that ClickBank Hotshots is unlike any other website you have come across dedicated to ClickBank products. We offer your customers a way to express their true thoughts about your products, and in a way that ultimately allows for direct numerically rated comparisons with your competitors.

This means that if you have a great product you will shine on ClickBank Hotshots. Visitors to our site recognize that the reviews they read here are NOT the carefully culled testimonials they may find on your own sales pages. Instead, the product assessments found here represent literal consumer ratings. Because of this, a ClickBank Hotshots Quality Seal, based on these consumer ratings, is something you can really take pride in. But be warned, in order to earn a seal, your offering really does have to be good. These quality seals cannot be faked!

Obtaining a Quality Seal

ClickBank Hotshots offers a Quality Seal for merchants of ClickBank products who provide best-in-class services. Our seal represents an accolade which has been developed for the benefit of both consumers and ClickBank merchants. Only truly outstanding products receive the 5-star seal from ClickBank Hotshots. Only slightly less prestigious, is the 4-star seal.

These seals are awarded automatically, based on the average consumer rating achieved by a merchant offering as reviewed on ClickBankHotshots.com. In other words, we do not award seals, your customers do. In order to receive a seal, a minimum of 20 reviews must first be lodged and approved on our site. To speed this process, simply place the javascript code found lower down on this page onto your own sales page.

Until the time that you have received at least 20 sufficiently highly-rated reviews from consumers at ClickBankHotshots.com, the javascript code will display the following button, which is linked to your product detail page on ClickBank Hotshots, and which encourages your customers to review your offering:

When 20 reviews have been lodged and your average rating exceeds 3.75, but is less than 4.5 (out of 5), the image will be replaced by the 4-star seal:

If you are fortunate enough to be one of the rare few who maintains an average consumer rating of 4.5 or higher, the 5-star seal will display on your site:

Note: It is exceptionally difficult to obtain the 5-start seal, as both you and consumers would expect to be the case. This is what makes it so valuable to you.

To have your ClickBank Hotshots seal appear on your sales page, select the javascript from the box below and paste it into your web page. You should see an image appear immediately. Note: the table enclosing the seal is not strictly necessary, but by activating the border attribute you should be able to see where the seal should appear if for some reason it does not... (in which case, contact ClickBank Hotshots for advice). Seals will be updated about once a week.

Javascript For The Quality Seal:

Use the javascript code in the box below to display the ClickBank Hotshots Quality Seal on your site.

Note: You will need to edit the code to have it correctly identify your offering on ClickBankHotshots.com. Be sure to set the merchant variable to the value of your ClickBank merchant ID. Also, if you use something other than the hop variable in query strings to identify your affiliates, be sure to make the appropriate change to the affiliate variable. This ensures that affiliate IDs can be passed back and forth from your site to ClickBankHotshots.com without being dropped (provided that cookies have been enabled in the visitors browser).

Click anywhere in this box to select all code.

<table align="center" width="87" height="73"
	cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"
	style="border: 0px solid #dddddd">
<tr><td><script language="javascript">
<!--

// this section of javascript should appear on the merchant page
// displaying the ClickBank Hotshots Quality Seal or Button.

function display_quality_seal()
{
	// this function displays the ClickBank Hotshots Quality Seal
	// on your site and handles affiliate ID assignments for
	// visitors who end up on the ClickBank Hotshots site.

// to begin with, you should specify the merchant detail page
	// to click through to at ClickBank Hotshots by providing your
	// ClickBank merchant ID. for example, if you are The Rich Jerk:
	//
	//	var merchant = 'richjerk';
	//
	// this would result in the visitor seeing the ClickBank Hotshots
	// detail page for The Rich Jerk
	// --------------------------------------------------------------
	var merchant = getQueryVariable('merchant');

// next question: if the visitor to your site was brought in by an
	// affiliate and their ID exists in the query string of your sales
	// page as the 'hop' variable, then the getQueryVariable('hop')
	// assignment will capture the affiliate ID. if this affiliate
	// variable is set here it will be returned as the 'hop' variable
	// when the visitor returns to your site from ClickBank Hotshots.
	//
	// if NO affiliate was responsible for the visitor to your site
	// and you send them to ClickBank Hotshots, when they return they
	// will have your 'partner' variable set for the affiliate ID.
	// in other words, you receive the commission for a sale of your
	// own product. using the Quality Seal does not cost you.
	//
	// note: the following assignment can probably be left as is,
	// but you are free to adjust it. for example, if instead you
	// have set the 'hop' variable as a cookie you could assign it
	// this way:
	//
	//	var affiliate = getCookieVariable('hop');
	//
	// -------------------------------------------------------------
	var affiliate = getQueryVariable('hop');

// there is no need to try to understand any of the code beyond
	// this point. simply leave it as is
	// -------------------------------------------------------------
	if ( merchant )
	{
		var hostshots_server = 'www.clickbankhotshots.com';
		var hotshots_quality_seal_url
			= 'http://' + hostshots_server
			+ '/hotshots/quality_seal.php?merchant=' + merchant;

if (affiliate)
		{
			hotshots_quality_seal_url
				= hotshots_quality_seal_url
				+ '&affiliate=' + affiliate;
		}
		var hotshots_merchant_reviews_url
			= 'http://' + hostshots_server
			+ '/hotshots/reviews.php?merchant=' + merchant;

document.write( '<a href="' + hotshots_merchant_reviews_url + '">' );
	document.write( '<img src="' + hotshots_quality_seal_url + '" border="0">' );
	document.write( '</a>' );

}
	return true;
}
function getQueryVariable(name)
{
	// this is a helper function used to read the value of a
	// query string parameter. you can ignore it

var query = window.location.search.substring(1);

var prefix = name + '=';
	var cookieStartIndex = document.cookie.indexOf(prefix);
	if ( cookieStartIndex == -1 ) { return null }

var cookieEndIndex
		= document.cookie.indexOf( ';', cookieStartIndex + prefix.length );
	if ( cookieEndIndex == -1 )
		{ cookieEndIndex = document.cookie.length }
	return unescape( document.cookie.substring(cookieStartIndex + prefix.length, cookieEndIndex) );
}
display_quality_seal();
// -->
</script></td></tr>
</table>

Benefits of a Quality Seal

The affiliate network ClickBank itself purports to have over 100,000 affiliates. While it is not possible to know what fraction of this number actively refers customers to ClickBank merchant websites, one thing is immediately apparent to every merchant that has taken the time to study the ClickBank site. ClickBank does not make it easy for affiliates (and customers) to determine which are the truly worthwhile merchant offerings.

The most useful statistic offered is a weighted sales volume. However this tells affiliates and customers nothing of the strengths and weaknesses of a product which may nontheless be moving units. ClickBank Hotshots addresses this problem by allowing customers to report the Pros and Cons of a merchant offering. Consumers also rate the offering on the basis of several consumer-oriented attributes: Product Quality, Originality, and Value For Money. In combination with an accompanying review, this information provides the basis for strong preselling referral content for quality merchant offerings.

On top of this, merchants with an exceptional average consumer rating get to display a Quality Seal that distinguishes the truly excellent ClickBank offerings from the thousands of substandard ones. These seals are meaningful because all reviews on ClickBank Hotshots are supplied by reviewers whose identities have been screened. Each reviewer has also agreed to display their true identity on each review they post. This method of reviewing products acts as a strong filter to the kinds of bogus reviews that can be found on many review sites that do not authenticate their reviewers. Therefore, when a consumer sees the ClickBank Hotshots Quality Seal on a merchants web site they can be sure that they are purchasing one of the best products of its kind on the web.

Improve Your Offering on ClickBank Hotshots

If you would like to improve the presentation of your offering on our site--and every potential affiliate of your product(s) would certainly appreciate this too--one simple and VERY effective thing you can do is add a quality description metadata tag to your homepage. In fact, if you do ONLY ONE THING this should be it. The next time we visit your site we will attempt to pull the content of this tag and present it on the detail page for your product. Do NOT overhype your product--you will lose sales if you do.

Here is a good example of the kind of copy you might provide:

<meta name="description" content="

	Elite Product 123 is the flag ship application of ABC
	Software Inc. Years in development, this unique program
	was designed to cater to marketing industry professionals.
	Free trial available to registered members.

	If you are in need of traffic, and want to learn how best
	to monetize it efficiently, check out Elite Product 123 today.
">

Note: Two or more newline characters within the text of your description will be interpreted as a new paragraph. It is STRONGLY recommended that this description be kept between 50 and 130 words. A description in excess of 150 words will be clipped!

Still Have Questions?

Hopefully you will find the above linking instructions for Quality Seals straightforward. If you have any lingering questions about the process, don't hestitate to contact ClickBank Hotshots with your query.

To Your Success,

Stephen Carter

Stephen@ClickBankHotshots.com