Checklist Before Joining An Affiliate Program
Affiliate programs are a wonderful way to build a successful and secure business, but there are some things you need to know about these opportunities before you join one. Here are 16 points to use to check out any affiliate program.
1. Does the affiliate program offer you a free way to join without buying the product or service? This is the most important facet of an affiliate program. If you have to pay to join an affiliate program, don’t join it!
2. Contact other affiliates already in the program to see if they have had any problems.
3. Is the product or service related to your target audience?
4. Can they notify you by e-mail when a sale is made?
5. How often will you receive a commission check?
6. Do they provide you with proven sales material? (links, banners, classified ads, sales letters etc)
7. Do you get credited for a sale if people come back in month and then make a purchase?
8. Can you get around-the-clock help online or offline?
9. Can they offer customers a lot of different ordering options, so in return you won't lose sales.
10. Do you get a large percentage of each sale as commission?
11. Will they give you the leeway to create promotional ads.
12. Do they offer you access to an online sales stats page?
13. Do they use a reputable system to track your sales?
14. Does the affiliate program pay commission for sales of people who sign up under you?
15. Will they keep in contact with you on a regular basis by e-mail?
16. Do they offer backend products so you can get repeat sales from the same person?
Most affiliate programs are legit and can be a great opportunity for you to earn income. As long as you can find the all the information listed above and you can see a way to use a merchant’s products to enhance your web site, go for it!
About the author:
Alan LeStourgeon operates several affiliate web sites and will show you how to start your own web based business on his web site at http://www.i-work-at-home-based-business-opportunity.com
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How To Choose A Reliable And Profitable Affiliate Program
How to choose a reliable and profitable affiliate program
With literally thousands of different online affiliate programs, ranging across hundreds of different categories, it's not difficult to see how one may become discouraged when it comes to choosing the best and most profitable affiliate programs out there. After all, since one is going to be investing a considerable amount of time, money and resources to design, build and promote the site, then one would naturally want to ensure its success by joining and promoting the most reliable and profitable affiliate programs available.
When it comes to choosing a reliable and profitable affiliate program, keep in mind the following points:
(1) How long has the business been operating?
If the business/site has been operating for a considerable amount of time, then it's likely that it is fairly stable and profitable, otherwise it would not be in business. Be careful of sites and affiliate programs that spring up overnight. It is always a good idea to monitor such affiliate programs for a while before joining them, just incase they disappear as fast as they have appeared.
(2) Who else is promoting the affiliate program?
Try to find out who else is promoting the affiliate program. Visit the websites of your competition and see if they are promoting the affiliate program that you are thinking of joining. If you find a super affiliate promoting the affiliate program, then chances are that it is a profitable program to join, otherwise a super affiliate would not be promoting it at all.
(3) How much traffic is the website receiving?
Popular, successful and profitable websites receive a considerable amount of traffic. If the site you are thinking of promoting is not very popular, successful or profitable, then chances are that it will have low traffic and therefore may not be worth promoting. Check the alexa.com traffic rank of the site.
(4) What is the commission structure?
Does the program offer the affiliate webmaster a percentage of the sale, or a fixed amount per sale? Is the commission payment recurring? Is it a one tier or multi tier program? The most profitable programs offer a revenue share income. This means that the affiliate webmaster will receive a percentage of the money which the customer spends. For example, if the affiliate program offers a 50% revenue share commission, and the affiliate webmaster sells a product for $50, then the affiliate webmaster's payment should be $25. Profitable programs also offer recurring payments for the life of the customer's membership. In other words, if the customer continues to pay $50 per month for his/her membership, then the affiliate webmaster who referred that customer should receive $25 per week until the customer cancels his/her membership. Finally, a multi-tiered affiliate program is usually more profitable than a single tiered affiliate program because it enables an affiliate webmaster to generate income from the efforts of another webmaster whom he/she referred to the affiliate program.
(5) Read reviews about it.
Try to find as many reviews about the affiliate program as you can. The affiliate program may look and sound very attractive until you find a string of negative reviews from its former affiliates warning others not to join it for one reason or another.
(6) What is the support department like?
Do the support staff answer queries promptly? Are they fast, friendly and helpful? Test the affiliate program's support staff by asking them a few questions about the program.
(7) Do the statistical reports work?
Be weary of statistical reports that do not update. Find out how often the statistical reports are updated. Test your links by clicking on them yourself and seeing if they register in the statistical report.
(8) Minimum commission payment
Some affiliate programs require an affiliate webmaster to generate a minimum commission amount before receiving payment. This is fair enough since it would not make much sense to send an affiliate webmaster a check for a few cents when it would cost more to write, send and process the check. However, find out what the minimum commission payment is before you join.
There are a number of other things that one can look for when searching for the most reliable and profitable affiliate programs available, however, these are the main and most important points that every affiliate webmaster needs to pay attention to.
About the Author: Copyright © 2005 http://www.casinoguide.ws - Free Casino Cash Guide, All Rights Reserved.
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How to Run A Successful Affiliate Program
There are many people who log onto the internet everyday looking for a way to make money online.
They start with all the best intentions, but unfortunately, before they know it they are getting bombarded with information and are simply spinning their wheels.
I completely understand this. There is so much internet marketing information online and once you get started it seems like “information overload”.
Therefore, I will try to keep this as simple and short as possible.
Many people will sign up with an affiliate program promoting the affiliate’s product or program. This makes sense. Starting as an affiliate marketer is probably the easiest way to get started online. There are many affiliate programs out there that will give you everything you need to promote their products or program…Well almost everything.
You see, many of these affiliate sites will give you a website, but you don’t own the site. It is a gateway site. You don’t even own the domain name for that matter.
Being part of one of these programs is not bad though. I belong to several. SFI is a perfect example. I joined their program and have several sites that they gave me to promote their products and their affiliate program.
But if you are truly going to make money with these types of sites you are going to have to do a lot more than simply sign up for their program.
It is simply unreasonable to think that people are going to just stumble upon your site and sign up for your program and start making you money.
There are a few things you need to do if you truly want to make an affiliate program work.
First of all, you must have your “own” web page with your “own” domain name and your “own” host. You will then have links from your “own” site to the other “gateway” site(s). You will promote your gateway site it, but you will promote it through your own site.
There are so many reasons for this I couldn’t possible fit it into this one article, but basically the site is yours to run the way you want to. Think of it this way…it is “your” store and you are selling “their” product.
Your web page could be designed as a short sales letter that focuses primarily on this one program if that is what you choose. Or, you could focus on several affiliate programs and products within the same market. For example, a sales letter with the top 3-5 money making opportunities.
THIS IS IMPORTANT: Either way, promoting one program/product or promoting several, you will not only want to own your own site, you definitely want to be able to “drop in” on potential customers from time to time. What I mean by that is you want to capture email addresses of people who visit your site.
To do so you need to give something away that is of enough value that people are willing to give up their email address and receive something from you week after week or at least month after month.
A newsletter/ezine is perfect for this. Send out a weekly or monthly newsletter on your topic that includes articles, tips, e-courses, bonuses etc. This way you can plug your programs over and over again (not just once).
I know this sounds like a lot…design your own web site and your own newsletter.
However, there are programs available that actually set everything up for you, including a website, an autoresponder, a pre-written newsletter, and even unlimited support.
Plug-in-Profit (PIPS) (http://www.money-teacher.com/pluginprofitsite.htm) is a perfect example. You can have a web site that site is 100% yours to change however you wish. The site comes ready to promote 5 different programs. You could work with as many of them as you want and you can also add your own.
You also get a pre-written newsletter and autoresponder that is also 100% customizable. The newsletter is obviously designed to promote the programs that come with the web site, but you can change it however you wish.
PIPS may or may not be what you are looking for; however, if you truly want to be successful online you will definitely need your own web site and your own newsletter.
Copyright 2004 Adam Waxler
Adam Waxler owns and operates The Money Teacher web site and publishes The Money Teacher’s Home Business Tips Newsletter teaching others how to reach online success. To get your free newsletter subscription send a blank email to: newsletter@money-teacher.com or visit our web site at http://www.money-teacher.com.
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New Affiliate Marketing Resource System Makes It Easier For Affiliate Marketers to Earn More
Some of the largest companies in the world rely upon affiliate marketing to fuel their ecommerce sales, and there are thousands of small and medium sized businesses that use affiliate marketing every single day to drive their online sales.
Generating a part or even full-time income by running your own affiliate marketing business has many benefits including flexibility, the ability to run it from anywhere, low start up costs, no inventory, no shipping, no payment delays, no customer support to be provided, no selling, no sales quotas, no recruiting,
There are affiliates right now who are generating millions of dollars a year in income from their affiliate marketing businesses. There are tens of thousands of other people all over the world who are making a great living promoting the products and services of other companies as affiliates.
To watch a video that explains everything, visit http://www.leadsleap.com/
When it comes to building an affiliate marketing business, affiliate marketers are faced with a few challenges...
- Keeping Up With All The Opportunities
- Keeping Up With The Latest Market Trends
Affiliate marketers could literally spend over 100 hours/week trying to keep up with everything and still wouldn't be able to keep up with it all.
This brand new affiliate marketing resource system carefully monitors the top affiliate networks to keep up with the latest affiliate opportunities, and keeps tabs on what's hot and what's not. The entire affiliate marketing industry is monitored and analyzed, and members are regularly updated. An affiliate program directory always keeps affiliate marketers up to date with the latest affiliate program offers in any market that an affiliate marketer might be interested in.
Not only does this system make it easy for affiliate marketers to manage their opportunities, but an alert system will contact its members whenever a new offer has been added to the network, which meets specific criteria that affiliate marketers specify.
If you want to make maximum income from your affiliate marketing business, it's not enough to just keep up with what the best affiliate offers are, you also have to keep track of market trends, seasonal opportunities, and other user activity that's happening on the Internet.
This all new affiliate marketing resource system does all of this research work for affiliate marketers. From monitoring keyword search trends to determine what people are searching for on Google, to keeping track of viral growth for new social media services, to analyzing market prices across popular online market places, to keeping up with blogs, and much more.
This new affiliate marketing resource system, teaches you exactly how to start and build a profitable Affiliate Marketing business. Step-by-step tutorial videos, blueprints, checklists, and other training materials show you exactly what to do and when to do.
It is now easy for anyone to start their own profitable online affiliate marketing business.
To watch a video that explains everything, visit http://www.leadsleap.com/
# # #
About Ancel Fernandes
With over 20 years of online & offline direct marketing and relationship marketing experience, Ancel Fernandes is a professional online marketer that shares, advises and helps individuals and organisations to market and earn more online.
Visit http://ancelfernandes.com
Superstar Affiliate Marketing
Internet business is a bit confusing especially if you're not really knowledgeable at it. You will also be left completely blank, asking yourself as to what type of online business is best for you. Why don't you try affiliate marketing business?
Affiliate marketing is defined as a revenue sharing relationship between advertisers or merchants and online publishers or affiliates. It is a low cost way for merchants to sell their products and services.
In this type of online business, you don' have to take any risk because you only have to pay the affiliate once the result is achieved. Once a customer is gained, a portion of the profit from that customer will be given to the affiliate as commission. Usually, an affiliate gets a commission for referring clicks, leads or sales to the merchant' website. The said affiliate income can be a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage.
From this simple commission-based referral system, some affiliates become experts on this field. In fact, some of them are gaining more than five figures every month. However, among the thousands of marketers, only 1 to 5% of them reached this level. And if you'e among the lucky ones who achieve this so-called elite level, you can now be aptly called a super affiliate.
This means you are capable of achieving noteworthy percentage of sales or traffic on your merchant' website. Super affiliates are not only experts on search engine optimization; they are also great in newsletter marketing, email marketing, reciprocal linkages, keyword optimization, link exchanges, advertising in forums and other methods to advertise and promote their products and services.
But how does a person become a super affiliate? And how can they overachieve their way to super affiliate stardom? Making your way to super affiliate stardom is not that easy; and it surely won' happen overnight. Bear in mind that you need to embrace some tactics, carry out effective online business strategies and of course give hefty time commitment. You can' be a super affiliate without blood and sweat and without the following traits - patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge. Matched with efficient strategy, these three traits provide you the formula towards super affiliate stardom.
Affiliate marketing strategies are a bit difficult but they are achievable; you just have to work hard on it. First, look for a unique and exceptional niche and focus in it. The reason why most people in the affiliate marketing business didn' turn out to be very successful is that they try to offer almost everything under the sun instead of giving all their attention in a particular niche market. If you want to become a super affiliate, try not to scatter all your efforts; concentrate on your niche and make it grow by means of promoting, advertising and selling it well.
The next step you must do after you have established your affiliate storehouse is to promote it. Most affiliates resort to pay-per-click engines. But what' more advisable is to discover how to accomplish organic search results or better yet, hire a search engine marketing company. Through this, you can be saved from losing all your profits on pay-per-click engines.
Then, familiarize yourself with your product and know your audience. Remember that credibility builds trust. And you can only make information that puts up your credibility if you know the products and services your site is offering. If you'e target audience don' trust you, how could you expect them to purchase from your affiliate storehouse? Moreover, if you take time to learn the products and services you are recommending, it will be way too easy for you to establish a website that converts well, which will enhance your affiliate income in return.
Try to promote and resell products from different merchants. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this strategy because it is just a way of protecting your business and broadening your horizons to be sure that you won' experience the so-called famine effect. Aside from that, promoting different merchants on the same site provides your site visitors a handful of destinations to choose from. This strategy will also make you aware on what your visitor want to see and it can also help you find out how well various merchants perform against each other.
As mentioned earlier in this page, a super affiliate wannabe should have this trait - thirst for knowledge. It is because this trait can help him or her stay updated and remain on top of the trends. If you are knowledgeable in internet marketing, then you know that what was adopted few months ago may not be applicable at present. So it is important to seek knowledge and make sure that you are updated on what's new about affiliate marketing daily. Keep in mind that super affiliates take time to read, learn and embrace the changes in online marketing business.
And what'most important? Never, ever give up. Being engaged in affiliate marketing business is hard, that' why you must be equipped with patience and persistence. Check your statistics and find out the things that are working and those that are not. Make changes if the situation calls for.
These are just few suggestions and ideas if you want to boost your affiliate income. Let me reiterate, you have to be patience, persistence and knowledgeable. Then, follow the above mentioned strategies and you'l surely find yourself on the road to super affiliate stardom.
Become a superstar affiliate marketer
Recommended Web site: Make Money On Ebay
Author: Daniel Millions
Finding Affiliate Marketing Opportunities Online - What You Need To Do
| Affiliate marketing has become another good marketing strategy in the internet that you can use to make money from your website. You may have heard about others who are earning much on affiliate marketing. If you are interested, you can actually find many affiliate marketing opportunities online. Different merchants are now into online marketing, so you can actually find a wide choice of products to promote. However, if you want to be successful in affiliate marketing, you need to know how it works and what you need to do to start, and to be successfully earn money from it. Here are tips on what you need to do to find good affiliate marketing opportunities online. * Go with a product that you are familiar with or something that you have been using. Indeed, you may find so many products to promote online, but if you want to succeed in affiliate programs, you have to find products that you know about, or you have tried yourself. Of course, you cannot effectively promote a product that you do not know. You will not also be effective if you are promoting a product that your readers know more than you do. To be able to sell, you must introduce the product through its benefits and excellent characteristics, and you may find it difficult to do that effectively if you are not familiar with the product. * Find products that are sellable in the online world. In affiliate marketing, more sales equate to more money you will make in being an affiliate. That is why you also need to choose from those products that are sellable. Find products that most people want to purchase online. Jewelry, books, bags are among them. However, you may want to avoid those top of the line products, as people would always have second thoughts on buying them. Products that are a necessity are also attractive products to promote, although you can also choose to have a combination of products to maximize your potentials. * Work on your traffic. If you have a website with good traffic and good content, you will surely have good affiliate marketing opportunities. Also research on the many advertising methods that you can use to promote your products. From drawing potential customers from search engines to advertising * Find good affiliate marketing programs. Check reviews and forums about their track record, their payout, and their guidelines. It is always advisable to know your affiliate marketing program. Get feedbacks from other affiliates and those who have tried the program. Of course, if the merchant has tons of negative feedback, you may want to avoid it before wasting your efforts. Affiliate marketing opportunities are endless if you will master the different advertising techniques online. Also keep in mind how much for you is the acceptable percentage for your efforts. Affiliate marketing may also involve cost like other online advertising techniques, so make sure that if you are spending for your advertising, you will get more that what you spend. |
| Author Resource:- Carolyn Anderson has worked in online advertising for several years. To know the techniques in affiliate marketing, check out Affiliate Prophet. Also check out Affiliate Handbook, where you can find everything you need to know in an affiliate marketing career. |
| Article From New Ezine Articles |
Affiliate Marketing Why So Many People Fail
Compared to traditional advertising methods, affiliate programs are more effective, risk-free and cost-efficient. But why do many people still fail in affiliate marketing? There are a lot of reasons and a lot of areas to look into. The most critical aspect in affiliate marketing is advertising. Many affiliate marketers fail in this aspect because they lack determination and relevant knowledge, which is the most important thing in affiliate marketing and in all other kinds of business as well. Affiliate marketing is not as simple as directing customers to the business site. If you want to earn big, of course, you have to invest time and a great amount of hard work in promoting the products.
Lack of preparation is also a reason why people fail in affiliate marketing, whether he is a merchant or an affiliate. Part of the preparation is researching. On the part of the merchant, he has to be highly selective in choosing the right affiliate websites for his affiliate program. In order to be sure he has the best choices, he must have exhausted his means in looking for highly interested affiliates whose websites are sure fit to his products and services. The affiliate sites visitors must match his targeted customers. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer must likewise research on the good paying merchants before he signs up for an affiliate program. You must ensure that the merchants products and services match the niche topic that your website covers. You can get valuable information by joining affiliate forums, comparing different affiliate programs and reading articles on affiliate marketing where you can get tips from experienced affiliate marketers on how to choose the best merchants and products with high conversion rate.
Your website is a very important tool in the your long term affiliate game plan. As an affiliate marketer, you should plan how your website is going to be presented, from domain name to the design, the lay-out, the content, and ads. Some users are particular about what they see at first glance and if the visitors find your site ugly and hard to navigate, they wont read through the content even if your site has many things to say and offer. Affiliate marketers with rich-content web sites are usually the ones who prosper in this business because the content improves traffic to the site. Websites with high quality content, with the right keywords and more importantly, relevant information about the product and not empty hyped up advertisements, will allow you to earn big in affiliate marketing even when you are asleep. If you are not able to sustain the interest of your website visitors, you wont be able to lead them to the merchants site. No click- through means no sales and thus, no income on your part.
Selecting a top level domain name is also crucial to the success of the affiliates website. Lots of affiliate websites dont get listed in the search engine results because they have unrelated domain names and poor keyword optimization. Before you decide on the domain name, know first what you are going to promote. Many fail because their websites are not appropriately named, so even when they feature the exact products the customer is looking for, the customer might think the site is not relevant and thus, will not enter the site.
Above all, an affiliate marketer must be willing to constantly learn and be creative with ever evolving marketing strategies. Many fail because they dont learn to grow in the business and they are merely concerned about earning big over night. If you want long-term and highly satisfactory results, take time to learn the ins and outs of the affiliate marketing game. Continue to improve your knowledge not only with the basics but also with advanced techniques, web page development, and search engine optimization techniques. Likewise, study the needs and wants of your website users and how different merchants compete with each other.
Keep on trying; do not get disappointed if your first attempt fails to pay off. Thousands are attracted by the possibility of generating huge incomes through affiliate marketing and so they sign up in any affiliate program without carefully understanding every aspect of the business. When they dont get instant results, they quit and sign up for another program and repeat the process of just copying links and referring them to others. When you sign up for an affiliate program, dont expect to get rich in an instant. Work on your advertising strategies and be persistent, as this is a business that can truly change your life, but only if you do what is necessary and follow an effective plan.
BlueWaterArticles.com: - Affiliate Marketing Why So Many People Fail
About the Author
As a successful marketer for 5 years Christian wilkes Wants you to join the top 3% of affiliates? click below http://finalwordreview.com/apx.html
A Startling Fact Of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing sounds easy but you do need to exercise some caution. You want to avoid the affiliate marketing pitfalls that can ruin your business and worse, have you crawling on your hands and knees back to that boss that now knows how you truly feel.
People tend to get excited when they start a new venture. Unfortunately this excitement and eagerness can cause them to miss key things in their agreement. Whenever you sign up for an affiliate marketing program, you will be expected to sign an agreement.
The terms and conditions of the agreement for both sides should be outlined. Well you have finally done it. You have packed in the rubbish job and told your boss exactly what you think. You have taken the plunge and made the decision to begin your own affiliate marketing business.
However, if they want to hide something this is where they will put it. It will either be in the small print, so get your magnifying glass out, or they will baffle you with legal language. Either way, you need to read and understand your agreement thoroughly to avoid disappointment and lost earnings.
If you are signing up for a commission based affiliate marketing program then you need to understand how the term revenue is defined. This is one of the biggest pitfalls of the contracts. They may advertise 5-10% commissions but it all fall on how they define revenue.
Most affiliate marketing programs will calculate commission on the gross value of the sale. In other words, the amount of money the site will get at the completion of the sale. You may think that this sounds great.
However, you need to read this part of the agreement very carefully. The amount of the sale almost always excludes credit card or debit card payment surcharges. They also are likely to exclude payment and delivery charges as well as any gift wrapping or other surcharges. What sounded like a nice commission is soon shrinking before your eyes. Ask these questions specifically before you sign an agreement.
Some affiliate programs are even stricter in their definition of revenue. Your commission may be based on the profit margin of the sold product. For example, if you help sell a book for 20 dollars but the company only makes 10 dollars profit, you will receive a percentage of 10 dollars not 20. This can make a substantial difference in your earnings.
Again, make sure you understand these things and ask specifically what your commission will be based upon. Read your agreement and look out for odd sounding clauses. These could come back to haunt you later.
Something else to beware of when you work on commission is returns. Many affiliate marketing companies only pay commission out on completed sales and then only if the customer keeps the item. If they return the items your commission could be cancelled.
To really rub salt in the wounds, you could be billed for the outstanding commission if you do not have sufficient commission credit built up. Make sure you understand this before signing on. You cannot expect a company to pay you a commission on an item that is returned but make sure you understand their return policy. Find out your rights in this situation.
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to earn money. If you have good sales and marketing skills then it can give you the opportunity to out them to good use. You will be able to work for yourself and not someone who undervalues and does not appreciate them.
One needs to consider affiliate marketing carefully. Make sure you understand your agreement and exactly what you will be paid for. You do not want to have to go crawling back to your boss begging for your old job back!
BlueWaterArticles.com: - A Startling Fact Of Affiliate Marketing
About the Author
This article was submitted by Niz S., an up and coming expert in affiliate marketing. Did you find these tips on affiliate marketing useful? You can find out more about affiliate marketing tips and secrets by going to Working Online Secret Blog or Affiliate Marketing Tips where you also get a FREE ebook on affiliate money machine
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Criteria for the Best Affiliate Marketing Programs
The affiliate marketing program is top quality
Always go for the affiliate marketing program that is backed up by a reliable and trustworthy team with the appropriate and sufficient knowledge about the industry. Check the affiliate product and services as well. Are they for real, offer good value and are saleable? Remember that you will be putting your own credibility on the line when you sign up for that program. If it's trustworthy, then you will be viewed as such as well.
The affiliate product is 'hot' or getting there
Stay current on market demands and about the 'hottest' and 'to watch out for' products. A simple search online will help you find out the kind of things that people are looking for and are willing to buy. There's a good chance an affiliate marketing program is selling that product. When a product has a high market demand, it's much easier to sell. For more help go to www.money-secret-exposed.com .This is good news for you as an affiliate of that program since there won't be any backbreaking work to do just to get the product off the ground. It will sell on its own or for minimal effort.
The affiliate marketing program pays high commissions
Ultimately, the affiliate's goal in signing up for an affiliate marketing program is to earn money. In affiliate marketing, earnings come in the form of commissions? Usually a percentage off the sale of a product. Why settle for a low-paying program when there are others from which you can benefit more from given the same amount of efforts on your part?
When considering what affiliate marketing program to use, choose those that offer higher commission rates. Good rates range from about 50 percent to 75 percent. If the program pays lower than that, you might want to reconsider. It may not be worth your effort at all.
The affiliate marketing program has a higher than usual conversion rate
Conversion rate refers to the period it takes for a prospect who clicks on an affiliate site to become a paying customer. In affiliate marketing, this can be notoriously fickle, with leads taking as much as 60 days before ever purchasing anything.
A good indication that a particular affiliate marketing program is the best one to use is its high conversion rate. This means that more visitors to an affiliate's site become buyers. When there are more buyers, an affiliate's earnings increase.
To find out about their conversion rate, you can check an affiliate marketing program's website. Some of them publish this information. If not, you will have to test the product yourself using targeted visitors to see how well it performs. To know more about it logon to www.affiliate-manager-pro.com .The affiliate marketing program offers full support.
This is an especially important criteria to look for when deciding what affiliate marketing program to use if you're a beginner. There are many programs that will offer their system and leave you to your own devices without checking in on your progress.
If you're not a self-starter or are wary of affiliate marketing programs that don't assist their affiliates, avoid these types. Use affiliate marketing programs that provide sufficient information, training and affiliate support. You will appreciate this extra feature in case you run into a bit of trouble later.
BlueWaterArticles.com: - Criteria for the Best Affiliate Marketing Programs
About the Author
www.myspace-marketing-secret.com www.clickmagnet-secrets.com
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Affiliate Marketing with a Twist the Free Way to Easy Money
Article marketing is nothing new. However, applied to affiliate marketing it is the easiest way to make money online. In addition, best of all, you can do it without spending a dime using only free tools available online.
This is all you will need:
- A free keyword research tool.
- A free text editor.
- A free Clickbank account.
- A free Blogger account
Quickly search your favorite search engine and you will easily find these free tools.
Quick cash blue print:
1 - Keyword research:
Using your keyword research tool, search for low competition keywords. Those are keywords that have at least 300 searches a month and that have less than 5000 competing pages in Google (when entered between quotation marks like this "keyword"). Try to find 5 to 10 good keywords related to the same topic.
The idea is to focus on keywords for which you can get a first page ranking in Google, Msn and Yahoo.
Hint: If you have no idea of which market to target, start by checking popular phrases like, how to, purchase, get rid of, help, cure, tips, etc.
2 - Find a digital product to promote
Go to Clickbank.com and find a product related to your topic. Choose one that pays at least $15 to $20. Generate your affiliate link and write it down or save it in a text file on your computer.
3 - Article writing:
Write an informative article (approximately 400 words) focused on each of your keywords. Put your keyword in the title and in the first and last paragraph of your article. Also, sprinkle it throughout your copy. You can also throw in a few other keywords related to your topic. This will help you rank well.
Most important, write great bio boxes that will make people want to learn more and click on the link to your blog. Put your keyword in your bio box as an anchor text link to your blog.
4 - Set up your blog.
More and more article directories will not let you put your affiliate link in your bio box. Therefore, your blog is going to be your landing page. The idea here is to put up a simple blog that will pre-sell (not sell) your product and make people click on your Clickbank affiliate link to go to the sales page.
Hint: set up a blog for every product you promote and give it a keyword-focused name.
5 - Submit your articles to article directories.
You will need to find article directories with a PR of five or more. Google likes there and it will help you get a first page ranking in the search engines and drive tons of free traffic to your blog.
Hint: Your best choice is articlemarketer.com. You will need good quality articles, but it is the most powerful directory online. Alternatively, you can use Goarticles.com.
6 - Rinse and repeat!
Article marketing is a game of numbers. The more articles you submit, the more money you will earn. However, not every product is going to be a winner. Some will do well, some will not. So test a new product every week putting up 5 to 10 focused articles each time.
http://www.article-promotion-course.com
That is all there is to it. This may seem to good to be true, but it really does work. Off course it will take a couple of weeks for money to start rolling in on a regular basis but the magic of this method is that once you write a money making article it will generate residual income for months and maybe even years -- without ever costing you a single dime.
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Overachieving Your Way to Super Affiliate Stardom
Affiliate marketing is defined as a revenue sharing relationship between advertisers or merchants and online publishers or affiliates. It is a low cost way for merchants to sell their products and services.
In this type of online business, you don’t have to take any risk because you only have to pay the affiliate once the result is achieved. Once a customer is gained, a portion of the profit from that customer will be given to the affiliate as commission. Usually, an affiliate gets a commission for referring clicks, leads or sales to the merchant’s website. The said affiliate income can be a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage.
From this simple commission-based referral system, some affiliates become experts on this field. In fact, some of them are gaining more than five figures every month. However, among the thousands of marketers, only 1 to 5% of them reached this level. And if you’re among the lucky ones who achieve this so-called elite level, you can now be aptly called a “super” affiliate.
This means you are capable of achieving noteworthy percentage of sales or traffic on your merchant’s website. Super affiliates are not only experts on search engine optimization; they are also great in newsletter marketing, email marketing, reciprocal linkages, keyword optimization, link exchanges, advertising in forums and other methods to advertise and promote their products and services.
But how does a person become a super affiliate? And how can they overachieve their way to super affiliate stardom? Making your way to super affiliate stardom is not that easy; and it surely won’t happen overnight. Bear in mind that you need to embrace some tactics, carry out effective online business strategies and of course give hefty time commitment. You can’t be a super affiliate without blood and sweat and without the following traits - patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge. Matched with efficient strategy, these three traits provide you the formula towards super affiliate stardom.
Affiliate marketing strategies are a bit difficult but they are achievable; you just have to work hard on it. First, look for a unique and exceptional niche and focus in it. The reason why most people in the affiliate marketing business didn’t turn out to be very successful is that they try to offer almost everything under the sun instead of giving all their attention in a particular niche market. If you want to become a super affiliate, try not to scatter all your efforts; concentrate on your niche and make it grow by means of promoting, advertising and selling it well.
The next step you must do after you have established your affiliate storehouse is to promote it. Most affiliates resort to pay-per-click engines. But what’s more advisable is to discover how to accomplish organic search results or better yet, hire a search engine marketing company. Through this, you can be saved from losing all your profits on pay-per-click engines.
Then, familiarize yourself with your product and know your audience. Remember that credibility builds trust. And you can only make information that puts up your credibility if you know the products and services your site is offering. If you’re target audience don’t trust you, how could you expect them to purchase from your affiliate storehouse? Moreover, if you take time to learn the products and services you are recommending, it will be way too easy for you to establish a website that converts well, which will enhance your affiliate income in return.
Try to promote and resell products from different merchants. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this strategy because it is just a way of protecting your business and broadening your horizons to be sure that you won’t experience the so-called famine effect. Aside from that, promoting different merchants on the same site provides your site visitors a handful of destinations to choose from. This strategy will also make you aware on what your visitor want to see and it can also help you find out how well various merchants perform against each other.
As mentioned earlier in this page, a super affiliate wannabe should have this trait - thirst for knowledge. It is because this trait can help him or her stay updated and remain on top of the trends. If you are knowledgeable in internet marketing, then you know that what was adopted few months ago may not be applicable at present. So it is important to seek knowledge and make sure that you are updated on what’s new about affiliate marketing daily. Keep in mind that super affiliates take time to read, learn and embrace the changes in online marketing business.
And what’s most important? Never, ever give up. Being engaged in affiliate marketing business is hard, that’s why you must be equipped with patience and persistence. Check your statistics and find out the things that are working and those that are not. Make changes if the situation calls for.
These are just few suggestions and ideas if you want to boost your affiliate income. Let me reiterate, you have to be patience, persistence and knowledgeable. Then, follow the above mentioned strategies and you’ll surely find yourself on the road to super affiliate stardom.
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Google Adsense Profits Mixed In With Affiliate Marketing
Why Affiliate Marketing?
Well, simply because affiliate marketing is the easiest and probably the best way to earn profits online, unless otherwise you are a businessman and would rather sell your own products online than advertise other businessman’s products on your site. But even online retailers can benefit from affiliate marketing programs, because affiliate marketing actually works for merchants as well as it works for the affiliates.
Affiliate marketing, simply said, is a relationship or agreement made between two websites, with one site being the merchant’s website and the other being the affiliate’s site. In the relationship, the affiliate agrees to let the merchant advertise his products on the affiliate’s site. The merchant, on the other hand, would agree to pay the affiliate in whatever method they have agreed into. This would generally mean easy income for the affiliate, as he would do nothing but place the retailer’s ad on his site. This would also be very beneficial for the merchant, as getting affiliates to advertise their products would be a lot more affordable than hiring an advertising firm to promote their products.
There are a variety of methods on how the merchant would compensate the affiliate for his services, and for the webmaster, these methods simply translates to the method by which he would earn easy cash. Among the more common methods of compensation are the pay-per-click method, the pay-per-lead method, and the pay-per-sale method. The pay-per-click method is the method most preferred by affiliates, for their site’s visitor would only have to visit the advertiser’s site for them to gain money. The other two methods, on the other hand, are better preferred by merchants, as they would only have to compensate you if your visitor becomes one of their registrants or if the visitor would actually buy their products.
Getting much profit on affiliate marketing programs, however, does not depend so much on the compensation method is it does on the traffic generated by your site. A website that can attract more visitors would generally have the greater chance of profiting in affiliate marketing programs.
What about Google Adsense?
Google Adsense is actually some sort of an affiliate marketing program. In Google Adsense, Google act as the intermediary between the affiliates and the merchants. The merchant, or the advertiser, would simply sign up with Google and provide the latter with text ads pertaining to their products. These ads, which is actually a link to the advertiser’s website, would then appear on Google searches as well as on the websites owned by the affiliates, or by those webmasters who have signed up with the Google Adsense program.
While one can find a lot of similarities between Google Adsense and other affiliate marketing programs, you can also see a lot of differences. In Google Adsense, all the webmaster has to do is place a code on his website and Google takes care of the rest. The ads that Google would place on your site would generally be relevant to the content of your site. This would be advantageous both for you and for the advertiser, as the visitors of your site would more or less be actually interested with the products being advertised.
The Google Adsense program compensates the affiliate in a pay-per-click basis. The advertisers would pay Google a certain amount each time their ad on your site is clicked and Google would then forward this amount to you through checks, although only after Google have deducted their share of the amount. Google Adsense checks are usually delivered monthly. Also, the Google Adsense program provides webmasters with a tracking tool that allows you to monitor the earnings you actually get from a certain ad.
So, where do all of these lead us to?
Where else but to profits, profits and even more profits! Affiliate marketing programs and the Google Adsense program simply work, whether you are the merchant or the affiliate. For the merchant’s side, a lot of money can be saved if advertising effort is concentrated on affiliate marketing rather than on dealing with advertising firms. For the webmaster, you can easily gain a lot of profits just by doing what you do best, and that is by creating websites. And if you combine all your profits from both the Google Adsense program and other affiliate marketing programs, it would surely convert to a large amount of cash.
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Don't Make These Common 4 Affiliate Mistakes!
It is true enough that affiliate marketing is financially rewarding. People who have gone through everything to be able to succeed in this business are reaping the seeds that they untiringly sowed. Many of them enjoy the kind of existence that was not possible for them to have had under ordinary circumstances. Having gone through the A-Z of affiliate marketing, however, these people are the ones who know that while such business is lucrative, there is absolutely no easy money in it.
Ignorance of this fact is one of the main reasons why there are people who fail miserably in the internet business. There are those who believe in myths concerning the easy money involved in systems such as affiliate marketing. They do not know that there are those who have wasted time, effort and too many resources in trying to pursue the life of ease that they believe this business will give them. And so they go into affiliate marketing armed with nothing but myths and fantastical notions of wealth swimming in their consciousness, never realizing that they bound to make mistakes that would prove to be their downfall.
What may be the reason why in businesses such as affiliate marketing, many are called but few are chosen? Perhaps the answer lies on the fact that many affiliates make mistakes that result from their ignorance of facts concerning how the entire business runs. Affiliate marketing is not as simple as an affiliate promoting a merchant’s wares through his website and getting paid for it. It is also about knowing the market and the customers at hand.
Discovering what the most common mistakes affiliates make can perhaps dispel the gloom about myths surrounding affiliate marketing by correcting some wrong notions about it. It might also be able to make those concerned understand that like any other business, there are dos and donts involved in this one if they want to make each of their steps count. The first common mistake affiliates make is their lack of knowledge concerning principles involved in their business. This refers to the affiliate’s knowledge of search engines in particular.
Affiliate marketing involves advertising, and advertising through the internet could not have been better without the existence of search engines. What every affiliate has to do is to make these search engines his best friend through studying search engine optimization closely. This way, he is able to know what to do in connection with building a better website to ultimately use for his business.
The second is that affiliates make the mistake of stuffing their sites with banners that do not provide enough information about the product at hand. The best way to battle this mistake is to provide good content hand-in-hand with such banners. It is important for customers to know and understand the features of a product, and good content will be able to help them realize this goal.
The third is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting only one product. Consequently, customers are not given enough options to choose from. There is also the risk of generating fewer sales as compared to having more options for customers ponder about. It is always better to give them a few better alternatives than to give them only one.
The fourth is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting too many products. As a result, customers are confused and end up beyond making a choice. It is perhaps good to give them only the best choices. This is because it is ultimately up to them to judge which one is the best for them to patronize.
All in all, affiliates that are doomed to fail in this business are those who do not exert enough effort to understand everything involved in the industry that they are in. Knowing their path step by careful step will prove to be beneficial to them, as there is no other way to succeed than to go through any path slowly but surely.
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Using An Ad tracker Is Key To The Affiliate Marketer
You can actually generate a full-time income by means of affiliate marketing and you can do it at home, and yes, even while you sleep. You must have a good web site to begin with. It must have good promotional and informative contents, pleasing design, inviting banner ads and all other important elements in an affiliate marketer’s web site. It would be great if you have exhausted other means of advertising such as newsletters, email marketing, message boards and ad listings such as Google AdWords. You just have to go online once in a while to check your site and update it and to watch over the development of your marketing program. Does this sound so easy?
It can be this easy if you have planned your affiliate program well and have taken all the steps towards success carefully and diligently. Now, there’s a tool you can use to help you go through the program with ease and confidence, the Ad Tracker. For many experienced and successful affiliate marketers, the Ad Tracker is a key to a successful affiliate marketing program.
What precisely is an ad tracker? It is a marketing tracking software or program that allows you to trace and take note of every click-through made by visitors of your site and by other customers who got your referral link. There are ad tracking service providers as well, so you will just have to pay them to do the tracking for you. With the ad tracker, you can keep an eye on the progress of your marketing campaigns even offline. This tool or program is especially helpful if you are engaged in several affiliate and pay-per-click programs and have placed ads in emails, pop-ups and pop-unders, message boards, auto responders, Ezines, forums, several web sites, surveys and various ad service providers.
Of course, you don’t want all your efforts to be put to waste so you want to make sure you are getting paid for your hard work. Likewise, you want to make sure every dollar or cent you disburse in your advertising campaigns is wisely spent. With the help of the ad tracker, you will know accurately how many and which of your links where clicked on, how many clicked on your links, how many of your emails were opened and how many of those who opened your email clicked through the business site and purchased a product, how many products were purchased, which of your banner ads or links brought the most leads and sales and many other pertinent facts and figures you need.
Sales records and all data stated are necessary in any business as this could determine if your affiliate program is still worth continuing. This would also help you determine which of your marketing strategies is most effective and which is most beneficial for each product or service you are promoting.
Every decision and plan you make must be well grounded on facts. That decision or plan of action may not be the best, but it is something not to regret about when you had valid reasons for coming up with such decision or plan. You cannot just decide to terminate your affiliate program, just because you don’t earn big in an instant.
If you are serious with affiliate marketing, again and again, keep in mind that your success lies mainly on promotion and your hard work. If you don’t seem lucky enough to convince many of your site users to buy the products, don’t be disheartened and jump into a conclusion that your affiliate program is a failure. If it works for others, it could work for you, too. Know whether your advertising techniques are effective or not, which works best for your program and which doesn’t. Get an ad tracker to help you know all these and you’d surely be on the right track towards success!
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How to Use Two Tier Affiliate Programs to Your Advantage
In two-tier system, the first tier of commission is just like in the usual affiliate program. The sole difference is that it has an additional tier/s or sub-affiliates, whereby marketers also gain a commission once the people that the additional tiers referred to the program generate sales. Theoretically, affiliate programs can have multi-tier program with infinite number of tiers, however, there are practical limitations. As tiers increase, the affiliate program draws more webmasters who are mostly interested in gaining profit from other’s work and effort.
Two-Tier affiliate program is also recognized as Multi-Level Marketing. When you sign-up for an affiliate program, you are identified as the first tier and the person that you have recruited or encouraged to sign up is the second tier. If there are additional tiers, then the system can now be regarded as multi-level marketing (MLM). But today, MLM isn’t as effective and successful as it was several years ago. It is because at present, affiliates can freely select from thousands of affiliate programs and they can quickly switch from one program to another.
You could probably go wrong if you’re thinking that you can depend on your second tier to do the job for you. So if you want to use two-tier affiliate program to your advantage and generate more income by encouraging sub-affiliates to sign-up below you, make sure that you carefully choose your affiliate merchant. Pick those merchants who generate stable stream of high quality products, give high or just commissions, offers real time tracking, furnishes you with a proven and tested advertising arsenal and treat their affiliates very well. You can also sign-up for the merchant who gives high visitors-to-sales conversion rate.
It is also advisable if you engage yourself with a web merchant that has a user-friendly website which you can access anytime so that you can monitor your statistics including visits and sales. And if possible, choose the one with powerful marketing tools which you can use in promoting their products.
You’re just wasting much of your time and effort and worse, damaging your integrity once you promote poor affiliate program because your visitor will surely presume that the product or service you are reselling must be dreadful too. That’s the reason why it is important to pick first-rate affiliate programs. Through these, you can not only build up a good relationship with your visitor, but also, you can easily get more tiers to sign-up under you. You should also be cautious of some affiliate programs that give more importance on the profits to be earned in taking on other affiliates than on the income from sales, because you’ll just eventually find out that someone has already close those sales without informing you. Usually, this kind of affiliate program offers a very low first-tier payment but a sky-scraping second-tier commission.
If you want to start an affiliate program of your own, you surely have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program. Who am I to say which of these two programs are better? But let me tell you the benefits you could get out of two-tier affiliate program.
First, your profit will increase due to increased sales from the customers that your second tier has referred. Second, you have a much broader customer base to which you can sell your products and services. Then, you gain more and stable income because the customers referred by your affiliate and sub-affiliates could probably develop a lifetime loyalty on your site and your products. Plus, you have an army of sub-affiliates who will promote and resell your products and services to their visitors and subscribers.
Two-tier program has been a proven winner and should be the number one choice for the budding affiliates as well as for the affiliate program managers. When you start gaining profits from your site as well as your tiers, this is now the right time to say that you have used two-tier affiliate program to your advantage.
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