Hey everyone, just a quick post today to let you know about two neat opportunities I found out about in the past few days.  One's a bonus offer, open for five more days, on an e-book that I personally own and highly recommend.  The other is an affiliate opportunity that I haven't seen on many health blogs, so it might be worth a lot to be among the first bloggers to feature it.

New Year's bonuses from Problogger.net

If you've been a Health Blog Helper reader for a while, you might recall seeing an ad in the sidebar for Darren Rowse's (of Problogger.net) fantastic blog-improvement system 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. It's essentially a 31-day, self-guided blog workshop, in the form of an e-book.  Each day, Darren gives you a new assignment (write a link post, find a blog buddy, write an opinion post, etc…) and a page or two of advice on how to do it most effectively, plus links to actual examples and others' advice.  It has been an invaluable system for me; two early assignments of writing a list post and subsequently promoting it (the post, not your blog) resulted in my most successful post ever and completely changed the way I look at blogging.

Anyway, for the next five days, Darren is offering a bonus package along with the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook to help make your blog great in the new year.  In addition to the e-book, you get:

• A report by the name of 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track for the New Year – essentially it is a 9 day extension of the 31 Day workbook. It contains 9 extra tasks, particularly designed for the new year.
• 55 minute podcast with Leo Babauta from ZenHabits.net - this podcast is rich with tips on how Leo has launched his blogs and leveraged them to sell successful e-books and a best selling book.
• 45 minute podcast interview with Neil Patel from Quicksprout.com – another practical podcast with Neil on how to drive traffic to blogs as well as tips on personal branding, SEO and more.

The only one I've looked at so far is the "9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track for the New Year," and I love that it's all about "big picture" thinking, like examining your goals, figuring out your worst time-wasters, and creating a traffic generation strategy.  This kind of stuff is right up my alley, so I'm really excited to put it to use.

Anyway, the cool thing is that all the extra stuff is free, so you get the whole package for under twenty bucks.  The catch: the deal is only good for five more days!  If you want to take your blog to the next level this year, I can't recommend this program highly enough.

Here's the link where you can get the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog e-book and the bonus package (plus see a countdown until the offer expires!).  Alison and I get paid for referring people, so if you decide to buy it, we hope you use our link!

iHerb.com affiliate program

In my post a while back about earning money through affiliate programs, I mentioned several ways to get started with affiliate marketing.  Well, I just found out about a new one through iHerb.com.  iHerb.com is an online health food and supplement store, and the concept behind their rewards program it is exciting.

Here's how it works: When you join, you get a personal coupon code that you can post on your blog and that your readers can use to get $5 off their first purchase.  You earn commissions on sales that use your code, but the best part is this: your readers get their own coupon codes when they purchase, and you earn commissions on THEIR sales as well (and their readers' sales, and their readers' readers' sales!).  Since lots of health blog readers are health bloggers themselves, I think this has the potential to generate a decent amount of revenue to supplement your Foodbuzz income.

The catch: you have to actually buy something at iHerb to get your coupon code.  But if you pick something cheap (they have lots of food, tea, and toiletries besides just vitamins) and use my code RAZ652 on your purchase to get $5 off, it won't cost you anything besides the shipping.  (And obviously, I'll get credit for referring you.)  Then you can start sharing your code on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, and wherever else to start making money.

So, it seems like a cool program to me.  Since you're giving something of value to your readers when you post your code (as opposed to just posting an ad or link), I think this could spread quickly in the health blogosphere.  So it might be good to be one of the first in, so you'll earn commissions on everyone's sales!  You can see lots more details about the program on their rewards program page.

Hope you find these links helpful!  Here's to making 2010 your best blog year yet.