This edition of the Powder Keg Review series looks at the Yimto Affiliate Marketing Blog.

I actually have a little history with this blog. I ran across it before my own blog came into creation. The Big Bang was yet a twinkle in the Blogosphere’s eye. What captured my attention with Tim, the creator of Yimto, was his honesty on his about page. He details his story from University student to marketing journeyman.

The Yimto Story
Tim knows affiliate marketing. He details the relevant services on the market, including those that have been around for a while, for us beginners. He constantly shares with his readers the new information he learns along his journey to financial independence. For instance, he recently talked about an affiliate marketing ebook, and I walked away from the review feeling like he explained its benefits clearly.

His posts have a candor not common to Internet marketing blogs. He tells you straight up he might not be the best at certain practices, but he’s learning. He captures the journeyman voice quite well. And his posts somehow carry an authority to them, even though he claims to only be learning. I think he balances teaching and learning quite well in his posts.

The Yimto Site
The site utilizes a two column right sidebar layout. The theme, while minimal, presents the information quite well. I love the stylish logo, the dark tone, and the easy to read text. The whole theme works, down to the sparse use of widgets in the sidebar to the curling vegetation at either end of the inner column.

Like many bloggers, Tim is very active in blog communities like Entrecard, MyBlogLog and Blog Catalog. The Yimto site sports widgets from these blogging communities.

The Yimto site lacks one thing, though. Ads. There are none on the site. You will find the Entrecard widget on his site, but no advertising, not even Adsense. I’m surprised — pleasantly, of course — as most affiliate marketers riddle their site with ads.

Yimto Reviews
If you visit Yimto, then you know he does reviews on sites and ebooks relevant to affiliate marketers. While many sites claim to give valid reviews of ebooks, I have a feeling that Yimto’s reviews carry more than just the slapped on sticker value. For instance, only one ebook had a rating of “Golden Opportunity.”

One ebook review fell into the lowest category — in the red. Before too long, I imagine more ebooks will find their way to that bottom category. (Maybe that’s my cynical outlook on marketing ebooks though.) I can rest assured that Yimto’s take on a specific affiliate marketing method will be honest, and not an attempt to drain my wallet for a quick buck.

Conclusion
I jumped over to Technorati after seeing Yimto’s authority listed on his site. He has a whopping 351 at the time of writing this. Tim started this blog in October of 2007. I’m sure if he continues to engage his audience with compelling blog posts on affiliate marketing his blog will continue to explode on the internet. His site is a definite powder keg.

Do you know of a site, service, blogging tool, widget, plugin, or advertising opportunity that has gunpowder spilling from its barrel? Write us a quick message to let us light the fuse.

Have you heard of the TNX.net site? The text link advertising site may be just the thing your blog needs. Are you looking to boost back-links, drive traffic to your site, or become a publisher with the chance to make money? The TNX.net site offers web publishers and advertisers a unique service that I’ll take the time to discuss in this Powder Keg Review.

How Does TNX.net Work?
Most everyone should be familiar with text link advertising. The TNX.net text link advertising system works on a simple scale for upcoming blogs to gain momentum and earn credits. For instance, a publisher can join the TNX community for free, and then begin displaying the text link ads on their site. This earns the publisher credit, which they can use to purchase text links on other sites or withdraw for some cold hard cash.

Are you looking to monetize your site? TNX can help you make money by buying back the credits you’ve earned on your site. The payout scale works like this: 1000 TNX credits equal $0.74. Five dollars is the minimum payout. This seems like a great opportunity for sites with quality traffic to earn some extra money.

The TNX System
The TNX site greets users with an easy to sign up process and a pleasing design. Once you login to the member’s area, you can instantly find the areas dedicated to publishers or advertisers. As a blogger, you may wish to check out both to know how everything works. We are a curious lot. Publishers and advertisers can register for free at the TNX.net site.

How Flexible Is the System?
I signed up for the program, and it literally took me two minutes. No big deal. I thought it would be a long registration process, but it wasn’t at all. I was happy about that. The price for text links can’t be beat either. The system enables advertisers to target specific keywords on a large volume of sites in a matter of minutes. For those with a specific online service, the advertising a specific keyword across many blogs may be just the marketing boost needed.

Advantages for Publishers
As we mentioned previously, the system allows web publishers to integrate the text link advertising system throughout a site. This means specific keywords on your posts could be bought by someone and used to link to their site. The editorial process at TNX ensures keywords are relevant to your site, and don’t conflict with their terms of service.

Once a publisher logs into the system, they will be greeted with various options, including getting the code to have the links working on your site. Your site’s host must support PHP and Perl, which most hosts do.

After the webmaster has placed the code in the site’s template, he or she can return to the TNX dashboard to activate the site. This can only be done after the site’s code is in place.

A site with the code in place should begin seeing credits rather quickly. This all depends on your own site’s traffic. Once you accrue enough credits you can sell them to other members or back to TNX.

Advantages for Advertisers
The TNX system enables advertisers to quickly and easily setup keyword campaigns within thousands of sites. This means your non-reciprocal links will be widespread on the internet in a matter of minutes. The system can be used to target specific keywords, helping you reach the frontpage or number one position for a keyword if used properly. The folks at TNX have put together a free tool to help links look natural to Google.

TNX makes no guarantee on how well the keywords will boost search rankings, but it should be known that this practice should not hurt your site’s search results.

TNX’s Ad wizard makes creating ad campaigns simple and intuitive. You choose the site’s performance criteria related to: website categories, geo-location, number of Yahoo Backlinks (YB) and Google Page Rank. After choosing a category and rankings of the site, you then create the link to be displayed. The link does have a keyword, but it also contains a lead-in and lead-out. This means the keyword is surrounded by text. I presume this method makes the link more viable and less conspicuous to search engines.

All in all the process doesn’t take more than five minutes. You can be up and running in less than fifteen minutes with a well constructed keyword campaign.

Conclusion

I think the TNX link site definitely has a lot to offer advertisers and publishers alike. It will be exploding on the internet in the coming months. I’m sure we all will be hearing the name TNX.net over the next few years.

If you’re still questioning whether to sign up or not, you can always take advantage of the 5,000 free link promotion going on now. I’m sure that would help any blog explode across the internet. For blog owners, you can introduce others to the TNX.net site to make some extra cash. Simply join their affiliate program today.