A1 Affiliate Programs

How to Build an Affiliate Marketing Business Online

2005-11-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

There's a myth that it's easy to succeed at affiliate marketing,
that it takes little effort, and that fortunes can be made in a
very short time.

Not even 1/2 of 1% of successful affiliate marketers became rich
overnight. Of those who achieved success in just a short period
of time, few say they were just plain lucky. Anyone who is
successful admits they worked hard to get to where they are.
Success in affiliate marketing can be richly rewarding, but it
does takes time and hard work.

The fact is that Affiliate Marketing is an exciting and thriving
business. I love it, and love seeing progress every week and
every month, as traffic increases and sales go up. I wouldn't
change it for anything. Instead, I am adding more niche sites
and getting more excited about the prospects.

If you wish to become an affiliate marketer, the things you must
consider is the importance of having your own web site. It's
almost impossible to really be effective without one, and it
can't be just an ordinary web site. It needs to be a
professional looking one.

So how easy is it to build an affiliate marketing website? What
are the steps required to put together a truly useful web site.

First, you must decide on the theme or niche of your market.
It's important to have an idea what products or services to
promote, as this would help you plan the design and layout of
your web pages.

Knowing this also helps you choose a powerful domain name. It
needs to relate, if available, closely to the theme of your
online business.

In deciding what domain name to register, consider the type of
products you are endorsing and the theme of your site. Having
the right keywords in your domain name gives you a better chance
of drawing more visitors to your web site. Choose only the top
level domain extension, which is .COM. For an on line business,
few attach any credibility to other extensions such as .net or
.tv, etc. Next, select a web host, considering all the services
needed. The importance of using a superior web host can't be
understated. It's too detailed to discuss in this article, so I
shall help you understand it better in another article.

Now, you can start creating your web pages. Don't be discouraged
if you don't know how. There are page generation tools and fast
launch sites available online. Countless online sources can help
you build an affiliate marketing website, though you might need
time to study and learn the whole process.

Creating your website on your own would be cheaper. It helps a
lot if you already know the basics in web page development like
HTML and graphics software because you'll need these skills to
maintain your site and make it easier to navigate. Furthermore,
if you are knowledgeable and skillful in this area, you'll have
more time to spend on the content of your pages, rather than
just the design.

If you are green in the field of web design, then ultimately you
will want to choose a web host that has built-in tools to help
you to build your site's web pages. Hosts such as Site Build It!
offer their Site Builder tool, which I used to build my whole
site without needing to know programs like Dreamweaver or
Microsoft Frontpage. These programs are really overwhelming for
the majority of us. You can read more about SBI! on my web site
at href="http://www.bestaffiliateproducts.com/sbi.html"target="_blan
k">http://www.bestaffiliateproducts.com/sbi.html

The key to drawing visitors to your site is in having high
quality content; so the next thing you must do in building your
website is this. Although there are other factors that
contribute to the success of your web site, good content tops
the list.

This is precisely the reason why surfers will choose to visit
your site. They want to get information and if you don't provide
it, they'll definitely go elsewhere, never to return. Write
interesting articles (or have them written) related to your
theme and this would encourage visitors to return to your site.
Nothing can contribute more to your success than having repeat
visitors.

Once you decide on the affiliate programs that complement your
site, add links to them, as well as to other very good
information sites. Links contribute to how well you will be
listed in major search engines. Create pages for the products
you are endorsing, but don't just promote the products by
putting hyped-up ads. Keep your readers interested by injecting
lots of relevant and useful information. This would encourage
them to click the link to the merchant's site and perhaps buy
the product. Remember that 'no content' means 'no repeat
visitors', no sales and no commission.

Keep your site simple yet with a touch of class. It needs to
appear more of a business website than a personal website.

Make sure you don't use any banner ads not relevant to your
site, since this could open the door for your visitors to leave
your site too soon. After all, banner ads aren't the only means
of advertising your products, in fact they're the weakest. The
most effective links to affiliate products are embedded in the
articles on your web pages.

When your website is well under way, submit its URL to major
search engines so visitors can find you.

Continue your education by learning about using keywords for
search engine optimization and apply them in your content.
Update your site regularly by adding new web pages. Make sure to
inform your prospects about the latest updates in your site,
using your newsletter to accomplish this. The Internet is a huge
source of information about everything imaginable, so make use
of it, and make it available to your visitors.

Fred Farah

copyright 2005

About the author:
Fred Farah

Best Affiliate Products for Maximum Profits

All you need to know about affiliate marketing starts right here
at the: Affiliate Marketing Information Center

Adsense Sandbox?

2005-11-14T10:19:00.000-08:00

Is my site in the Adsense sandbox?

Does it even exist? It could be I have evidence.

A few months ago I saw a spike in traffic to a site of mine.

This site has real-time visitor stats available including the IP
origin of all visitors on the site. It's easy to lookup the IP
and see where the traffic originated. When I did this I
discovered that the traffic was coming from Google Inc. At one
point over a few days I had 20 visitors together on the site all
from Google HQ.

This continued over a few weeks, although the number on site
from Google simultaneously never matched the 20 again, I
witnessed a steady hit rate throughout each day, some days
reaching 10 or so Google HQ visitors at one time. But mostly
they would pop up in 2's and 3's.

I still get these visitors... checking the site now and there is
at least one Google employee on the site, there may be more. I
recognize this one IP at least without checking.

It became obvious that my site was being watched and monitored
by Google staff. I said hello via the sites broadcast system
once or twice just for the fun of it. :)

Anyway, again a few months ago a trend began which involved
placing images near your Adsense ads to catch the visitors' eye,
in the hope that they would then read the ads nearby and click
through. I believe I was one of the first to have these images
up and running and this could be what got me spotted by Google.

The result of all this was two fold.

First of all, Google has been doing some serious 'messing' with
the display format of my ads. With a few Adsense blocks on a
page I find more often than not many are disabled in favour of
the leaderboard only across the top of the pages. But then much
of the time the leaderboard will display just 1 or 2 Adsense ads
rather than the usual 4.

This is fine; they're optimizing my ads for better CTR(Click
Through Rate), great. But that's not all they're doing, they're
tweaking the display of my ads in an annoying way. Every single
Adsense ad has a thin black border around it. This is not
configurable in the code at my end but something that Google
have added at their end.

This wouldn't be so bad but for the Adsense ads that they don't
display still having this thin black border.

Essentially I finish up with pages that have big black squares
or rectangles of empty space where the Adsense ads should be.
Which is obviously not good for the look of the site especially
if this is on an empty square ad in the middle of the page copy.

I've been watching this happen now for around 6 weeks.

The other, much better, upshot of all this is that following the
Jagger update Google have really got their teeth into this site
and started to throw lots of traffic at it from across their
world network. I see visitors from Google searches in India,
Norway, Germany, Auz, Arabia etc. Which is great. The monitoring
has definitely had a positive effect.

My conclusion is that I popped up on the Google radar, they
monitored me, and continue to, but decided that the site wasn't
breaking any TOS and more importantly it wasn't a spam site.

I hope to see them drop those black borders soon, surely it
can't be helping the CTR on the Adsense?

Take a look at those borders here - href="http://www.how-to-make-money-online.info">www.how-to-make-m
oney-online.info

So it seems that popping up on the Google radar isn't such a bad
thing. I certainly appreciate the extra site traffic. :)

About the author:
Darren Yates is the developer of Ad Injector. Place
your Adsense or Chitika code directly in the copy of your pages
fast over an entire website of hundreds of pages.

This article comes with reprint rights. Feel free to reprint and
distribute as you like. All that we ask is that you do not make
any changes, that this resource text is include, and that the
link above is intact.

3 Things All Affiliate Marketers Need To Survive Online

2005-11-14T10:18:00.000-08:00

Every affiliate marketer is always looking for the successful
market that gives the biggest paycheck. Sometimes they think it
is a magic formula that is readily available for them. Actually,
it is more complicated than that. It is just good marketing
practices that have been proven over years of hard work and
dedication. There are tactics that have worked before with
online marketing and is continuing to work in the online
affiliate marketing world of today. With these top three
marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales
and survive in the affiliate marketing online.

What are these three tactics?

1. Using unique web pages to promote each separate product you
are marketing. Do not lump all of it together just to save some
money on web hosting. It is best to have a site focusing on each
and every product and nothing more.

Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will
have an initial understanding on what the product can do to
those who buys them. Also include testimonials from users who
have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are
more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on
the site of the specific product you are marketing.

You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product
and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the
pages attractive compelling and include calls to act on the
information. Each headline should attract the readers to try and
read more, even contact you. Highlight your special points. This
will help your readers to learn what the page is about and will
want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them
at the very top side of your page so it they simply cannot be
missed. Try to create autoresponder messages that will be mailed
to those who input their personal information into your sign up
box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the
seventh contact with a prospect.

Only two things can possibly happen with the web page alone:
closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never return
again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at
certain specified period, you will remind them of the product
they thought they want later and will find out that the sale is
closed. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific
reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales
pitch.

Focus on important points like how your product can make life
and things easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject
lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the word
"free" because there are still older spam filters that dumps
those kind of contents into the junk before even anyone reading
them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports
that they will be missing something big if they do not avail of
your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product.
Just think, if the person who visited your website has no
interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among
those who move on and never come back. Write articles for
publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate
publications that is focusing on your target customers and what
you have put up might just grab their interest.

Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least
300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining
these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers
to your site in a day. Always remember that only 1 out of 100
people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If
you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website
in a day, that means you can made 10 sales based on the average
statistic.

The tactics given above do not really sound very difficult to
do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an
action plan on your part.

Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs.
You can end up maintaining a good source of income and surviving
in this business that not all marketers can do. Besides, think
of the huge paychecks you will be receiving...

About the author:
Alan Richardson,owner of Home Business Discovery where you can find a multitude of resources
designed to achieve maximum home-business success.

Affiliate Marketing - And the Learning Curve

2005-11-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

When you put up your first website - you have to admit that you
are pretty green to the ways of the Internet World. You think
that once your website is up, and you have put your links in
place, you will be in the money. I, and I am sure many, would
love that to be true. Just think how many Super Affiliates we
would have. I will give you a small sampling of what to truly
expect.

The Begin of the Begin

You will be excited at first, and you will have a sense of pride
in your accomplishment. Granted, it is no small feat to getting
a website up and online. But this is just the beginning of your
Internet Marketing experience.

Once you have your website up, you should be asking yourself --
where do I begin, or, what do I do now? If you are short of
cash, which, in most cases people in the beginning are -- you
can begin by:

1. Writing articles

2. Optimizing your site for the search engines

3. Putting Adsense on your site

All this takes time and work. But, when you first begin, you do
have time to optimize, to write articles, and to put adsense ads
on your site. Why? It has been said that for the next six months
or nine months, Google, and possibly, the other search engines,
may put you in the Sandbox. Some say the Sandbox exists, some
says it does not. Whatever it is called, you will see a degree
of dormancy in your site.

My own thinking is that there may be a pre-set time of six
months before you see a rise in your unique clicks - I know I
did. I feel that there may be several reasons for this:

1. It's a great way to protect the Internet community against
unscrupulous sites - I figure that these sites have a lifespan
of six months before people give them the boot. It only takes
one person to feel the blunt of a scam, before talk in the
online forums begins.

2. Websites go up and go down daily. The search engines are
looking at saving themselves time and money. If you are still on
line after six months or nine months, you're paying your dues,
and they may figure you are serious about maintaining a business
online.

What Do I Do During That Six or Nine Month Period

First, and foremost - since I have supplied you with this
information - do not get frustrated and throw in the towel.
Granted, at first the only clicks you may see is your own, but
that will change.

Second, start positioning yourself, so when your dormancy with
the search engines ends, you have the quality content, and the
quality products to begin to fly. That means, writing articles,
getting your name out to the masses, and learning to utilize
Adsense. And when you have spare change, try your hand at
advertising on Adwords.

In the beginning your learning curve is just out of the starting
gate - take this time to read, buy appropriate ebooks,
experiment and research. All are important to moving your
learning curve to the expert level.

To conclude, a website is just a small part, but an important
part, of becoming an Affiliate Marketer. The other important
elements, is persistence, hard work, and marketing. And finally,
if you still have the passion after the initial exhilaration of
becoming an online entrepreneur wanes - then you'll make it.

About the author:
Vickie J Scanlon has a BBA degree in Administrative Management
and Marketing. Visit her site at:
http://www.myaffiliateplace.biz for free tools, quality articles
related to affiliate marketing, ebooks, how to info, affiliate
opportunities - all aimed toward the affiliate marketer and the
marketing process.

How to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing ?

2005-11-14T10:12:00.000-08:00

The reason more and more people are interested in Affiliate
Marketing business is there are no bosses to order the employees
around, There are no deadlines to meet and no fixed timings or
schedule to follow. One only needs to be equipped with the tools
needed to succeed in a business such as this.

What are the things needed to succeed in Affiliate Marketing ?
What tools or techniques one must use in order to succeed ? The
very first quality one must possess if he wants to try his hand
in affiliate marketing is the willingness to learn and be
trained. Learning the tricks of the trade is also an important
aspect of the game, and one's willingness to know it all will
give him far better advantages in the business than he could
ever imagine. One should Learn where to market or sell his
products.

Another important tools is having your own website. Your website
is the jump off point of all your marketing efforts. Thus, you
must first build a user-friendly website, which will appeal to
your prospects and encourage them to click on the links to the
products and service you are promoting and make a purchase.

Once you have the website you need to have visitors. The
importance of driving highly targeted traffic to your website
cannot be emphasized enough. The all-important web traffic is at
the top of the list of the most important entities in the
internet world. One of the best ways to drive traffic is writing
good articles with your website's link at the resource box.
Writing quality articles in ezines and free article sites will
definitely boost your traffic.

Finding good products to sell is another important aspect in
affiliate marketing. Find out the general interest level of the
product you are trying to sell. Finding a good choice of idea or
product is always accompanied by interfacing the demand for the
product in the current market and the level of competition or
market share that the product will be having in the long run.

These are some of the tips you can use to improve your affiliate
Marketing skills.

About the author:
Balaji V, is the webmaster of
http://www.fortuneinfo.com/ArticleSite Visit his website for
more articles and also check
http://www.fortuneinfo.com/ArticleCash on how you can write high
quality articles to promote your website.

Are Affiliate Marketing Mentors Necessary?

2005-11-14T10:10:00.000-08:00

Affiliate Marketing is the on-line equivalent of the off-line
'commissioned salesman", and has been around from the time the
first ebusiness was created. It's among the most popular
money-making methods used by online entrepreneurs today. It's a
great option especially for those who want to put up an online
business quickly and affordably.

A large number of online enthusiasts know little or even nothing
about marketing. In fact, over 95% of beginners in the online
arena have little or no experience in marketing of any kind.
However, it's a skill that can be learned.

Sadly, most of the people who have just discovered this business
usually assume that they can easily make big bucks with minimal
effort. Well, they're definitely wrong.

Being successful in affiliate marketing will not happen
overnight. It's an ongoing project where you need to try various
strategies and tactics. It's a truly exciting field, but can be
tremendously disappointing if not done right.

If you want to be involved or you've already joined an affiliate
program, then you should consider hiring a mentor to help you
figure out where to start and what to do in order to succeed.

Yes, you can surely learn a lot from ebooks and content web
sites loaded with information on marketing, but having a mentor
makes a huge difference. Most online marketers work alone, and
having someone to talk to about your plans, your desires and
your progress helps you keep up your resolve.

In the dictionary, the word mentor is defined as a wise and
trusted teacher or counselor. Usually, these persons are experts
in their fields. They are there to give you expert advice and
guidance along with supervision. So when we say affiliate
marketing mentors, we refer to experienced counselors that have
made affiliate marketing their specialty, and have actually
succeeded at it.

Here then are some of the qualities that affiliate mentors
should possess. Of course, a good mentor knows and applies the
theories and generalities regarding your business, but there's
nothing more helpful and effective than telling the client what
works today and what are the things that should work in the
future.

As a mentor, you need to be the main sources of knowledge to
your client, and the one to teach him how to generate more
affiliate income. You too, need to be knowledgable and equipped
with the keys to success for affiliates and the merchants. You
should guide your clients as they try the things that can help
boost their profit. Once they do well in that business, it can
be counted as one of your great achievements. This automatically
makes you a successful mentor.

It's said that in order to be successful you need to encompass
and develop the traits of persistence, patience and thirst for
knowledge. And as a mentor, it's your job to help your clients
develop or expand on these characteristics. Once they've
developed them, they'll better understand that attaining success
becomes possible with dedication and reasonable effort.

Then you're client is now ready to more easily learn about
search engine optimization, link exchanges, email marketing,
newsletter marketing, reciprocal exchanges, advertising in
forums, and everything else involved in this exciting game.

Certainly being a mentor requires skill and dedication but this
task is very rewarding, especially when your client starts to
succeed. What a thrill it is to see and how proud you a re when
the testimonials thanking you come pouring in. The failure of
your client is your failure too, so you must do your very best
to enable your client with the tools, determination and desire
to succeed.

Not all your clients will succeed, but how many do will depend
on your own expertise and determination, and how well you can
pass it on to your clients. After all, that's what affiliate
marketing mentors are for.

Here's a word from my marketing coach...

Denise Ryder is a Marketing Coach writing from her home office
in Northern Ontario (Canada). Hey...are you a do-it yourself
marketer? Are you struggling a little? Need just a little help?
Can you imagine how far your business could grow with a
Marketing Coach in your pocket? Take a no cost Test Drive TODAY!
http://www.profitspace.com/coach

Fred Farah

copyright 2005

About the author:
Fred Farah

Best Affiliate Products for Maximum Profits

All you need to know about affiliate marketing starts right here
at: Affiliate Marketing Information Center

Making Money on The Web

2005-11-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

Since Feb 2005 I have been experimenting with making a little
income from websites. Not by working on them and building them
for people which is one of my 'proper' sources of income, but by
actually building sites for myself that then generate an income.

Now, before you get excited, I'm not making loads, in fact the
sites are only just paying their way, but I thought I'd tell you
about them as there is certainly potential in the techniques. In
fact, quite a few people are making small fortunes using these
techniques and a small minority are making HUGE fortunes from it.

At the end of the day the techniques really all boil down to
placing advertisements on your website, but there are several
different ways to go about this. The two I have been using are
affiliate assoications and Pay Per Click
Advertising. I have also in the past few days started using
a new scheme which is in effect a combination of the two.

Affiliate Associations There are lots of online
businesses offering affiliate associations that you can sign up
to. Once signed up you can place links to products offered by
these businesses on your website and if people click on the link
and subsequently buy the product you can earn some commission
from the sale. One of the first companies to use this marketing
technique and one of the most successful affiliate programs is
that offered by Amazon. The box to the left is an example of
just one of the links that the Amazon Affiliate program can
serve. As you can see, you can link to individual products as a
way of recommending them to your websites visitors, or you can
add automatically generated links to your site that Amazon
update with bestsellers, new releases etc. If a visitor to your
site clicks on this link and then buys a product from Amazon you
will earn commission for referring them to Amazon. Commission
rates vary from around 4% to 7.5%.

I have tried taking this a step further by setting up online
'affiliate stores' such as href="http://www.web-desgn-books.co.uk">'Web Design Books'.
This website uses a set of scripts to obtain product information
direct from the Amazon database and present it in the form of
affiliate links arranged by category within an online store. The
advantage of using such a script is that the information is kept
up to date with the Amazon database so once set up the store is
in effect maintenance free... You should be able to just sit
back and watch the money roll in. Of course, it isn't quite that
easy. In order to make any money from it you really must put a
lot of time and effort into promoting your new web affiliate
store. Without any visitors you aren't going to make any
commission, and this is where the hard work comes in. Those
people that have the time and expertise to promote their
affiliate store can and do make a decent living from them.
Unfortunately I don't have the time to invest in such promotion
so my store sits there making the odd sell now and then... Maybe
one day I'll have some time to make more of the site.

There are plenty of other affiliate schemes, I have set up an
affiliate website selling href="http://www.pixelwave-templates.co.uk">website
templates, which again makes the odd sell now and then.
There are also sites that allow you to set up affiliate
associations with large numbers of affiliate schemes and manage
them all from one centralised location (I have tried this but
have as yet made nothing from it).

Overall affiliate schemes can and do work, but in order to make
any money from them you have to actually generate sales through
your website.

Pay Per Click Advertising Pay Per Click (PPC) advertsing
is similar to affiliate schemes as you place adverts on your
website, but you get paid everytime someone clicks on the advert
regardless of whether they subsequently buy something. The
grand-daddy of all PPC schemes at the moment is Google Adsense.
The beauty of this scheme is that it is context-sensitive. As a
web master all you have to do is place some code from Google on
your website and it will automatically work out what the topic
of that page is and serve relevant adverts to your web-page.
Hopefully these adverts will be of interest to your website's
visitors and they will click on them earning you a small revenue
each time they do. The amount you actually earn depends upon the
advert and how much the advertiser has bid to get their advert
to the top of the list.

I have implemented Google Adsense adverts on my href="http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk">Windsurfing,
kitesurfing and surfing website and after a slow start and
some tweaking with the positioning they do generate a little bit
of income each day. Certainly not enough to make much difference
to my annual income from real work, but they at least cover the
cost of hosting for the website which was before costing me a
fair bit to run.

Of course, if you have an extremely popular website or lots of
them, then there is no reason why contextual adverts such as
those offered by the Google Adsense program shouldn't generate
you a nice little income.

Interactive Merchandising I've recently started
experimenting with a system provided by href="https://chitika.com/mm_overview.php?refid=justal">Chitikaa> called eMiniMalls. These are in effect a combination between
Affiliate Marketing and PPC marketing. This system can be
contextual in the same way as Google Adsense adverts or can be
based on your own set if keywords. (Note: Adsense terms and
conditions state that you can't use other contextual adverts on
the same page so if used in conjunction with Adsense, Chitika
'eMiniMalls' must be set up in non-contextual mode). The example
to above shows a Chitika eMiniMall which should be showing a
product along with the description of the product and the best
deals for places to buy that product. Revenue is earned on a
pay-per-click basis.

So far success with these has been limited, but I think that is
because all the products and best deals are American based with
prices in US Dollars, whereas the sites I have placed them on
are UK biased.

Overall, it is definitely possible to make money from your
websites. A popular site should bring in a steady trickle of
cash and maybe pay for the hosting and domain name. But, with a
little bit of effort, several websites and lots of promotion to
bring traffic to your sites you could make a living out of
it.... I'm still a VERY VERY long way off that and shall for the
time being at least have to continue to work in order to keep
the wolf from the door. But who knows, the income I do make from
them may one day at least go someway to helping my family lead a
'simple life of luxury'.

About the author:
Alan Cole runs http://www.pixelwave.co.uk, a one-person web
design studio. His aim is to provide cost effective website
design production and maintenance by offering professional web
solutions that stand out from the crowd. Increasingly his work
involves website promotion and Search Engine Optimisation as
well as training courses on all aspects of web design and
promotion.

Save Your Cash - Avoid Internet Fast Money Scams

2005-10-22T04:16:00.000-07:00

Lets Face it, it would be great to have a bundle of money
coming in as a secondary income. Who wouldn't love to make
thousands of dollars while sitting on the sofa watching
SportsCenter. I think I have heard and seen it all when it comes
to fast money scams and internet marketing. Realestate
investments, Ebay Stores, Stock Markets etc..... You name it and
chances are I have been approached by it or have read about it
on the web. The bad thing is a fell for a ton of these "fast
money scams". Everyone promised the world and that I would make
a killing within 24 hours and I was lucky to make a dime. All
the information I was paying for was common knowledge that I was
already aware of, they all were false promises, money down the
toilet. So I have to admitt when I came across the two sources
below I thought it was all the same scam. How could these guys
be any different from the rest? As I did some investigations and
chatted with some of their previous customers I found out that
they were different. People were actually making money of there
ideas and big money at that. They do charge a minimal fee to
access the programs, but I was alright with that because I
understand any legitimate company has overhead cost. To make a
long story short I joined both of the sites and since then am
make around $75.00 to $100 a day in extra cash. Do not only take
my word for it, but check out the sites for yourself and do your
own research. Trust me if you cant make money from the
information than stick with your nine to five. Although you make
want to act fast you are not getting any richer reading this.
Good Luck and follow the site step by step and you will make
some serious cash.

Program 1 The Rich
Jerk

Program 2 No
gimmicks, no empty promises, just good business. We are looking
for individuals interested in starting their own legitimate home
business. $50,000+ first year income potential.

All the Best Brent

About the author:
Small business owner in search for financial freedom

Characteristics of a Super Affiliate (Part 1 of 3)

2005-10-22T04:15:00.000-07:00

It's one of the simplest ways to earn money online. All you need
to do is become an affiliate for someone else's product,
service, or program. Fill out their sign-up form and you're
ready to start promoting your unique referral URL.

Now I ask you, what could possibly be simpler than that?

Of course, you're most likely expecting to earn a substantial
amount of income from whatever product, service or program
you're promoting. That, my friend, requires rising to what is
commonly referred to as "super" affiliate status, something that
is anything BUT simple.

Mind you, it doesn't carry any degree of difficulty. Merely a
strong commitment to become the best - and most productive -
affiliate you possibly can.

So what tasks will you need to be proficient in? Following are
the first three of the primary characteristics that are
associated with super affiliate status.

Super Affiliates are:

Opt-In List Builders

You've probably heard it a thousand times... the gold is in the
list. Quite simply, it means that having your own mailing list
is one of the most effective means of bringing in affiliate
income. Not just initially, but for months and even years to
come.

The concept is straightforward... you capture names and email
addresses of potential "prospects" (people who would be inclined
to purchase from you), and then follow up with those individuals.

The only problem is, many affiliate programs merely assign you a
standard referral page, one that can only be promoted "as is".
So how do you capture names and email addresses? Simple...

You need to create a "pre-sell" page of your own. That way, you
can include a sign-up form that captures names and email
addresses for YOU and not just the owner of the affiliate
product, service, or program.

Super Affiliates use:

Autoresponder Messages

You've got a comprehensive mailing list and that means you've
got numerous prospects you can send follow-up messages to.
Great! That's exactly what you want. Super Affiliates take that
process one step further by simply incorporating autoresponder
messages.

The power of an autoresponder is twofold...

1. There's no pressure to create follow-up messages on the fly.
They're already stacked up and ready to go.

2. The entire process offers an automatic follow-up system.
Again, because the messages are already stacked up and ready to
go.

Just by clicking on a link or filling out a form on your
website, your prospect receives an instant email message, one
that is - you guessed it - stacked up and ready to go.

That however, is just the beginning. Behind that initial message
is an entire series of messages that the person will
automatically receive. Naturally, what you place in those
follow-up messages is entirely up to you. The only criteria are
that they ultimately bring you more sales. Super Affiliates have:

Ad Tracking Capability

You've created one or more specific and unique autoresponder
series, which you're using to advertise your affiliate links.
You're also promoting through forums, ezine ads, banner
campaigns, online classifieds, pay per click campaigns and even
your own newsletter. That equates to a whole lot of different
advertising sources.

A super affiliate makes absolutely certain they know exactly
where a prospect comes from. More importantly, where their SALES
are coming from. In other words, you need to keep track of any
and all individual promotions and advertising campaigns you're
involved in.

Without that capability, you would have no means of determining
which promotion efforts are a success and which ones should be
either revised or abandoned altogether.

About the author:
David Cooper is the editor of the Affiliate Marketing Articles
Newsletter. David specializes in helping people with their
affiliate marketing efforts by offering real world tips and
strategies. Download his FREE Affiliate Marketing Primer ebook
at: http://www.affiliatemarketingarticles.com

Affiliate Marketing Diary -- Posts of a Budding Internet

2005-10-22T04:14:00.000-07:00

Affiliate marketing on the internet is one of the biggest
buzzwords today. All over the world, people are looking for ways
to make money on the internet. Like many business owners, many
have tried and most have failed and given up. This is the story
of one budding internet entrepreneur in his quest for financial
freedom and a review of the different forms of affiliate
marketing.

The world of internet marketing is a vast one. All interested
parties are looking for the same thing -- to make money and gain
financial freedom. Some have little patience and others have a
lot. There are opportunities for all personality types.

Below are examples of some such opportunities.

Google Adsense

By placing the famous "Ads by Google" on their developed
websites, affiliate marketers earn what is called PPC, or "pay
per click" revenue each time a visitor clicks on the ad. It is
one of the easiest methods of earning revenue on the internet
but the amounts are individually small and so volume is key.
Increasing the number of visitors and their "click through rate"
is the objective here.

Amazon Products

Amazon, the world's largest online store, allows internet
entrepreneurs to place ads for books, DVDs and other consumer
products on their websites. If a visitor sees a featured product
on the affiliate marketer's website and then decides to buy it,
the website owner will earn a tidy comission from the sale.
Other retailers also operate a similar scheme to Amazon but the
idea is the same -- to target the big ticket products.

Adult websites

"Sex sells" as they say. It always has done and continues to do
so, even in times of recession in the general economy. Whilst
most visitors to adult sites are looking for freebies, the
traffic potential to an adult site is so high that even a tiny
conversion of traffic into sales can result in large revenues
for the affiliate marketer. Blogs are a recent foray and popular
theme in the adult website world of the affiliate marketer and
offer new and lucrative possibilities.

About the author:
For more information, regular commentary, and in-depth analysis
of affiliate marketing, visit target="_blank">Affiliate Marketing Diary.

Promote Affiliate Programs Through Your Own Google Adwords

2005-10-22T04:12:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Forbes magazine has reported that pay per
click ad sales are expected to increase to at least an
astounding $8 billion by the year 2008? Pay per click though
still unfamiliar to many, will be around for a very long time.
One of the search engine giants to capture a lion's share of
this market is Google through its Google Adwords service. A few
ebooks like Google Cash and The Definitive Guide To Google
AdWords provide basic and advance knowledge on releasing the
incredible power of pay per click campaigns especially as this
applies to businesses and affiliates around the world. Big
businesses are still the largest group to benefit from
incorporating pay per click in their advertising budgets but,
home-based businesses and affiliate program promoters can
benefit too if they understand how to use this tool.

Pay per click search engines provide a way for you to basically
buy your way to the top of search results for any keyword you
wish. Pay per click advertising works thru a bidding process,
and your ads appear in the results pages of search engines such
as Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves. With Google Adwords you bid on the
keywords you want to focus your ad on. For example if someone
were searching on "gourmet coffee", if you're the highest bidder
for "gourmet coffee" you receive top placement for that phrase
and depending on the search engine, the top 3-5 bidders for that
phrase also receive placement on the first page of unpaid search
results.

With Google Adwords the "ad campaign" is everything. When you
sign up with Google Adwords you have unlimited campaigns at your
disposal. I enjoy promoting affiliate programs and in the past I
spent a lot of time deciding which keywords I would bid on to
attract buyers to my affiliate programs. The only tool I use
right now is Ad Word Analyzer which saves tremendously on time
and gives me an overview of my keyword and/or keyword phrase as
it was searched on the top two pay per click search engines
Google and Overture (now called Yahoo Search Marketing).

Now that you've done your research and you've collected your
keywords and/or keyword phrases, you'll need to open an Adwords
account.

1. To do this go to https://adwords.google.com/. There is a one
time sign up fee of $5 and your username and password are
emailed to you.

2. Now you can log into the system and select "create a new
campaign". Give your campaign a name that will also allow you to
create multiple campaigns.

3. Before creating your first ad, I recommend that you print out
Google's set of guidelines, ebooks such as Google Cash cover
this area as well. Since most of you are probably promoting
affiliate programs, it's important that you notify Google of
this by simply adding "aff" at the end of your ad text.

A few tips to keep in mind:

a. To keep your ad targeted, make sure your keyword or keyword
phrase is in the headline.

b. Put your keyword or keyword phrase in the text of your ad.

c. In promoting your affiliate program, make sure you're linked
directly to the owner's website thru your affiliate link so that
you'll get the credit and the cash!

Now you can submit your ad and start tracking your campaign over
the next few days. If you're not happy with your ad's
performance you can make changes such as targeting other
keywords or increasing your bid a little at a time. Adwords is
flexible in allowing you to make changes within Google
guidelines of course, to make your ad campaigns successful.

Pay per click is here to stay and it offers a high level of
assurance that your ad is reaching your targeted audience. With
the proper management and a clear vision, pay per click
specifically Google Adwords, can provide you with well targeted
and economical advertising on the internet.

As mentioned earlier pay per click ad sales are expected to
increase to at least $8 billion by 2008, with Google Adwords,
the right resources and a little effort on your part, you can
also benefit from this increase and find yourself with a
significant supplemental income each month or a fulltime "leave
my 9-5 job" income. The sky is truly the limit with pay per
click.

About the author:
Maxine Hough is the owner of The Internet Marketing Tool Site a
resources site of internet marketing software and tools for the
internet marketer and webmaster to jumpstart or enhance their
internet marketing efforts. Ebooks and tools mentioned in this
article can also be found on this website at
www.the-internet-marketing-tool-site.com

Ten Ways To Make The Most Out Of An Affiliate Program

2005-10-22T04:11:00.000-07:00

Any business, online or offline, that wouldn't require any
initial cash layout, would be a win-win situation.

This is what makes affiliate programs so much enticing. An
affiliate program allows the affiliate marketer to act as a
middleman between the consumer and the merchant, without having
to add anything to the price of the product. The affiliate
marketer is given a commission for every successful sale, and
these percentages can be a substantial sum.

Many online citizens actually claim that they have given up
their day jobs because of affiliate marketing. The amount they
are earning from affiliate programs is significantly larger than
their normal income.

If you wish to enter the very promising world of affiliate
marketing, here are ten tips that would definitely help you
maximize potential profit from the system.

1. Focus on a particular area of interest. You can't sell
products that target different markets. It is better to
concentrate on one specific field, study its ins and outs, and
work your way around its demands. To illustrate, if you choose
dogs as an area of interest, research on the places where dog
lovers gather online. Then look for an affiliate program that
offers products which cater to their needs.

2. Choose an advantageous affiliate program. There are some
things to consider when choosing the most profitable affiliate
program. First among these is the salability-commission ratio.
Usually, products which are difficult to sell offer a higher
commission, whereas products that are easy to sell offer lower
percentage cuts. Try to find an advantageous balance. Look for a
product that is easy to sell and offers an attractive
commission. Additionally, you should also consider the
credibility and reliability of the affiliate program. Do they
actually pay? Do they pay on time? Are their products worth
something? These are but a few of the things you have to clarify
before committing yourself to their terms.

3. Build a focused and content-filled site. You will primarily
sell the affiliate products in your site. But if your site does
not attract that many visitors, sales conversion is virtually
impossible. Create a site that focuses on the area of interest
you have chosen, and populate it with rich, informative content
that people would love to read. Just like that famous line from
the movie Field of Dreams, "build it and they will come."

4. Market your site. People would not automatically know about
your site, so you have to advertise it across the web. Submit it
to search engines, exchange links with well-visited sites, and
promote it in online communities. You have to spread the word
that your site exists, and that it's good.

5. Market the product. Once a consistent influx of visitors is
established, it's time to promote the affiliate product you're
selling. This is usually done through a sales page that can be
accessed from your site. A sales page is an article full of
praises or the product. Things like "it changed my life," "the
secret that they don't want you to know," "be a millionaire in
one week," and the likes are not uncommon lines for sales pages.
But they work. Hire a professional ghostwriter to write a sales
page for you.

6. Discard anonymity. Anonymity is a common thing on the
internet, but it is bad for a business venture. People would
rather deal with someone they know, rather than a username like
B1GB3N or R2D2. Give your real name. You could choose to keep
your contact information undisclosed however, until you become
sure that the other party is likewise worthy of your trust.

7. Build a network. Befriend other affiliate marketers. Share
information about the best deals, the most effective strategies,
and perhaps, even some lists of potential buyers. Remember, the
world is all about a network of contacts. Each person you know
would eventually help you out at one point. There is no reason
why the internet should be any different.

8. Build a list. It is not enough that a visitor visits your
site. You have to keep him. He may not purchase any of your
available products now, but there's no telling that he won't
decide to buy your future offerings. So build a list by
encouraging them to sign up. Create a free service that would
make them keep in touch. Remember, a lost visitor is a lost sale.

9. Protect your link. Your affiliate link is the one thing that
would inform your chosen affiliate program that you were the one
who was responsible for a particular sale. Link theft is rampant
these days, which is unfortunate, because in affiliate
marketing, your link is your bread and butter. So protect your
affiliate link at all costs.

10. Do not limit yourself to one affiliate program. Join as many
as you can without losing the focus of what you want to sell.
The greater the variety of the products you offer, the more
chances that one will be bought. Joining affiliate programs is
free, so might as well make the most out of it.

About the author:
Karen Walker assists individuals, entrepreneurs, network
marketers, and independent professionals generate substantial
incomes within 5 years so that they may live the life they want,
fulfill their passions, and achieve their dreams! Visit her
informational web sites: http://www.cashflowquest.com http://www.income-directory.com

Do you Know Who's In Your Computer?

2005-10-22T04:09:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed that everyone on the internet is an expert?
It's definitely not true. However if you do some research most
everyone on the internet is either trying to "SCAM" you, "spam"
you, steal from you, or talk you into some worthless Matrix
program. Some of the rest is making claims that is well beyond
fraud.

It's absolutely pathetic to realize that the internet is full of
garbage. However, if you haven't been stung, you will be. I hate
to break it to you but you have to be on guard more now than you
did 5 years ago.

Just placing your computer online, chances are great you'll get
a virus. You increase these odds tremendously by downloading
something for FREE. Be extremely cautious on that word. "FREE"
may be a way for a hacker to access everything you have and then
steal your identity.

The main question most people have when coming online is " Can I
make money?". The answer is "YES". I've definitely found a man
that makes money and he is a "JERK".

If you want to see this "JERK" and all that he does, you are
more than welcome to jump on over to
http://www.letsworksmarter.com/jerk.html

Before you start jumping in and losing tons of money though, you
must first protect yourself. You must be aware that some people
on the internet is "Scanning" for open ports. Hackers are trying
to get into your personal computer and steal all your personal
information. Also, you may not be aware of it, but some of the
worst things you can have on your computer is an "ADWARE"
program.

Adware programs usually come in by downloading a free piece of
software. This adware tracks your habits. Everything you do is
like a video being taking of you and your actions. Then it is
sent to the advertiser, hacker, or marketer.

You'd wonder where your privacy went. Well, you just have to
learn how to deal with all this. Once you understand about
"Spamming", viruses, phishing, adware, matrixes, illegal MLM
programs, thieves that steal commissions, hoaxes, chain letters,
and con artists, you'll be ready to protect yourself.

Now, I'm not going to convince you to join anything or anyone. I
am simple going to suggest you get a firewall, a virus
protector, an ad blocker, and a spam proof email program. I also
recommend that you know exactly where you download programs
from.

I don't want "scare" you from coming online, but even if you do
everything possible to protect yourself, chances are still very
great you'll get a virus, a spam email or an adware program.

Another problem with spam is when you filter out certain words,
you'll actually filter out some email that you want. Spamming by
the way is sending unwanted solicitations. "Yes, Sarah, there is
a law against it." But how do you catch someone, when you don't
know how to trace them or track them?

Now, you can have the greatest spam filter on the planet and
chances are, you'll still have someone beat that filter. Have
you seen words like "m oney or M*oney" in any of your emails. A
filter will not pick this up because it isn't a word. However,
you'll be able to recognize it.

I can give you a few hints that may protect you.

1.Do not click on anything in an email. You may get something
from ebay or paypal that looks secure. If they address you with
the word paypal member or ebay member, chances are it's a fake
email. Don't click on the "url".

2.Do not store any personal information on your computer such as
credit card numbers, drivers license numbers, or bank account
numbers. Have you ever been asked to send your personal
information to someone to prove who you are? Some people ask you
to send your drivers license, a paycheck stub, a bank statement,
and possibly a voided check. How hard would it be to call your
bank and get money sent out with this kind of information in the
hands of a thief?

3.Do not have an offline email program. This is a program where
it downloads your email directly off the server. I know it's a
pain to deal with emails that stay online, but it will increase
your protection. The very least you could do is filter the email
before downloading it to your offline email program.

4.Before joining any program, make sure it's legal. It may sound
great and they may tell you it's legal, but let me assure you
all chain letters are illegal. Even those that send Christian
letters around. You are personally liable for your own actions.
If you join, you are liable.

5.Just because it is written on the internet, don't assume it
must be true.

6.Keep your virus protector updated. This is a cheap price to
pay when it comes to someone getting into your files.

7.Recognize that 99% of all marketers may lie to you.

8.Do not accept attachments.

Now if I hit you with some words that you don't understand, by
all means educate yourself.

Once you get past all these barriers, you'll be just one small
step into making some money. The first small step is not losing
it. I really honestly believe that you should go check out the
jerk that makes over $1,000,000.
http://www.letsworksmarter.com/jerk.html

Now, I personally have a list of people that I trust. You will
build your own list of people. However, if you need any
recommendations, I can possibly give them to you. How do you
know you can trust ME? Now your getting the ideal.

I will give you my home address, my phone number, and my email
address which is more than what most people do.

I try to join as many programs as I can, and I download as much
as I can to find these unscrupulous people. Once I do find them,
I try to let others know. I usually get about 400 emails a day.
I get viruses everyday too. I do this so that I can help others.

Do you know what is really pathetic? Porn email. I could write a
complete book on this subject. Millions of viruses come from
these!

Good luck. Remember that all the things I've written is my
opinion only. As you probably already figured out, I fully
recommend you find out how the "JERK" made his money. He will
tell you exactly how to do it. I paid over 97.00 for this. It's
on sale right now if you hurry. I'd bet he becomes well talked
about before the end of the year.

Incidentally I read that book of his a lot. Here is that link
again. http://www.letsworksmarter.com/jerk.html

Randall Stafford

PS Do you know what program is by far the best to join? Do you
know who to trust? That "jerk" is one I trust because he isn't
asking for anything.

About the author:
Randall Stafford has been marketing and surfing the internet
since 1994. He has paid his dues as far as marketing. In 1995
and 1996 he had several businesses in the MLM industry, but now
concentrates on personal sales. He also tries to find out who is
scamming people. He has written several articles on Scams.

Earning Online With Adsense

2005-10-22T04:06:00.000-07:00

Are you determined and convinced that there is a way to earn a
living online, but just haven't been lucky enough to find it
yet? Well before you completely give up hope I would like to
share a little bit of personal experience with the Google
Adsense program.

Since it's introduction, thousands of webmasters and internet
entrepreneurs have been using Adsense to earn an income online.
Signing up for the program is very simple, and once you are
approved, placing the ads on your site is a simple as pasting a
few lines of code.

A friend first introduced me to Adsense, and to be honest I was
skeptical that this was going to be a waste of time like many
other so called website revenue systems. I placed the box style
ad on all of the pages of my new site and waited with
anticipation. Sure enough the money started to trickle in. As I
continually added new content and improved my website, it would
earn relatively more and more each month.

Now at the risk of stating the obvious, earning with adsense is
not as simple as pasting some code on any old webpage and
waiting for the money to roll in. There are many factors that
needed to be kept in mind to be successful with adsense.

Number 1 - You must have traffic. Well this seems pretty
obvious, but what may not be as obvious, especially if you are
new to building websites, is that you need lots of good quality
content, and it must be added to your site regularly. Fresh
content related to your site topic not only increases the number
of potential keywords that you may get free search engine
traffic from, but also increases your search engine rankings.
Where can you find free content? You can find thousands of free
articles related to almost any topic right here, and there are
also many other free article directories on the web.

Also important to improve your search engine rankings in most
search engines are incoming links. Inbound links especially from
similar content related sites, and those having a good google
pagerank will make a big difference in your SE rankings and will
also give you direct traffic via the link itself. These are just
some of the basics, and if you give it a shot I am sure you can
start making some extra income from your website with adsense.

If you are looking to maximize your efforts and your profits
with adsense I would suggest checking out this great manual
entitled Adsense
Gold. It will teach you everything you need to know to
maximize your click thru rate, finding the most valuable
keywords to target, and much much more.

About the author:
Online marketer and webmaster of www.earn-online.biz

How to Make a living as an affiliate

2005-10-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

95% of all affiliates make $0 - $100 a year. I don't know about
you, but in my books, this is not a living. In this quick "How
To" guide, we'll take a look at how you can become part of the
5% who ARE making their living online. This guide does not
guarantee that you'll make a fortune, but it will point you in
the right direction if you're interested in making a living as
an affiliate.

1. Mindset: Get in touch with your grey matter. Program your
mind with positive, committed thoughts. If you can believe
it,you can achieve it. It sounds a bit like a sales seminar, but
bottom line is, if you don't believe you can make a living
online, you won't. You have to be committed. Commit to yourself
that you will develop an income online - no matter what it
takes. Think of your business as a bacon and eggs breakfast. The
chicken was involved, the pig was committed!

2. Viewpoint: This is your business. Once you've accomplished
your first hurdle and committed yourself to making this work,
you have to look at your business from the proper viewpoint. No
rose coloured glasses here. This is your business. You are the
CEO of your own marketing company. You can choose to offer your
services to one or several companies. Bottom line, you are
responsible for every action in your company. Every decision you
make affects your bottom line.

3. Learning Curve: Expect it. Becoming an affiliate is like
going to college or university. You start at the beginning,
learn the basics and build on what you learn. Take it
step-by-step and you'll build a much stronger business. Think of
it like becoming a doctor. One doesn't decide to become a doctor
with the expectation of opening a successful practice one week
from now. It takes time to learn the products or services you're
marketing and it takes time to learn to run your business.

4. Budget: Time and money. Set a general budget for both. As a
business owner, you'll use plenty of time developing and
promoting your affiliate business. Budget as much time as you
can each day and make sure you use your time wisely. Set up a
budget for your monetary expenses too. You can run a business
online with a shoestring budget, just don't expect a mammoth
income in the beginning. The more you can invest in your
business, the better. This doesn't mean that simply throwing
money at your business will make it grow. Every dollar that goes
out your door, needs to come back in and bring another dollar
with it.

5. Goals: s/he shoots - s/he scores! Your goals will get you
through the tough times. There'll be lots of days when you feel
like quitting. If you make your goals tangible, you'll make it
through the tough days. Money isn't a motivator, but what money
can buy, is. Set your goals for a family vacation, a new car,
boat, or home. It's much easier to get excited about a shiny red
corvette in your driveway than $100,000 sitting in your bank
account. Money is only numbers on a pieceof paper or a computer
screen, but it can bring you a luxurious lifestyle, and that's
where the fun is.

6. Nuts and Bolts: Once you've got your house in order, with the
proper mindset, you're looking at your business from a realistic
viewpoint, you've got an open mind and you're ready to learn,
you've set aside some time and money and you've got pictures of
your dream house, car and vacation plastered on your wall,
you're ready to go hunting. The next step is to find a business
that interests you and offers an affiliate program with a
reasonable commission. For information products, one of the most
popular and profitable online, you can and should expect a
commission of 25% or more.

Pick a product that interests you. Buy it and use it. Your
business is based on your recommendations of a product or
service. If you haven't used it, how can you recommend it? Avoid
running around in circles after the newest, hottest selling
product of the day, it only leaves you dizzy and broke.

Choose a product you're interested in. If you like astronomy,
becoming an affiliate of a star chart company may be a good fit.
Selling women's pantyhose may not.

7. Look before you leap: Finding a company to represent as an
affiliate is one thing, finding a company that respects its
affiliates is another. Do a bit of research before you jump on
the bandwagon. Send an email to the company as if you're a
potential customer. 24 - 48 hours is a good response time. This
shows that someone is actually running the company. It also
gives you an idea of their commitment. Generally, the faster the
response, the more committed the company is to doing business.
The quality of the response is also important.Did the response
answer your question? Was it written in a friendly, professional
manor? Did they answer your question directly or simply send you
to a FAQ sheet?

8. Flip the switch: If everything checks out up to this
point,then your next step is to take action. Fill out the
affiliate application form and get your affiliate URL. Now the
ball is in your court. It's time to get down to brass tacks. If
you freeze now, you make no money and flush your goals down the
toilet. If you take action, you make it one step closer to your
goals.

9. If you build it - they will come: OK not really, but you do
have to build it. If you want to maximize your income and be
taken seriously, you need to own a website. Just like a brick
and mortar business, you need a professional location to offer
your products. Yes, you get an affiliate URL when you sign up as
an affiliate, but promoting an affiliate link looks amateur and
will help you LOSE 98% of your sales. We'll cover this in point
10.

10. Follow-up = Sales: Only 2% of your prospects will sign up or
buy what you're offering, on their first visit. 98% of yoursales
will be made from your follow up. There's a very simple method
for following up and making sales automatically.

i. Check your favourite search engine to locate a free ebook,
software program or report that relates to your offer. If you're
promoting a website that sells peanut butter, a free peanut
butter recipe book would be a good match. Your give-away must
always relate to the product you're promoting to maximize the
results of this system.

ii. Build a page on your website to give away your free
peanutbutter recipe book. Design the page as if you were
designing a sales page. Make people's mouths water until they
want the recipes so bad they'd gladly pay for them, but then
give it to them free. All they have to do is fill in their name
and email address in the simple form and you'll send their
recipe book to them instantly via email.

iii. As soon as your peanut butter prospect fills out the formon
your site and clicks the send button, they are taken to your
affiliate URL where they can buy peanut butter. At the same
time, the peanut butter recipe book is sent to their email
address.

iv. Now your peanut butter prospect receives an email from you
each week with new tips and useful peanut butter information.
This information positions you as a peanut butterexpert and
gives you the opportunity to promote your peanut butter
affiliate website once a week, to hot prospects. This is where
you'll make 98% of your sales.

Although this may seem like an overwhelming amount of work for
the beginner, it's all very simple. The whole process is run
from an autoresponder, a simple piece of email software that
automatically sends your prewritten email messages on a
predetermined schedule.

Your success as an affiliate is determined by you. 95% of the
people that read this simple How To guide will do nothing
withit. 5% of the people that read this guide will put all the
pieces in place and start making a living as an affiliate. You
have to decide which side of the coin you want to be on.

About the author:
This Article Was Published By Hans Hasselfors, from The Business
Professional. Get the net working for you. Join a community of
like-minded entrepreneurs and make your living online. Become a
member of The Business Professional network:
http://www.internet-marketing-experts-online.com

CJ Vantage- An Affiliate Marketing Tool

2005-10-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

CJ Vantage is an affiliate marketing tool for advertisers. It
combines expertise with advance functionality to optimize the
online marketing relationships. CJ Vantage is the product of
Commission Junction. Commission Junction recognizes that the
strategic relationship management is the most critical and
challenging task in realizing the online performance marketing
goals. With this approach, CJ Vantage makes it possible to fully
leverage key relationships while gaining a commanding view of
the CJ Marketplace. Commission Junction is an application
service provider facilitates online marketing relationships
between advertisers and publishers. Their product solutions
allow advertisers too rapidly and cost-effectively launch
performance-based marketing programs, while avoiding the time
and expense of installing, maintaining and upgrading packaged
software.

Features

1. Assigned Account Development Manager.

2. Monthly commission processing and payment.

3. Multiple Action Capability.

4. Hybrid Actions Available.

5. Item-based Commissions.

6. Performance Incentives for Publishers.

7. Advanced Product Catalog Support.

8. Customized Scheduled Reporting.

9. Variable Tracking Technology.

Benefits

1. Manage your account with an expert resource on board.-
The account managers will be assigned to offer Program
assistance.

a. It monitors account performance. b. It provides advice and
guidance. c. This affiliate marketing tool helps track towards goals and objectives.

2. Takes your performance-based advertising program live with
a solid deployment strategy in hand- The account manager
will construct a 90-day deployment strategy to develop a
high-quality, high-yield performance based advertising program.

a. It assists in developing campaign goals and strategies. b. It
ensures successful program execution with best practices in
place. c. It suggests techniques for publisher recruitment.

3. Customize the offering with multiple actions-
Additional sale or lead actions can be quickly integrated as the
program grows.

a. It supports multiple sale or lead actions. b. It includes
real-time integration.

4. Reach multiple advertising channels with hybrid
actions- Supplement sale and lead activity by paying on
clicks and impressions.

a. CJ Vantage- an affiliate marketing tool establishes multiple channels to reward publishers. b.
It utilizes a performance-based model.

5. Set commissions that make sense for the business- The
item-based commission delivers superior program control by
offering multiple commission settings.

a. It protects margins with maximum commission ceiling. b. It
offers flexibility to support diverse product mix. c. It
showcases key products and/or services

This article is sponsored by: www.softwarereviewblog.c
om

About the author:
We are in software business and on this blog we are reviewing
the newly launched softwares.

Affiliate Marketing: Characteristics of a Super Affiliate (Part

2005-10-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

In part one of this article series on Super Affiliates we
addressed the fact that Super Affiliates are Opt-In List
Builders, they use Autoresponders to market to prospects over
and over, and they use extensive Ad Tracking tools to manage
their advertising campaigns.

In part 2 of this article we will examine four more
characteristics of Super Affiliates.

Super Affiliates use:

Professionally Written Content

OK. So you're not the world's greatest writer. Whether you are
or not isn't the point. Every super affiliate makes certain that
the sales copy and content - on their own website or within the
ads they distribute - is top notch.

If they can't do the writing themselves, they hire a
ghostwriter, someone who IS capable of producing content that is
not only compelling but also capable of producing results. In
most instances, the only result that matters is how much money
was generated due to that particular sales copy.

Don't think you can afford to hire a ghostwriter? The way super
affiliates view this issue is pretty basic... the better the
writing, the better the financial gain. So the bottom line is,
if they can't write their own "killer" content, they immediately
recognize the fact that they can't afford NOT to hire a
professional to do it for them.

Super Affiliates are:

Keyword Marketers

You might not understand all the fine details of keyword
optimization, but one thing is certain, if you want to play with
the big boys - those super affiliates - you had better learn and
understand, at the very least, the BASICS of utilizing proper
keywords.

Unfortunately, even the basics are a bit too involved a topic to
cover adequately in the confines of this particular article.
Here's a list of some of the areas where expertise in keyword
marketing is valuable.

1. Choosing the right keywords for pay-per-click campaigns

2. Optimizing web pages to generate quality viewer traffic

3. Having the ability to determine which keywords to avoid

4. Using keywords to help select the best affiliate programs

5. Isolating product specific keywords

The more proficient you become with regard to keywords, the more
productive you'll be as a marketer in general.

Super Affiliates are:

Market Researchers

When it comes to "marketer" ability, keywords aren't the only
area you should concentrate on. Being able to properly conduct
research is absolutely essential to any serious-minded affiliate
marketer.

One of the primary benefits would be understanding beforehand
which products, services, or programs to avoid and which ones to
become involved in. Also, it would allow you to determine
exactly what audience you should be promoting a particular
product to.

Super Affiliates excel in:

Traffic Generation

Having all the knowledge and expertise in the world won't do you
any good if you can't drive sufficient traffic straight to your
offers.

Not only do super affiliates handle this type of task with ease
and efficiency, they are constantly on the lookout for new and
innovative means of generating even MORE targeted traffic. If
you hope to compete, it's something you absolutely positively
must be proficient in.

There's one other aspect of driving traffic that every super
affiliate adheres to. That is, driving traffic to their own
website or pre-sell page and NOT the merchant's website.
Granted, the viewer will ultimately get to that destination (to
actually make a purchase), but they should always be
strategically guided through YOUR system first.

About the author:
David Cooper is the editor of the Affiliate Marketing Articles
Newsletter. David specializes in helping people with their
affiliate marketing efforts by offering real world tips and
strategies. Download his FREE Affiliate Marketing Primer ebook
at: http://www.affiliatemarketingarticles.com

Affiliate Programs Can Be Very Beneficial To Internet Marketers

2005-10-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

An affiliate program is, simply defined, a sales job in which
you earn a commission. You will be an independent representative
of a company, offering their services and products to
prospective customers. When one of the customers makes a
purchase, you get a portion of the profit. Internet marketers
can increase traffic to their own web sites and make money form
the sales of others through affiliate marketing programs.

Internet marketers can be affiliates for several products from
multiple companies, on as many web sites as you operate, in as
many businesses as you desire. You don't have to travel to
remote locations, yet the internet places you in front of a
worldwide marketplace. This gives you incredible diversity in
the products you choose, markets in which you do business and
neighborhoods in which to sell, all from the comfort of your own
home in front of your computer screen. You could possibly make
several sales at once, but you will never have to deal with
face-to-face rejection. When doing business on the internet, you
don't necessarily need to make sales to earn lucrative
commissions. Certain affiliate marketing programs will pay you
if someone just clicks on a link you place on your web site,
fills out an application, or even requests additional
information. And here's the most attractive part - your web
sites work for you twenty four hours a day, each and every day.

Commission rates will depend on the types of products or
services that are offered. Tangible goods that will have to be
shipped to customers will pay lower commission rates than
products like e-books or software that can be downloaded
immediately. However, 10% of a $600 television is more money
than 60% of a $40 software program, so you have to remember to
consider the big picture when deciding what affiliate programs
to join. For the best affiliate sales experience, you will want
to offer products and services that will appeal to the targeted
audience of your web site. As an internet marketer, you will
need to appeal to the interests of your customers when placing
affiliate links on your web site.

There are various ways to join affiliate programs. Some
retailers operate their own program, and you will join through
the merchant web site. But many internet marketers choose to
operate through an affiliate network. These independent
companies offer sign-up, payment, tracking and affiliate program
management services to retailers and affiliate marketers. A
couple of well-known names are Clickbank and Linkshare. Simply
perform a search for affiliate programs and you are sure to find
more. Your sales and clicks are tracked by software. It is your
job to make sure your links follow the procedures and rules
posted by your merchant or affiliate network. Some browsers,
ad-blockers, and coding practices can prevent the tracking links
on your web site from functioning correctly, and you might not
get credit if one of your clicks results a sale. Most affiliate
marketers encounter this problem eventually. When it happens,
remember it's not intentional, so do not feel as if you have
been victimized in some way. Internet marketing technology is
very good, but it's not perfect.

For almost all internet marketers, joining affiliate marketing
programs give you a cheap and easy way to get started in an
online business. These programs can help you produce income
while you learn internet marketing techniques and work towards
developing your own product or service. = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

About the author:
Clive Harman is a professional trainer with 38 years experience
and has just published a no-holds-barred, tell-all,
never-revealed before training programme that will lead you
Step-by-Step through the mine field of Internet Marketing but -
Hurry there's only 250 openings! Plus save $100 on this training
course! http://www.cliveharman.com/t/im.html

Get your hands on this simple, but powerful,
audio course and create a cash generating business on the web...
http://www.look-here-now.com/mastery1.html

A few avoidable errors when promoting your affiliate program

2005-10-21T10:25:00.000-07:00

In this article, I have listed a quick and easy bulleted list of
does and do no's when trying to promote your affiliate program.

* Many affiliate marketers make a huge mistake of posting their
ads on forums. Forums can be used to promote your affiliate
programs and your website but in a proper manner. Posting
banners is very similar to spamming and may easily upset forum
administrators.

* Always do your research before promoting your affiliate
program to a potential customer. Do not offer affiliate programs
to visitors who are not at all interested in the products
associated with the program. This is a futile endeavour.

* If you promote affiliate programs offered by other merchants,
ensure that you develop your own advertising copy. Many websites
commit a common mistake of using the same advertising copy as
used by the merchant themselves.

* Avoid Copyright infringement in all cases. Always use original
content or ask permission to use graphic images or text found on
other websites.

* Do not submit your programs to free websites. These may be
free but your programs would hardly ever be noticed, especially
by Search Engines. Moreover, your own ranking would get lowered
if you submit your affiliate programs to such websites.

* Avoid using caps on your web page or email ad. Using caps is
symbolic to shouting, which never goes well with potential
customers. A few words may be written in capital text to give
them additional emphasis. However, such practice should be
limited.

* Always respond to all queries sent by visitors as soon as
possible. A slight delay in your response could easily result in
loss of a potential client.

* Do not use pop-up ads along with your webpage. Most surfers
are likely to close their browser if they come across pop-ups.

* Do not host your website on a free server or use free email
accounts. This gives a negative impression to visitors. Using
free hosts and email accounts looks cheesy and loses sales.

* Many websites do not have an opt-in list. Create an opt-in and
opt-out list for your visitors. Without these, there is no way
of tracking potential customers. Visitors should be allowed to
opt-in at any time as well as opt-out at any time.

* Most sites have a poor tracking mechanism. It is essential
that you track all business activities. Accurate record keeping
is crucial. There are many software tools, discussed earlier in
this chapter, than can automate your record keeping process with
minimal error.

* A 'mall' site is best used as a central hub to send visitors
to your other domains. As a main or only site, unfocused mall
sites don't get traffic from the engines, and they don't convert
well to sales. Highly focused theme sites attract traffic and
sales.

* Offline advertising may not be effective. A lot of money and
effort should not be wasted on offline advertising. Most people
rarely check websites that are advertised in local magazines or
newspapers.

* Avoid focus on animated banner ads. These simply use up
bandwidth, thus making web pages load slower.

* While advertising do not degrade other competitors. It is
recommended that you highlight your products' uniqueness and
superiority but never mortify other products.

* Banners or text links that expire are guaranteed to eventually
send your visitor to a broken link or show a broken graphic on
your page. Time sensitive advertising is best used only in email
advertising campaigns.

* Never put affiliate links on your homepage. This is similar to
asking your visitors to leave immediately. Give them a chance to
browse, sign up for your newsletter and decide that they'd like
to come back to your place before introducing them to your
affiliates.

* Technology changes with amazing speed. To keep up with this
rapidly evolving industry, you must invest time and money in
research. The investment is a tax write-off, and will pay you
back many times over in additional revenue.

Hopefully this list has proven helpful to you and has shown you
some red flags to avoid when it comes time to promote your own
affiliate site. Good luck and take care. = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

About the author:
Clive Harman is a professional trainer with 38 years experience
and has just published a no-holds-barred, tell-all,
never-revealed before training programme that will lead you
Step-by-Step through the mine field of Internet Marketing but -
Hurry there's only 250 openings! Plus save $100 on this training
course! http://www.cliveharman.com/t/im.html

The Many Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

2005-10-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

There are so many benefits to affiliate marketing and creating a
strong affiliate program. Doing this means you pay for results,
rather than advertising that may or may not target your market.
When you include an affiliate marketing program as part of your
advertising plan you are sure to receive directed advertising
that works, and if it does not work then you don't pay for it.
That is what affiliate advertising is all about, paying for
effective advertising. The great thing also is that you decide
what type of advertising is effective and reaches your market
and what does not. You can choose between an email lead, actual
sale, a new subscriber to your newsletter, or even a download of
a particular product. All of these are measurable ways to
determine how your affiliate plan is working and what type of
advertising is resulting as a consequence. You only pay your
affiliates for advertising that is measurable and successful.

Paying your affiliates is up to you as well, or at least how you
pay them. You might choose to pay your affiliates a percentage
of the sale or a fee for finding a new client, the way you pay
your affiliates is up to you and should work. Remember, however,
your affiliates are working for results and do not get paid
unless they obtain the results you are looking for. Because of
this your affiliates will work harder to make their commissions!
Also, you don't mind paying your affiliates for their hard work
when you are receiving truly direct advertising with results so
the affiliate marketing program is the best way to advertise
because it is successful and you only pay for what works not to
mention as your affiliates grow you receive more advertising and
increased sales.

With an affiliate marketing program you also develop a network
of individuals working solely to promote your product. This
network grows and grows and becomes larger and more powerful
each day. Each new affiliate adds a link to your website, which
simply increases your target market . So, each new affiliate
allows your targeted market to grow larger in an exponential
manner and reach unlimited amounts of individuals all over the
web and the globe. Also, with each new link your website will
rank higher in search engines so you not only increase your
market, but you also increase your search engine results. The
amount of websites linking to your site as a result of your
affiliates means exposure and the more exposure you have the
more results your targeted marketing and advertising plan will
receive. An affiliate program truly is the perfect answer to
your advertising needs and is affordable as well.

Nobody wants to pay for a service or product they are not
receiving, even when advertising is concerned. You would not
expect to go to the grocery store and pay for food items you did
not receive and as such you should not use advertising that does
not deliver results. For too long advertisers have sold their
services without providing true results to clients, however with
an affiliate marketing program you will not have this problem.
Affiliate marketing has changed the world of advertising and it
makes sense. You pay for the advertising your receive, and if
you don't receive any advertising then you don't pay anything at
all. It really is as simple as that and because of this
affiliate marketing programs are cropping up all over the
Internet because people want to pay for results, and affiliates
want to get results in order to get paid, so everybody wins!
Finally, the affiliate marketing program provides the right
answer for web advertising needs. Another great benefit as well
is that with the affiliate marketing programs you don't receive
results just one time, but potentially forever. The reason for
this is because affiliates provide your link on their website in
order to send traffic your way and to make money. As a direct
result of this your affiliates will keep your link on their site
in order to make as much money through referrals as possible.
The only way an affiliate will remove your link from their site
is if they decide to close their site down for whatever reason.
Consequently, you receive long term marketing and exposure from
every affiliate and when they send traffic that results in a
measurable sale, you pay your affiliate and the process
continues. It requires little effort on the part of the
affiliate with big returns, so you can rest assured your
affiliates will keep advertising for you indefinitely.

The relationships you build with your affiliates results in
several benefits for your marketing campaign that include only
paying for measurable results and fostering advertising
relationships that have no definite end. So, each day and every
new affiliate simply results in a larger audience being exposed
to your products and services. This does not decrease because
your affiliates will stay with you in order to earn their
commissions and you will pay the commissions for all the actual
results of the marketing campaign. There is no reason to focus
all of your efforts advertising other ways when you can start an
affiliate program and grow exponentially. The best way to
advertise is through an affiliate marketing program, so get
yours started today. There are plenty of directions and tips to
get started on the Internet that will help you get your
affiliate marketing program moving and start increasing your
sales and improving your search rankings almost immediately.

About the author:
Jeff Dragt is an editor at http://www.affiliate-programs.ws

What is LinkShare, And Do I Need To Use It?

2005-10-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Online affiliate marketing is one of the most effective,
cheapest and fastest ways to promote merchandise. With millions
of people getting access to the Internet everyday, there's a
great chance for a merchant to introduce his products and
services to a wider market, thereby, maximizing his revenue.

Likewise, affiliate marketing is an excellent way to generate
full-time income for a home-based affiliate marketer. For
someone who is jaded of going through a grueling eight-hour work
routine, affiliate marketing offers a great opportunity to earn
big without wearing himself out--physically, mentally and
emotionally.

In affiliate marketing, both parties benefit since as the
merchant earns from each item sold, the marketer likewise earns
a commission.

If you are interested in affiliate marketing but are finding it
hard to look for affiliate programs, affiliates or merchants,
you can start by checking sites of various affiliate networks.
Many affiliate programs in the Internet are being offered
through an affiliate program network, which acts as a link
between the merchants and individual affiliates.

Among the most popular is LinkShare. LinkShare maintains and
manages affiliate marketing programs for a great number of
merchants with various kinds of businesses, products and
services. It also has over 6,000 affiliate site members in its
network. It gains profit from the set-up fees, monthly account
maintenance fees and commissions.

Joining networks like LinkShare can be of great help in
establishing your online marketing business. Whether you are a
merchant or an affiliate marketer, you need to research well on
your partners in order to choose the best for you.

LinkShare provides the facility of acquiring access to a large
network of advertisers (merchants) who offer their affiliate
programs to publishers (affiliates) who are willing to promote
their products. In the same manner, it gives the merchants
access to a large network of affiliates who are searching for
affiliate marketing opportunities.

LinkShare is especially beneficial for an affiliate in choosing
his partners since he can find his options all in one location.
It would be easier for him to compare products, commission rates
and other benefits given by the merchant. The merchant usually
just waits for interested affiliates to sign up in his affiliate
marketing program but being in the network increases his chance
to promote his products to a larger market, thus, maximizing his
potential to gain huge profit.

To help you decide whether to use large affiliate networks such
as LinkShare or not, let us try to look deeper into its positive
and negative sides. The primary advantage of LinkShare to you as
an affiliate is convenience.

As earlier mentioned, you find different pieces of information
about your choices simultaneously all in a single location, so
you save time and effort looking for affiliate programs or
merchants.

It's also easier to track your business partner's performance
through monthly reports and statements, as well as its sales and
commission rates, so you know whether the affiliate program is
still worth continuing. If you have signed up for several
affiliate programs, you can check all your statistics for each
merchandiser you are affiliated with by logging in just once.

LinkShare helps you manage and maintain all records of your
visitors' click-throughs and sales transaction. It takes care of
your commissions and gives it to you monthly in lump sum.
Especially when you have more than one merchant partner, it
would be easier for you to manage your accounts and track your
earnings when you are affiliated through a marketing program
network. Furthermore, every information you get is accurate and
secured, so you are protected from all the risk you might
encounter. Above all, you can enjoy LinkShare's benefits for
free. You just have to go to their site and register your
website. Instantly, you get access to a great variety of
affiliate programs available for you.

So, what's on the negative side? Although, it is indeed helpful
to join affiliate marketing networks such as LinkShare, there
are some disadvantages, too.

For one, merchants offer lower commissions to affiliates who
partner with them through the third party program network. This
because they still have to pay for the use of service and the
technology provided by LinkShare.

Direct partnership with the merchant cuts costs of advertising
through the network and so the affiliate has bigger potential to
earn more. Moreover, it is possible that your payment may be
delayed for a month or more since program networks would pay you
only after the advertiser or the merchant has paid them. Do you
need to use LinkShare or other networks? It depends, actually.
You can opt for direct partnership with the merchant, but this
choice is not applicable all the time. There are a lot of
merchandisers who offer their affiliate program only through
affiliate program networks and thus, you have no choice other
than joining the network to get into the affiliate marketing
program.

So you are faced with a "take it or leave it" situation. But
LinkShare and other program networks are not that
disadvantageous. After all, whether you join it or not, earning
big would depend more on your promotional strategies and
persistence.

About the author:
Paul Harris is the Affiliate
Marketing Specialist and he wants to show you how to succeed
as an affiliate marketer. Visit his website now for the latest
tips and strategies for building a successful, ongoing affiliate
business.

Six Profitable Ways To Promote Affiliate Programs Without A

2005-10-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

Affiliate marketing is the most versatile business model on the
Internet.

How else can you have a ready made online business without
spending a dime, or very little, to get it started?

There has been a question asked frequently, most recently at
Lynn Terry's Self Starters Weekly Forum,
www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum, "Can I promote affiliate
programs without a website?"

It's an easy answer, but there are some conditions.

Yes, you can build a very strong and profitable affiliate
business without a website. In fact, I think that for most
people just "testing the waters", this is the way to go.
However, you will not be able to sustain your affiliate
business, nor build it stronger, unless you have a website.

So, yes, it's very possible and people do it all the time.
Here's six ways to make it happen.

Write informative articles

By far, the most productive way to promote anything on the
Internet, especially affiliate products, is by writing
high-quality, informative articles, attaching a short author's
resource box at the end, and submitting them to every article
directory you can find.

Articles will do a few things right off the bat that makes this
the best way to promote affiliate products.

# Drive quality, targeted traffic to the merchant's site. #
Establish an "expert" status for you.

When you write articles, and submit them to article directories
like EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com they list them on
their sites (thus you don't need one) and bring in traffic
through the search engines.

This targeted traffic will read your article and click on your
affiliate link, either within the article or in your resource
box, and be at the merchant's site to browse and buy. You then
earn the commission.

Participating in forums

Forums are networking communities online where people go and can
either ask questions or answer them. A fantastic way to build
connections with other people and promote the products you're
affiliated with.

Of course every forum has a guideline as to how you can reply
and how you can promote products. Most generally it's through
your signature at the end of your post.

You will also want to make sure that you provide relevant
information. You wouldn't want to reply to a question asking
what's the best car wax to use for long lasting sun protection
by pointing them to your pet food supply store. Not only will
your post most likely be deleted, but it wouldn't do any good.

Use other people's websites by being viral

Viral marketing is getting other people to promote your
affiliate products for you. But, this is where one of the
conditions I mentioned at the beginning kicks in.

You must create something; a report, short ebook, video, audio
interview, etc., and allow other people to give it away free
from their website.

For example, Harvey Segal of SuperTips.com has several ebooks
that he has written, one especially on viral marketing, and
gives them away to other people. Inside these ebooks are links
to his site and his products. He doesn't have to do nearly as
much advertising because he has other people doing it for him.

Now for an affiliate it is a matter of creating a relevant
infoproduct (one that deals with the niche of your product),
putting your affiliate links throughout the product, and
emailing website owners if they would give it away on their site.

If the topic is similar they will jump at the chance because it
adds even more content to their site, or they can use it as a
free bonus for subscribing to their newsletter.

Place ads in other people's ezine

The first three tips have all been freebies. You can use them
without spending any of your own money to advertise the products
you're affiliated with. This one actually costs some money, but
if you do it right you will still earn a great deal of profit.

Advertising in ezines is still a major strategy in creating
traffic to your site. However, it does carry a warning.

Research and find the ezine that best fits the product. Ezine
co-op's do not help you generate good, quality, targeted traffic
to the merchant's site. Yes, your ad will be seen by hundreds of
thousands of people, but the majority will have no desire, need,
want, or tingle for the product the ad is for. A waste of good
money.

On the other hand, if you research and find the right ezine to
place and ad with, the people reading it will already have a
desire for it.

For example, you wouldn't advertise fishing tackle in an
internet marketing ezine. But, if you found camping, fishing,
sports, or other mens related ezines... you'd have found a great
match.

A few years ago, when everyone was advertising in ezines, the
costs were sky high. But, now with blogs and a content focus the
prices have come back down to earth and it's now reasonable. You
can profit by placing very good quality ads in ezines.

Do the joint venture thing

Joint ventures are a funny animal. Most people think it's a
"I'll put your link on my site if you put my link on your site"
type of thing. Sometimes it is. But, what if you don't have a
site?

Then you have to be a lot more creative.

Here's something I did recently with a client that I could not,
after much pleading, convince they needed a site so I set out to
develop an advertising campaign for them, without a website.
First, I found a few other website owners who were in the same
niche. In this case it was pet supplies. I offered each of them
a deal where both sides would win out.

I offered the site owners good, quality, original web content if
they would put my clients affiliate text links and a few banners
on these pages. They were all very good traffic sites and I knew
that my client would receive excellent exposure.

Out of the 15 sites I contacted, 11 said yes. Why not...
everyone loves fresh content. After the initial run of new
articles for each site and my client's links were on those
pages, he made a little over $500 in commissions that first two
weeks. Now that there are even more articles with his links on
them, he is making more.

You can do that too. Just ask people if they need fresh content,
for free, and in return you can place your affiliate links on
those pages. It doesn't hurt to ask for a good position on the
home page either.

Google it with Adwords

This one takes a lot more research and very focused common
sense. Google Adwords is a way to get your affiliate links on
Google's first page, without having a site, but it does cost.
And if not done right, and constantly monitored... a lot of
money.

However, there are people, like Chris Carpenter of Google Cash
that have made an incredible amount of money, a fortune really,
just from listing affiliate products on Google Adwords.

But...

Yes, you can successfully promote affiliate products with the
above six strategies, but, like I said, there are conditions.

You must be extremely diligent in your efforts, constantly
monitoring results, and keeping a sharp eye on your costs to
ensure profitability. It takes work, a lot of it, to promote
affiliate programs.

Also, at some point, you will have to break down and create a
website. Your long term success greatly relies on you developing
a prominent and tangible "storefront".

Until then, promote your affiliate programs without a website
using these six strategies.

About the author:
Tim Bossie is the owner of Guaranteed-Ads.com and specializes in
creating original, and customized advertising packages. His
Power Ad Package, www.guaranteed-ads.com/nichepackage.html is a
complete advertising kit that contains everything you need for a
successful, and extremely profitable, advertising campaign. Some
people have even called their results, "unfathomable".

Getting Rich from Affiliate Programs

2005-10-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

Getting Rich from Affiliate Programs

Some times it pays to work with others. In this article we will
discuss how to make money with affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs (also called Referral Programs or Partnership
Programs) are essentially commission-based sales schemes. You
recommend a site to your users and pick up a percentage of any
sales those users generate. You benefit from the commission and
the site benefits from sales it wouldn't otherwise have made. If
you've ever gone to a website and seen links to Amazon, those
were affiliate links.

You can run an affiliate program from a site you've already set
up, or create a site specially to promote a product or service.
As long as it brings in more cash than you spend on building it
and buying traffic, you're laughing.

Affiliate ads work two ways: you can join them to make money, or
you can run one to attract users.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Joining an Affiliate Program = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = As with any marketing venture, you need
to be careful in the selection of an affiliate program. The
benefit of an affiliate program is that it gives you another way
to make money from your users. Instead of selling them a product
yourself, you send them to a partner and take a cut.

On the downside though, your affiliate ads will take the place
of a different ad that you could have put in that same spot. You
have to make sure that each advertising position on your site is
bringing in the maximum revenue possible. If you're not getting
the most from your site, you're tossing money away.

The key to success is to choose the right program, right from
the beginning.

Now, a lot of commercial sites run affiliate programs. That's
because they know that they only have to pay a commission if a
sale is actually made; it's a proven way to generate revenue
without risk. What that means for you is that when it comes to
choosing an affiliate program, you're going to have a huge range
to choose from. What it all boils down to though is product and
price.

While it might be tempting to go for the program that pays the
highest commissions, the program won't pay you a penny if your
users won't go there or won't buy once they get there. You have
to be certain that the service you're promoting is of genuine
interest to the kind of users you buy, whether you're buying
them from search engines or anywhere else.

Sure, you can work backwards: You find a high-paying affiliate
program and create a small site to send users to it, but do you
know where to buy users for a program like that? You're going to
have to research the field, check out the most popular sites,
and negotiate banner campaigns and link exchanges.

That's fine if you want to invest the time and the effort. But
it's much easier to find an affiliate program operating in a
field you're familiar with, and use that program to earn extra
cash.

For example, suppose you had set up a dating site. You might
make bit of money selling subscriptions, but you might make even
more by joining Match.com's affiliate program and selling them
your users. Unless you're planning to be the Internet's biggest
dating site, you're not going to be able to compete directly and
beat them, but you can join them--and earn money.

Or rather than sell your users directly to a 'competitor', you
can look for services that complement your own. Visitors to your
dating site, for example, might be interested in buying flowers,
books on relationships or tickets on singles cruises. Instead of
selling just one product--membership subscriptions--you'd be
selling a whole range of different goods to the same people, and
increasing the sources of your income.

Here are some tips to selecting an affiliate program that is
lucrative and right for you:

* Don't accept less than 25% commission. You can find affiliate
programs with great payment structures and high percentages of
the purchase price in just about every field.

* Look for comprehensive statistics pages that list the number
of click-throughs, sales and earnings so you can see how you're
doing. The information should be broken down by month.

* Look for programs that offer a wide variety of promotional
tools to put on your Web page, including text links, banners and
graphics.

* Find out how often you will be paid and make sure that the
payment schedule meets your expectations. Some programs pay
monthly, others quarterly; which is best for you?

* Look for examples of marketing methods that successful
affiliates are using to get the best results.

* Make sure that top level support is given. If they can't
answer your questions promptly and intelligently, you don't want
to work with them.

Affiliate programs offer a viable solution to competing against
larger competitors and still make money. As the saying goes, if
you can't beat them, joint them!

Until next time,

About the author:
Clive Harman is a professional trainer with 38 years experience
and has just published a no-holds-barred, tell-all,
never-revealed before training programme that will lead you
Step-by-Step through the mine field of Internet Marketing but -
Hurry there's only 250 openings! Plus save $100 on this training
course! http://www.cliveharman.com/t/im.html

How to attract affiliates

2005-10-21T10:19:00.001-07:00

In this article we will discuss how to attract affiliates to you
program.

One of the biggest fears new Affiliate managers have is in
finding new affiliates. This fear is a stumbling block that
stops many site owners from getting started with affiliate
marketing. Interestingly, with a proper marketing strategy,
getting affiliates may not be very difficult. Given below are
some tips that may help in attracting new affiliates.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = Find complimentary sites = = = = = = =
= = = = = = "Complementary" sites are a sites that sell products
or services that compliment your offerings. If you sell
"gardening tools", a site that sells books on "gardening tips"
would be a perfect affiliate. If you sell software, try looking
for sites that sell computers or computer parts. Finding sites
that already attract your target market, and can benefit from
recommending your product or service to their visitors, is the
goal.

= = = = = = = = = Find content sites = = = = = = = = = There are
many sites that do not sell any kind of product or service but
are mainly content-oriented sites. Such sites promote an idea,
concept, study or belief. Content sites that are used as a
resource for your target market are ideal affiliates.

Finally, there are several sites on the Internet dedicated to
listing affiliate Programs. Get your program listed in these
directories.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Classifying
Affiliates for better management = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = =

The hardest part of administrating an Affiliate Program is
deciding what your affiliates need to help make the sale. But,
by carefully categorizing your affiliates, you can easily
determine what their needs are and how to accurately meet them.
The plan given below helps in categorizing affiliates in order
to manage your affiliate program better.

The first step is to pick at least three types of affiliates.
Take a look at your affiliates and try to determine one
outstanding characteristic that can easily be compared across
the board and choose at least three types of the characteristic.
Here are some examples:

* Level of Sales - You may find that your affiliates are so
completely different that it's hard to find something to
classify them by. Try classifying them by the level of sales
they've reached with you. You'll most likely find that you have
a few forerunners that lead the pack with a number of sales,
quite a few affiliates that have sporadically made a sale or two
and some that have yet to make a sale. This will help you
classify them based on sales.

* Products - If you sell a wide variety of products for specific
interests/needs you may be able to classify your affiliates by
product. For instance, a financial site could classify types
like Personal Finance, Small Business Finance, and Corporate
Finance.

* Industry - If you market commodities like office supplies,
health and beauty products, house wares and so on, you may find
that your affiliates come from a wide variety of industries. You
can most likely classify your affiliates according to their
industry.

The Second Step is to determine the needs of each type. Each of
your affiliate types will have different needs; some of their
needs will overlap, but you should find a distinct difference in
many of their needs. If you find that all of them have the same
needs, go back to step one and re-think your types.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Here are some basic things
to look for: = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

* Linking Methods - Different types of affiliates will need
different linking methods. Let's use the example above where we
had different groups based on sales. Your low sales group may be
satisfied with a banner or two to place on their site. Your
medium sales type may be interested in an article or two for
added content on their site. Your high sales group will probably
pass up banners for articles, guestbooks, email ads and
signature files.

* Capturing visitors is what you want. In order to do so --you
have to know what they want. Visit your affiliates' sites to see
what visitors are looking at and looking for.Ask yourself, "How
does my product relate to what I am seeing?"

* Different types of affiliates may expect different
commissions. You'll have some Affiliates that have joined your
program "on the side" and others that plan on earning a
substantial income from the program. Determine what effort they
are putting into advertising, how much other programs in your
industry are paying, and the amount of time they devote to your
program.

The Third Step involves the process of creating and compiling
linking methods for each group of affiliates. Based on the needs
you identified in Step two, create and compile linking methods
for each type. Here are a few linking methods to think about.

* Banners - Though they aren't as effective as other linking
methods, banners are still widely used and expected. Make
banners in a variety of sizes to fit tops of pages, bottoms,
toolbars, sidebars and other miscellaneous areas.

* Articles - These are great for affiliates that need content
for their websites and newsletters. Be sure that your articles
are articles and not ads.

* Email Ads - Your active affiliates may be interested in
placing ads in e-zines or their own newsletters. Try writing a
few ads in different lengths.

* Signature Files - Dedicated affiliates may even add your tag
to their signature line. Give them a few witty lines to choose
from.

* Guestbooks: - Let your affiliates help you build your Opt- In
email lists with guestbooks. Offer them a Commission for each
email address they send you, or each resulting sale from the
subscribers they send you.

* Product Images - Give your affiliates images that show and
link directly to specific products. They'll be able to choose an
image specific to their site, or choose several images to
display.

* Review each affiliate Type and match them up with your new
linking methods. You may have some linking methods that overlap
Types -- this is okay. Just be sure you are concentrating on the
affiliates' needs.

The Fourth Step is to decide commission levels. Your first
decision will be to determine whether you want to pay a flat
rate or percentage of each sale. Based on the needs you
identified above for each of the affiliate types, decide on a
commission amount for each Type. If you have a two-tier program,
consider the possibility of different second tier rates as well.

The Fifth Step is to devise promotions for affiliate groups.
Once you have your affiliates properly categorized and your
system under control, consider developing promotions for your
affiliate groups. Give them special incentives to sell more
during a certain time frame, move seasonal products, or increase
business during your slow months. Offer them additional
commissions, or even bonuses for reaching a specific amount of
sales.

In conclusion, if you follow the steps I have just outlined and
if you are ready for a little work and a lot of organization,
your affiliate program should be up and running in no time. = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Clive
Harman is a professional trainer with 38 years experience and
has just published a no-holds-barred, tell-all, never-revealed
before training programme that will lead you Step-by-Step
through the mine field of Internet Marketing but - Hurry there's
only 250 openings! Plus save $100 on this training course!
http://www.cliveharman.com/t/im.html

About the author:
Clive Harman is a professional trainer with 38 years experience
and has just published a no-holds-barred, tell-all,
never-revealed before training programme that will lead you
Step-by-Step through the mine field of Internet Marketing but -
Hurry there's only 250 openings! Plus save $100 on this training
course! http://www.cliveharman.com/t/im.html

What is a Super Achiever?

2005-10-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

That is a good question I heard one guru can write ads for super
achiever and get them in his business with the interview he can
decide if the man or women is indeed a Super Achiever.

So what does the Super Achiever have, what attributes are
important to finding a Super Achiever

1. He better be honest to the customer and to the employer. 2.
He is not afraid of rejection. He knows that is part of
business. He knows he is a Super Achiever 3. He or she goes the
extra mile 4. He is not afraid to try different ideas. 5. He or
she is a true business person 6. He learns to write great ads
and uses the irresistible offer. 7. He loves to Sell it is in
their blood.

If you know more things he is email me at Joetrevis@aol.com I
like to hear from you.

Just as I wrote this, a UPS man bought some LTD boxes to my
office for my wife. I needed them in my car to take home
tonight. May care is at the end of the street my office is at.
He took the biggest box and we brought them to my car. This guy
went the extra mile.

Here are some of the things I do for my clients going the extra
mile. I do bank calculations for loans they want or want to know
when it is paid off. This is a FREE service.

I just started helping people figure out the best sales price of
a business so the buyer can make a salary, pay the loan, and pay
a return on anything he invests in the business. I only charge
$50, at present.

I just got a touch case for taxes where the man and wife owes
almost a half a million dollars. I told him if I get him out of
the Grip of the IRS it would be only $300. If I couldn't help
him and did a lot of work he was to decide what to pay me.

Now if you are a Super Achiever I want you to join me in selling
my Business In A Box I need 20 affiliate that are Super
Achievers. What will I give you for joining to the first 20 just
the first 20 is the Business In A Box plus my help for 6 million
on helping you achieve streams of income with the Business In A
Box.

This is $47.95 value the 6 books sale for $19.95 a piece and
that is a value of $119.70 your FREE if you one of the 20 Super
Achievers, man or women. Remember you have to have the ability
to sell, that is one of the attributes of a Super Achiever. And
you have to be honest. You can join and do nothing I can't stop
you from doing that, other than not helping you for 6 months to
achieve streams of income. But if we are both honest I want to
help you success because in doing that I success.

Thank you for reading this article.

Here are the sites to go to http://www.joetrevison.com

And the FREE books you get after you sign up is at:
http://www.joetrevison.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=21&catid=1

About the author:
Trevison is a author of several books you can get at his web
site http://www.Joetrevison.com He also has an downtown office
doing taxes and business consulting. He also has taught school
to private colleges and public collegges. He taught taxes,
payroll, math, and accounting. He also sales business software
that can help you pay for a business.

Make lots more money by choosing the right affiliate programs

2005-10-21T10:15:00.000-07:00

If you want to make money on the internet, there are numerous
lucrative affiliate programs that you can join for free.

In basic terms, all you need to do when you join an affiliate
program is add a special link containing your unique affiliate
ID to your website or blog. Whenever someone follows that
affiliate link from your website and makes a purchase, you are
credited with a commission for that sale.

Affiliate programs are good for you because you make money from
your website visitors without having to worry about shipping and
payment processing. They are also pretty good for the owner of
the affiliate program too as they are receiving traffic and
sales that they wouldn't normally have received if they hadn't
come via your website.

If you already have your own website, it should be easy to find
affiliate programs that complement the theme of your site. For
example, if you have a travel website you can sign up with
Commission Junction for free and promote companies such as
Expedia and National Geographic. Or you could sign up with the
first ever online affiliate program, Amazon and make money by
reviewing and recommending travel books. Regardless of your
website's niche you should be able to find some sort of
affiliate program to help monetize your traffic.

Most good affiliate programs will provide you with banners,
images, links, sample ads and sometimes even articles and emails
to help you promote their products. They should also have a
support system for you to ask questions, plus statistics and a
reporting function to allow you to view your click-throughs and
sales.

Affiliate programs for companies that sell physical products
such as books and CDs, or travel related products such as
hotels, flights and car hire tend to pay a small amount of
commission, for example 5%.

If you aren't lucky enough to be getting thousands of visitors
to your site each day and you want to make lots of money from
affiliate programs the best plan of action is to choose an
affiliate program that has a combination of the following 1. A
high commission 2. A residual income 3. Multiple Tiers

Affiliate programs offering a high commission are usually
selling intangible goods. Examples of these include e-books,
software and membership sites. The owners of these affiliate
programs can afford to give large commissions because although
there is a cost associated with producing the product, the cost
generally stays the same regardless of whether the owner sells
100 copies or 1000 copies. This is why these affiliate programs
can offer a commission of 50% and sometimes more, meaning that
you can sell less of these products and make more money than you
would with a traditional affiliate program offering a 5%
commission.

Affiliate programs offering a residual income tend to be those
that offer a service such as web hosting or access to a
membership site. For example if you direct a visitor from your
site to a web hosting company that offers an affiliate program
with residual income and that person purchases a hosting
package, you would receive a commission every single month, for
as long as that person stays with that hosting company. The
power of this is that you can build up a more reliable income,
which means a steady pay packet during the months when new sales
are slow.

Finally, a multi tier affiliate program is one that rewards you
for recruiting your own affiliates. As well as receiving a
commission for sales that are made through your affiliate link,
you will also receive a percentage of the sales made from the
affiliates that you've recruited yourself.

So it pays to promote affiliate programs, but it pays even more
to be choosy when deciding on which affiliate programs to
promote. Choosing programs that pay high commissions and offer
multi tier or residual income can make a huge difference to your
bank balance at the end of each month.

About the author:
Suzanne Morrison makes an online income with the Plu
g-In Profit Site - a money making website built for you
within 24 hours, promoting 5 of the best affiliate programs with
a combination of high commissions, residual income and
multiple-tiers.

Setting up Your Own Affiliate Program (part one)

2005-10-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

This week we will start the first of a two part series on
starting your own affiliate program. Joining an affiliate
program is a neat way to make money from your users. But just as
you can join someone else's affiliate program, so you can set up
your own program and invite webmasters to sign up.

So...what would that bring you? The same as you're bringing your
affiliate partners: deals. Every time someone sends you a user
who gives you money, you give a portion of that money to your
affiliate. It's an easy way to generate traffic and earn cash.

And you don't need to be a programming genius to set up an
affiliate program. There are a whole bunch of companies out
there that offer entire affiliate kits right off the shelf.

Ultimate Affiliate lets you run a fully featured affiliate
program from your website. It integrates with virtually every
payment method, awards down-line commissions, and can handle
high-traffic websites. You can edit the sign-up form to match
the "look and feel" of your site as well as delete some of the
optional fields. The administration area allows you to edit
affiliates and commissions, create printable reports of money
due, export the data to a text file, view the traffic through
your affiliate program, and much more. Your affiliates can log
in at any time and see their traffic and commission statistics
as well as change their information and get links and banner
code.

Once the program is set up you'll only need to log in once a
month to print out a list of the affiliates, their addresses,
and the money owed. You can do this quarterly if you wish. You
can export the payments owed to a text file in PayPal's "mass
pay" format and then just upload it to your PayPal account to
pay everyone automatically. Or, you can simply write your own
checks. If you have to pay a lot of commissions, there is a
check printing service called qchex.com. Upload the file and
they'll print and mail your checks for a fee of about 80 cents
each.

Alternatively, Locked Area Pro is an advanced member's area
management system offering very good security that's easy to
maintain. The system provides a huge list of useful features
including automated sign-up, user account validation, optional
random password generation and an administration approve/decline
account feature. It also comes with an extremely powerful
control panel with an online administration of users, backup,
and full customization facilities from the browser. A statistics
system is also in built in. What more could you want?

Any time you run a program where your affiliates rely on other
signups to generate profits, you will eventually have a problem
with spam. One of your affiliates will inevitably get it into
their head to blitz the Web with unwanted garbage.

When this happens you need to be ready to take action--
otherwise it will cost you! Your Internet Company can boot you
off your server and you can find yourself blacklisted. Not good
for business. If you get an email from someone claiming they
received spam with your URL, then take it as an early warning. I
am not advising you to immediately terminate the affiliate's
account, but be sure to contact them to follow up on the
complaint. Let your affiliate know you received a complaint and
advise them to remove this person from their list.

If you only get one or two complaints, it's probably not
spam--the complainants might simply have signed up for an email
list and forgotten all about it. You will know when one of your
affiliates is spamming, because you will get anywhere from 10 to
100 complaints in the same day all regarding the same URL. The
best thing to do in this case is to immediately terminate or
disable the account of the affiliate URL that was spammed.

This concludes the first instalment of my two part series on
starting your own affiliate program. Stay tuned for more. = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

About the author:
Clive Harman is a professional trainer with 38 years experience
and has just published a no-holds-barred, tell-all,
never-revealed before training programme that will lead you
Step-by-Step through the mine field of Internet Marketing but -
Hurry there's only 250 openings! Plus save $100 on this training
course! http://www.cliveharman.com/t/im.html

Get your hands on this simple, but powerful,
audio course and create a cash generating business on the web...
http://www.look-here-now.com/mastery1.html

How to choose an affiliate program that will make you money

2005-10-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

After several years as a professional affiliate, I have come to
the point where I have a short checklist of aspects that I go
through when deciding on joining an affiliate program, or in
fact even persisting with one.

The fact is too many sites merely add an affiliate program on
with the hope that the increased expose will lead to more
website sales. In these cases it is the affiliate who can lose
out badly, as well as the merchant.

No matter what sort of site you have, be it a shopping mall,
informational site, blog or specialty product store that
features products sold via your affiliation with the merchant,
you need to be sure that you are getting the best reward for
your efforts. So here are some aspects based on my experience,
for potential affiliates of a merchant to consider:

1. Does the merchant's site have a free call number for
telephone sales prominently displayed? If they do then they are
probably robbing you of at least 30% of your rightful income.
Lots of people, even more so now that broadband internet
connections are becoming more commonplace, will pick up the
phone. Some fair merchants have a referrer ID that is displayed
next to the phone number and this is always asked when a call
comes in.

2. Are mainly banner ads offered as the marketing inventory? If
it is all they offer then they know nothing about internet
marketing. Any form of graphic ad will have a 50% or less
click-through rate. Banner ads are at best a free form of
branding for the merchant. Most sales come from text based ads.
The merchant should offer a range of marketing collateral
including simple text ads right the way through to material that
can easily be dropped right into a newsletter.

3. What is the site's conversion rate. Email the site and ask.
This question will stop most website owners dead in their tracks
because most have no idea. Remember, they are playing a numbers
game - more affiliates hopefully means more traffic so
potentially even a poorly performing site will show an improved
number of sales. Remember - the site that you promote needs to
be working for you so you get rewarded. A poorly converting site
is doing you no favours.

4. If the website owner does not know the conversion rate,
follow your click-through stats carefully. If you are not
getting at least a 1% conversion rate dump them and replace with
a merchant who can deliver.

5. Is the site easy to navigate, and does all navigation lead to
making sales an easy process. Personally I do not like sites
that ask customers to register - this is a significant barrier
to sales.

6. Does the site owner communicate? Do they promptly return
emails - if they don't get back to you within 24 hours take this
as a warning flag - 48 hours then forget them. Also, ask to be
kept informed of specials etc so you can promote these.

7. If you have above average programming skills and can
integrate databases, ask if you can get data feeds - or a csv
file of their products that you can use to populate pages on
your site. This is more advanced than average affiliate stuff,
so don't get too hung up on this.

8. Reporting and statistics are critical. You need to know at
least click-through and sales on a day by day basis. Ideally you
should also know the number of impressions the ad has had (think
of your page as real estate, sales per click is one thing, but
sales per impression is also important - can say a lot about the
position of your ads!). You may wish to make use of third party
software like PHPAds or similar that allows you to track. Look
at why click-through rates may be poor. It is because you are
using banner ads and not text ads, or have you tried moving the
location of ads, or trying new contexts. If the conversion rate
is good when people arrive, ensure you have maximised the
click-through rate.

These are the essential aspects when considering a merchant's
affiliate program. There are others, like commission
percentages, but often it is better to have a highly performing
merchant at a few percent lower than a poorly performing
merchant.

Don't be fooled by promises of easy money on the affiliates
sign-up pages. Be prepared to work for your money. Once you have
joined a program, maintain a close watch on performance. Compare
and contrast and don't become one of the 95% of affiliates who
are a complete waste of time for the merchant. Making money from
affiliate programs is not a set and forget process - it takes
work, plenty of it.

About the author:
Matt Eliason has been a professional affiliate marketer and
webtrepeneur since 1997. His site is at
http://www.plusone.com.au and you can read his blog at
http://www.plusone.com.au/diary/

Setting up Your Own Affiliate Program (part two)

2005-10-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

This article is the second of a two part series on setting up
your own affiliate program. In addition to starting an affiliate
program, you must manage it and keep track of it. The following
information will show you how Managing and tracking your
affiliate programs

The key to any business is to promote your products and services
to people who need them. Your affiliate business is no
different. In order to earn commissions you must put your
products in front of the people who need them. The beauty of
marketing affiliate programs is that it is anybody's ball game.
This is the one place you can burrow deep into your own niche
and stick it to the so-called 'big wigs'.

You may create your own affiliate program or you may promote
other popular affiliate programs that are related to your
product or service. The best way to manage and track affiliate
programs is by creating your own affiliate program website. This
is where you can list all your affiliate programs.

= = = = = = = = = = Staying Organized = = = = = = = = = =

There are many affiliate networks that provide multiple
affiliate programs and merchants. Keeping a track of all
affiliate programs in a single network is easy. You would
generally be given one username and password as well as a single
interface that controls all the programs. However, if you have
many of your own affiliate programs or you promote several
stand-alone affiliate programs from your website, the task of
staying organized becomes a bit more complex.

There are many software programs available on the Internet that
organize and keep track of all data associated with affiliate
programs. Some of these are My Affiliate Program 2000 and
Affiliate Assistant 1.0. These programs maintain databases
pertaining to information about all your affiliate programs. A
typical database would consist of the following fields:

* Program Name * Date joined or created * Contact Name * URL *
Email Address * ID * Password * 1st Tier Percent * 1st Tier Sale
* 2nd Tier Percent * 2nd Tier Sale * Total Income * Additional
comments

Once the program information has been entered, you can add
information about individual sales made and checks received. The
program then keeps track of sales to date, amount collected and
receivables. Besides, some of the advanced software programs
also provide analysis and comparison tools for all affiliate
programs. If you take the time to input collected data about
clicks, sales, and page views, impressions, emails sent etc.
from your various campaigns and enter all of it into the
program, it will show you:

* Click to Sale Ratios * Impression to Sale Ratios * Amount
Earned Per Impression * Amount Earned Per Click

Apart from these are a few other tips that might help you manage
your affiliate programs.

* Always ensure that your website is up and running. On a Daily
basis type your URL into your browser's address bar, refresh the
page and find out. The danger in not knowing that your site is
down comes when you are running a pay per click advertising
campaign. The click costs add up whether your site is functional
or not. If your site is down, you are paying for advertising,
but no one is buying.

* Check your statistics daily, maybe even twice a day. This will
give you a better idea of your income trends and also highlight
affiliate programs that bring your business. Visit the
statistics interface for each network and individual affiliate
partner and input your total revenues into any accounting
software. Using such software frequently will also keep you
informed as to whether certain checks have become overdue.

* Be prompt in answering any queries from affiliate partners or
customers, especially when these are about your products or
services. This probably means that the customer trusts your site
and is thinking of buying your product.

* One of the main aspects of any affiliate program is residual
income. You've got to make the most of each and every customer
you receive. The best way to do this is by promoting affiliate
programs that offer residual commission.

* This allows you to repeatedly get paid for work you do once.
For example, if a visitor arrives at your site and purchases
auto responder services, newsletter subscriptions, ISP/hosting
services, you will collect a portion of the monthly fees for as
long as they remain a paying customer. Membership sites are a
good way to collect residual commissions and are steadily
growing in popularity. There are many affiliate programs that
offer residual commission.

* A well placed recommendation placed at the end of an outgoing
email can bring in extra sales. Target your audience, what are
their specific needs? If you can offer them a product they
need/want, often times the end result will be a sale.

* Finally, track all your affiliate links. The best way to
accomplish this is by setting up tracking software for your
affiliate links. There are a number of scripts that will do the
job. Most tracking programs typically allow you to setup
tracking links for any product you promote, telling you how many
hits each product has received, and where the hits are coming
from. A more detailed view of tracking and analysis is given in
the section below.

* It is not enough to have a few banners and classified ads. You
must provide as much help as possible for your associates if you
want them to be successful. You should have tested and proven
endorsements, testimonials, sig files, ezine ads, and other
unique tools and techniques. You must also make yourself
available, either through email or the phone, to help your
affiliates implement these tools and to answer any questions
they may have.

* Whether you run your own or participate in an affiliate
program, you must be able to determine what methods work best in
a particular medium. For instance, which ezine ads work best and
in what ezine; which banner ads produce the greatest
clickthroughs and from which sites or banner exchanges; and
where on your website is the most effective spot to include a
testimonial.

* Some affiliate programs, have implemented unique payment
procedures to get affiliates their commission checks on a timely
basis. Some of these procedures include: online electronic
payment services, direct bank deposits and checks by fax. If you
can solidify your payment procedures from the start, you will
save yourself an administrative headache and more importantly,
keep your affiliates happy and working to promote your program.

This concludes my series on starting your own affiliate
program. This information should be all you need to start,
manage and track your own affiliate program. = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

About the author:
Clive Harman is a professional trainer with 38 years experience
and has just published a no-holds-barred, tell-all,
never-revealed before training programme that will lead you
Step-by-Step through the mine field of Internet Marketing but -
Hurry there's only 250 openings! Plus save $100 on this training
course! http://www.cliveharman.com/t/im.html

Get your hands on this simple, but powerful,
audio course and create a cash generating business on the web...
http://www.look-here-now.com/mastery1.html

Designing A Website That Sells

2005-10-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

Would you buy meat from a grocery store that left the bad meat
in with the good meat or wasn't clean? Would you buy a car from
a sales lot that had totaled automobiles on the front lot? I
wouldn't and neither would you. Your website is your grocery
store; your car lot. You must have an atmosphere that is
pleasing to buyers. One that tells that buyer that you are not
an amateur, but instead a trained, seasoned professional. Your
site is a direct reflection of your product and that is why that
having a well designed website can make or break your sales.

The first thing to keep in mind when designing your website, is
"surfability". Take a few minutes a look around at several web
pages. What makes them appealing? Were there some that you
closed out of immediately? Why? Take notes and do your research.
Keep in mind that when a person visits your site they have a
goal in mind. They are either seeking information or shopping
for a product. Give the person what they want without having to
search for it. Be sure that all the information on your site is
relevant to your product. Make the buyer think that they need
your product to solve their problem.

Your main page serves a very specific purpose. It should be an
avenue by which the customer can shop your site. It should be
easy to view and load very quickly. This is your first
impression and we all know that first impressions can either
close the deal or loose the deal. Make it simple. It is best to
have links that are easily viewable by the reader that will
navigate them to where they want to be. Tables are often a great
choice when deciding on a way to design the main page of your
site. Your main page should load very quickly, chances are if it
takes the page more than ten seconds to load even on a 56k
modem, the customer will click away to save time, hoping to find
the information or product elsewhere. To increase the loading
speed of your main page you should avoid large graphics or
excessive graphics. To many banners or special effects can cause
a page to load slowly as well.

To make your web site more appealing to the eyes, you should
stick to mild colors. If your site is a content site where the
user will be doing a lot of reading, it is best to stick to
black and white. Color can be added when using tables, as a way
to brighten up the page, but remember to keep the overall look
of the page professional and appealing to the audience that will
be visiting most often. Since screen resolutions vary among
monitors, it is a good idea to set the pixels to a standard
800x600. You may also choose to set the tables in your web page
to span a percentage of the page rather than a set number of
inches. This will be sure to accommodate all screen sizes. You
should remember that a lot of Internet users will not use the
same browser as you, and therefore you should be sure that your
site looks as good on other browsers as it does your own. You
can do this by downloading several browsers through which to
look at your page.

Be aware of the fact that the overall look of your website is a
way to make money. The appearance of the site, if designed
properly, can be an excellent marketing strategy for your
product or service.

About the author:
Harrold Swalve can help YOU start your own profitable business
on the Internet within the next 24 hours... To learn more,
visit: http://www.PocketMoreMoney.com/pips.html

A1 Affiliate Programs

2005-10-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

A1 Affiliate Programs