Experimental Microcosms, Giant Death Robots, and Flowers

I love video games. Here is a screenshot from a battle in the game Civilization V in which a giant death robot (actually called that in the game) is demolishing what appears to be some mechanized infantry units, and possibly even staring down a second mech infantry unit along with a tank group.

Does this make for a good analogy with Affiliate marketing?

Absolutely.

For starters, while searching online for some strategies to use in the game, I realized just how dedicated are the writers for these games. Page after free page of free information, suggestions, anecdotes, and not to mention the screenshots taken from their own games to illustrate the points they are making.

In the above image, for example, the strategy is to use the Giant Robot to clear a path to the city in the lower right. The Robot is the most powerful unit in the game, but has penalties when on defense, and also is penalized when attacking cities. It is good for clearing a path through armored units, and those groups of soldiers behind it are relatively safe from being wiped out, since if the remaining armor units don't hurry up and destroy the robot, they will be picked apart one by one by the robot like a knife through butter.

I love it. The robot will probably be destroyed in the process, but will have been worth the loss.

Oh, and there are affiliate links on every one of those game or strategy review pages. Those gamers sure are a dedicated bunch though, and I don't think I'll try competing with them for awhile in terms of quality, or volume.

Now, my first website is kind of a Giant Death Robot.

'm using it to clear a path in my learning ventures. Heck, it might even survive, but along the way it has certainly been worth all the articles and backlinks along the way. I've become increasingly familiar with how they all work from site to site, and have been able to 'pick off' some challenges with it by way of storming through the process of just getting links and affiliations from vendors, google, amazon, and the like. Traffic has begun to hit my articles regularly, ads are popping up, and all the while I am seeing how to make the whole process easier for my 'infantry' to storm in after the path is clear and take the city...uh...ok well you understand what I mean right?

In fact, the entire game Civilization V is like a microcosm of policy-making, and decision trees which have large scale effects as you enact the same routines with the development of your own cities (campaigns/niches) and these effects naturally coordinate and magnify if their is some degree of similarity among their development. It becomes easier to track what is working, and what is not.

Also, I think the WA university is an analogous microcosm in its own right. There are skill trees to develop in terms of the certification programs, and thre is a production facility in terms of the website builder. The processes of writing and keyword research can become streamlined to a simple and effective personal policy, and then there is the social aspect.

Wealthy Affiliate has - of course - a wide ranging membership as well as it's own social network to boot. There is a ranking system for members, and which is based upon a set of algorithms which take into account different apects of your activity, contribution, and following. In it's own right, the WA University is like Google, and it is an interesting exercise to learn how contributions, activities, and following affect the ranking score.

It's really done by the numbers.

I don't know what the numbers are, but I can admit that I've done three things to see how my ranking here is influenced.

Oh, and by the way, there are more than 137,000 members here at WA.

A month ago I was ranked at 5252, and this was - or so I imagine - a ranking resulting from my former membership more than a year ago, during which I had done not very much of the training, not had I been socially involved beyond perhaps a half dozen short messages, and perhaps having read a dozen forum posts.

However, I have been dedicated to some extent, and on days I do not actively progress through the remainder of the certification courses, I do something - anything - to be active for a couple of hours a day with developing.

For instance, I have elected to follow more than 3,000 WA members by now (at least) and in response more than 200 have followed me. I continue to follow anywhere between 50 and 1,000 additional members here PER DAY. It is the easiest thing to do when my mind is numb to being more active with writing new content, or figuring out out how the next training activity works. My email is chock full of daily alerts to whom has posted a blog, or a comment, or a hello. I read these all, and even feel compelled to reply again to many of them.

The point here is that within a month, my ranking has gone from 5252 to 202.

Out of over 137,000 members, this means my profile is in the top 2/10ths of a percent in terms of activity, contributions, and following. A month ago I was in the top 4%. My ranking has improved 20-fold over from a month ago. Seeing how this works only adds to my sense of confidence that it works the same way with the relative macrocosm of the internet.

I can remember reading a few years ago that perhaps as many as 3% of people who work at Internet business succeed. What a thought! But that doesn't mean that only 3% of the 137,000+ WA members will succeed, because the people here not only have the advantage of being at WA, yet it is also significant that the interest is backed up by the effort to sign up in the first place. Even a close-minded individual is likely preset to liking the idea of having more money, but the open-minded are those who also find out how.

Everyone here can succeed.

And the how, in my opinion, is as simple an idea as watering a flower. A little bit of water every day, and the flower does the rest.

WA shows me how to water my flower on a daily basis.

: )