Affiliate Marketing | Tips Affiliate | Affiliate Program

Making Money with Affiliate Programs - Part II

2008-06-30T00:03:00.013-07:00

In this holiday season online shopping is hotter than ever! According to US Commerce Department online sales continue to grow with a robust 25-27 percent this year over 1992. Online holiday shopping at a rate of 10 percent is also considerably outpacing the 5.7 percent growth of overall retail sales. Goldman Sachs predicts 23 percent of all gift-buying this holiday season will take place online!

So, if you don't have a product of your own to sell online, how can you profit from this exciting trend?

One of the finest ways of making money online is to promote other people's products or services by becoming their affiliates. Affiliate is a term used for a website that drives traffic to another website in exchange for a predetermined commission.

Thanks to the success of several affiliate programs in the early days of online business, most merchant websites, today, use some kind of affiliate programs to promote their sites and generate sales.

Considering the sheer numbers of affiliate programs available on the Internet, you may feel overwhelmed. However, if you set some basic criteria, it would be lot easier to find a good program that suits your need.

Free sign up

The affiliate program that you are planning to join must be absolutely free. There are way too many good programs available for free, why should you pay for one? Moreover, the programs that require payments to join are mostly multi Level Marketing (MLM) programs. Although, there may be many good MLM programs existing on the Internet, I don't think it's a viable option for an average person.

Good commission

You deserve handsome compensation for all your hard work! No matter, how you look into it, in most of the cases, promoting a product or service is not an easy job. Since you are doing the uphill struggle of bringing the client to the merchant's door, your commission should be real good one. What is an acceptable commission anyway? If you are promoting an information product, don't go for less than 50 percent. For more tangible products and services your bare minimum commission should be 15 percent of the sale. If you are promoting monthly subscription, choose a program that pays a portion of subscription fee as recurring commission to you as long as the client referred by you stays subscribed.

Tow-tier affiliate program

An affiliate program which pays certain percent as a commission from the sale for bringing in a client and another if that client brings in other clients. Two-tier affiliate programs are more preferable since once a client base is built, it becomes a great source of residual income.

Quality affiliate tracking system

The merchant should have a very good and well-organized affiliate sales tracking management software system. You have to be absolutely comfortable with the statistics generated by the affiliate program. The program should show such important aspects as repurchase, if any, by the client referred by you, your second tier affiliates, activities by your second tier clients, etc.If you do not feel comfortable with the tracking system provided by a merchant, better stick to the merchants, who use third party affiliate managing system. At least, you will know that a dishonest merchant won't be able to defraud you.

Efficient customer support

You should feel satisfied with the service and support you get from your affiliate program owner. A good program highly values its affiliates and gives priority to its customer support system. As the clients that you are sending to the merchant are primarily your site's visitors, you should be extremely picky about the quality of customer service the program renders. After all, your own site's reputation is also at stake here!

Promotional materials

If you are planning to promote an affiliate program, you will need more materials then mere banners. Unfortunately, even many high-end affiliate programs do not carry enough promotional materials to satisfy the need of the affiliates. Promotional material should include: contents to build mini-sites, various ad articles, different kind of text links, product brochures or presentation, etc.

Commission payment policy

The affiliate program should have a sort of minimum payment policy, where you can receive commissions if even you have made just one or two sales. A reasonable amount is US $25. Less than that is not viable due to processing costs. Commission should be paid each month. If you are located outside of US, see if the merchant makes payment through Paypal or other similar services or not. For most of the countries checks issued in other countries are not a good option.

If an affiliate program meets all these above mentioned criteria, you can consider joining in this program. However, to get best result from your efforts, before signing up, you should also consider the following rules:

You have to like the product you are promoting Any salesman will confirm you that this is one of the fundamental rules of selling. If you are selling a product or service you must have confidence in it. If you like the product and will use it yourself gladly, you found a product to promote! Don't waste your time with a product that is not

up to your taste!

Promote a product or service consistent to your website's subject matter If your site is all about soccer, you will be better off with products and service related to soccer. If this same site promotes,for example: pesticides, no matter how hard you try your success will be very limited! Before joining in any affiliate program first you should identify who your visitors are, what do they like and which products they will probably buy online. Once you know your niche market it's lot easier to find products or services for it.

Many webmasters think that in order to make money through affiliate programs, all you have to do is to come up with a site and fill up the site with affiliate links. Sooner all later people will click on them. Unfortunately this does not work! Making money through affiliate programs is also a business and like any business you have to have a proper business plan. Only a well prepared businessplan followed by its meticulous implementation can bring success to your affiliate endeavor.

By Nowshade Kabir

Making Money with Affiliate Programs - Part I

2008-06-30T00:03:00.011-07:00

If you have a website and you are not involved in any of the thousands of affiliate programs available on the Internet, you are loosing great opportunities to make some extra income. As in the case of some top affiliate marketers this extra income might even transform into thousands of dollars.

Affiliate program is one of the most effective methods of producing sales second only to direct mail. According to Forrester Research, a marketing research company, in this year 21% of all online sales will be generated from affiliate sites promoting affiliate products.

If you do your homework right, you too can earn handsomely from the correct use of affiliate programs.

What is an affiliate program?

The concept of affiliate program is based on the age-old business practice of referral service. This is quite common in many industries. An attorney, for example, gets a certain percent of commission if he refers a client to another lawyer.

Back in 1996 Amazon.com started the first widespread use of referral service on the Internet. If a client comes to Amazon.com and buy a product using a link provided by Amazon, from a website which signed affiliate partnership agreement, that site receives 10 to 15% commission from the sale. The Amazon Affiliate Program became so successful that it prompted others to follow the suit. Today, affiliate programs became ubiquitous on the Internet making them one of the primary methods of online marketing of products and services.

Affiliate Program can be defined as Internet marketing system where a company allows and helps third party websites, called affiliates to post link and refer clients in return for a predetermined flat-fee or percentage-based commission.

Benefits of affiliate programs
Affiliate Programs became so popular because as a partnership it's a win-win situation for both the program owner and the affiliates.

Benefits for program owners include:

Increase Sales
The primary reason for most of the companies to adopt an affiliate program is the possibility of boosting sales. In fact, proper implementation of a quality affiliate program is capable of increasing sales dramatically.

Free promotion
A successful affiliate program can easily become the largest traffic generator for the company website. Many websites receive major portion of their visitors from their affiliate links. To find suitable websites with required content in order to run a banner or link campaign is time consuming and require large resources; affiliate programs in comparison can resolve this issue often with a far smaller investment.

Increase search engine ranking
Search engines, Google in particular, calculate link popularity as one of the main factors in their ranking algorithm. Backward links from affiliate sites certainly help improving this.

Branding
Thanks to its affiliate program Amazon.com banner links can be seen on numerous websites. Popularity of Amazon.com among the newcomers to Internet proves that Amazon.com was successful in creating its online brand name. No doubt, omnipresent visibility of their logo on the affiliate sites definitely had a huge impact on the brand recognition of the Amazon. Offline companies had to spend billions of dollars of advertisement money to get similar results!

How about the affiliates? What are the benefits they get from an affiliate relationship?

No product or service to carry
Online business with your own product or service might be rewarding, but it requires substantial investment from your part. With carefully chosen affiliate programs you can have your online business without the requirement of having your own products.

The investment is low as all you need is a website.

No need to have a merchant account
Since you don't carry your own products or services you do not have to go through the hassle of having a merchant account to cater your clients. Your affiliate program owner will do everything. All you have to do is supply clients through your designated link.

Possibility of residual income
Many programs pay you a commission from the sales made to the customers generated from affiliates, who have signed up as an affiliate following your link. This kind of affiliate system is called 2-tier system.

Visitor tracking system allows affiliate programs to pay you a commission when same visitor from your website makes repeat purchase.

Some affiliate programs that promote monthly or yearly subscription services pay a commission each month as long as customer referred by you stays subscribed.

Complement you website with added products and services If your site is dedicated to certain products or services, there must be other stuffs that go well together with your own products. It's a good idea to seek out viable affiliate products of these items and promote through your site. Your visitors will love this and this will help building loyalty among your visitors.

Have new contents for your site
many affiliate programs supply you with valuable marketing materials. Some of these materials can be nice addition to your site content bringing further value to your website.

Various Affiliate programs

There are two ways of running an affiliate program: The company owns and handles the program itself, using certain software.

The company uses third party administered affiliate programs. The reasons why many companies prefer to hand over management of their affiliate programs include technical aspects, cost factor and human factors.

- Companies do not have to spend money on developing, running and updating the software.

- Proven technology allows companies to concentrate on their job of selling their products and services.

- Many prospective affiliates prefer third party managed programs, because they rightfully ponder, in this case the program owners have less chance to cheat their affiliates.

Find below a list of some leading third party affiliate program administrators:

http://www.befree.com
http://www.linkshare.com
http://www.cj.com
http://www.clickbank.com

However, this does not mean that you should avoid company run affiliate programs. On the contrary, some of the most successful and best affiliate programs are run by the owners.

If you find an affiliate program that suits your requirement and you feel that the company is a reputable one, by any means you should give it a try!

By Nowshade Kabir

Making Money with Affiliate Programs - Part III

2008-06-30T00:03:00.009-07:00

Whether you are a newbie to Internet or a proud owner of a website, affiliate programs are great opportunities for you to make money online. It is an interesting concept that allows affiliates to develop a source of income and the program owners to sell their products more effectively.

As an affiliate your job is to drive traffics to the program owner's site. You get a commission from each sale made to a customer that originated from your marketing efforts.

Once you become interested in making money through affiliate programs and do some research you will come to know that there are many affiliates, who consistently make thousands of dollars month after month.

James Martell, who also wrote a handbook on affiliate marketing, claims that he makes over US$ 40K each month from his 30 over niche affiliate sites.

Phil Wiley lives in a remote area near Australia's Great Barrier Reefs but it does not create any barrier for him to make a comfortable living from his online incomes.

Rosalind Gardner, author of the Super Affiliate Handbook, made over US $400,000 last year alone by promoting different affiliate programs.

There are numerous examples like these, but the question is do all affiliates make that much of money? Is it truly possible to make your living by promoting affiliate programs?

The truth is very few of thousands of affiliates are successful in making good amount of money from affiliate marketing.

If you follow the tips stated below scrupulously your chance to become a super affiliate will increase considerably.

Try the product first

Don't just start promoting an affiliate program because they offer handsome commission! Internet marketing is a complex and time consuming process! If you decided to spend your valuable time and ingenious brain in promoting a product, you better check out the product first. Try the product! As a consumer if you feel that the money spent on the product is really worth it, then you probably found a right affiliate program to market.

Sell products consistent to your website's content

If the visitors are coming to your site and spending time, that means they like the content of your pages. If you offer them something which is relevant to this content, chances increase dramatically that they will check out that product.

Write ad articles and text ads for the product

Don't use banners to promote your chosen affiliate programs! Our eyes are so accustomed to see banners that in very rare case, nowadays, we click on a banner. Use text ads instead! But don't just use the generic ads supplied by the affiliate program owner. Spend sometimes in creating the text ads. While writing the text ads, think how you can relate the content of the page with the text of the ad.

Write articles about the subject matter of the affiliate product and use links within the article. Studies show that the ad articles have good click through response. You can submit these articles to other websites and create a viral marketing process for your affiliate program. Get a domain name for the affiliate program

If you are getting result from promoting an affiliate program and would like to get more serious in marketing this particular program, get a domain name for this program and use it to redirect to the link given by you affiliate program owner. Here is why you should do this:

Many people don't feel comfortable with the idea that you will get a share from the sales made to them. A domain name convinces many of this type of people that you are not merely promoting an affiliate program, rather you have something to do with this product or better yet, some even might consider that you are not making anything out of a sale.

Redirect a buyer to a page with relevant products

If you sell a product of your own from a website, once the buyer finishes the purchasing process, i.e. charging credit card, redirect him immediately to a page with products that compliment the product he or she has just purchased. The idea here is to try to sell more products to the same buyer while he is still in the buying mood.

Build mini sites for the niche products

One of the best approaches in promoting affiliate programs is to build mini websites dedicated to these programs. Here are the steps you should take:

* Choose a market segment

* Choose niche products for this particular market segment

* Build a content rich mini website specifically oriented to this segment

* Promote related affiliate programs through this website

Use free materials, programs etc. to attract visitors

People love free stuffs! Especially, if there are values in them! Many affiliate programs supply free materials like articles, e-books, programs, etc. in order to help affiliates market their products. Use these materials sporadically to lure customers. If you don't get any worthy free materials from the program owners, search for free relevant materials on the Internet. You will be amazed to see quantity of free e-books, articles and other materials that you will be able to dig out! Create exit Pop-Up pages with specific and targeted offers

If the visitor of your site is leaving, why not showing him a page with highly specific targeted product offers? Best idea is to create several pages with highly targeted products for different pages. If the visitor browsed through a certain page, that means the content of the page some how interested him. If he decides to leave the site right after viewing this page, it definitely makes sense to show him an exit pop-up page with products consistent to the content of the page. Build a directory of e-books, articles, and affiliate programs

Information is the number one reason why people spend time online. It's not always easy to create large amount of contents required to satisfy the need of the visitors. Why not use materials created by others for this purpose? Besides, you can also use those materials to promote affiliate programs of your choice. You can add materials to your directory yourself and you can also ask visitors to submit their materials in relevant categories. Post Pay per click ad on the most successful affiliate program

If an affiliate program generates considerable revenue promote this particular program more aggressively by posting pay per click ad for this program.

Overture and Google Adwords are the best options available for pay per click advertisement campaign.

Affiliate programs are great way of making money online! However, don't expect an overnight success! Like any other business, here also you require proper planning and persistence. Most super affiliates confess that, in general, it takes one to two years of hard work to become successful in this field. So do your homework before jumping in!

By Nowshade Kabir

5 Ways to Start And Promote Your Affiliate Program

2008-06-30T00:03:00.007-07:00

"What's the Buzz About?"

"I made $5,000 in one week"

"I quit my job and spend more time with my kids"

It sounds too good to be true, but if you're serious about working from home and you don't have a lot of money to start than keep reading?

"What IS an Affiliate?"

Basically, an Affiliate is an individual that is willing to market and promote another company in exchange for a commission.

An affiliate is NOT an employee of the company. There are no guarantees of earnings in most cases, and there are various methods of determining payments.

In most cases, the company presents the affiliate with a link to its site that has a special code. When this link is promoted and customers click on that link, the company can trace any sales or leads back to the affiliate. Commissions can be made either way depending on the nature of the business. Good affiliate programs will offer a period of time in which, if the customer does not purchase the first time, but comes back within that period (even through another link) the original affiliate gets the credit.

"How Do I Choose a Program?"

Typing "affiliate program" or "affiliate program directory" into a search engine will give you millions of suggestions. Some directories can give you advice or recommendations. If you are new to affiliate programs, it may be wise to stick with the free applications. Don't worry, many, if not most, are free to join.

Select a program you are interested in yourself. If feasible, try the product or service personally. It always makes for a better sale if you can give personal testimony to the offer. Try testing its popularity by checking the 'keywords' at Overture, http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/. By typing the words you think a person interested in your product or service would use when searching, you can see how many people have actually searched for it.

"How Do I Promote It?"

Easily!

1) List your company (being sure to use your affiliate link) in free classifieds. Again, these are easily found in the search engines. Try for 20 and keep adding on.

2) Determine who your market is?business people? Mothers? Car enthusiasts? Or those interested in health and fitness? Look for forums (public chat areas) or sites that cater to these individuals. Forums are great for connecting with people and building rapport, but be very cautious. Read some of the posts before making one of your own. In many cases there are strict rules about advertising, and you should respect that. View it as a social gathering and keep it light. This is where a personal recommendation would go over much better.

3) Write an article about the topic. A brief article 500-1000 words is perfect. Avoid advertising too blatantly. Some ezine (Electionic Magazine) submission directories will not allow articles that are too obvious. Creating a 'How To' or '10 Ways to?' would be a good way to start. You can then either incorporate your affiliate link in the article, or more likely, at the end when you create your author's credits. Submit your article to ezine directories (try for at least 50). For more information on writing ezines go to http://affiliate-start.com/ezine1.htm.

4) Join a traffic exchange program like TrafficSwarm. You can join for free and create a classified style add with a link to your site. By clicking other people's links you will collect points. Your points will mean your ad is being shown to others in the program who will view it. To see how it works go to http://www.trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?287887.

5) Search for newsletters catering to your market (see #2). Search for "business newsletter" etc. Subscribe to several and if you feel they are appropriate, contact them offering either your article for their use, or to check out the process for advertising in their newsletter. This method can reach thousands of people that have enough interest to subscribe and read a newsletter about that topic.

"A Word To the Wise"

Be very careful to avoid 'spamming'. This means advertising to individuals through their email when they have not given permission. This includes email 'blasting' and safelists. This can potentially include newsletters too, so verify their methods of getting subscribers before advertising.

"Enjoy Your Success"

If you follow these five steps, you should be certain to draw a handsome commission from your chosen program. We wish you success!

Cyprian and Shannon Emmanuel

How to Evaluate an Affiliate Program

2008-06-30T00:03:00.005-07:00

There are thousands of affiliate programs offering wide range of benefits to their affiliates. However, many of these programs and the claims they make are not to be trusted. Good affiliate programs provide tremendous earning opportunities, but they need to be evaluated to distinguish them from doubtful ones. There are several factors to consider before someone decides to join any affiliate program.

Products: Organizations which operate affiliate programs generally have some products to sell. These products can be in form of physical products, e-products or services. It is important to ascertain that the organization has some products to sell and that it recruits affiliates to help them in running their business. One should be very careful with any organization that has recruitment of affiliates as their main business. It is best to avoid such organizations because their affiliate structure is like a house of cards which can crumble at slightest impact.

The organizations which have products to sell and market them thru affiliate programs cut down on the cost of advertising and distribution. This amounts to considerable savings which they share with their affiliates. If a new affiliate is already familiar with the products, this can be helpful but this is not a necessary pre-condition to join affiliate program. New affiliates can learn about the products quite fast.

Organization's Track Record : It is not difficult to find out about the organization before joining it affiliate program. Search engines are one of the sources which can be used for this purpose. Verifying the testimonials presented by the organization is another source of information. The organization should have proven track record of operating their programs for several years successfully. If the organization is new or just starting, the person starting the program should be well known with good credibility. This is precaution against joining organizations which promise get-rich-quick scheme and then disappear.

Support Available to Affiliates : Most of the new affiliates joining any affiliate program are new to the field of marketing on the internet. They need guidance and support for promoting their business and earning money for themselves. It is in the interest of the organization to help their affiliates to succeed. These organizations are in their business for considerable longer time than the affiliates, are more knowledgeable about their market and about the ways of promoting their products. They are in best position to provide their affiliates with proper guidance. Many organizations have excellent support system by way of trainings, tutorials, articles, books, marketing plans, marketing tools, forums just to name a few. These are generally available from websites accessible to the affiliates.

Apart form the promotional material and information available from the website, personal guidance can be vital. A new affiliate may not be familiar with all the resources available and will look for mentoring at least in initial stages. It should be remembered by the affiliate that her success will add to the success of the organization, the organization is obliged to help her.

Payment : Another factor to consider is the mode and frequency of payment to the affiliates. The affiliate should make sure that this suits her. Just to give an example - many organizations make payments thru PayPal, but PayPal does not transmit money to all the countries. Such details should be checked before putting time and effort for any affiliate program.

Affiliate Structure : There are many different ways in which organizations build up their affiliate structure. Many organizations have single tier structure in which affiliate is only paid commission for sale. Other affiliate structures are 2-level or multi-level deep in which the affiliate earns also from the efforts of personally sponsored members. In turn, the affiliate is expected to help her sponsored members to earn for themselves. This is one great feature of multi-level marketing leading to leveraged earning. You can read my article on leveraged earning at this URL :

http://www.sanjay-j.com/artlever.html

There are still more variations in the structure. Some organizations allow a limited number of affiliates directly under each affiliate. There is no "ideal" affiliate structure. But it is important to have clarity in the structure and the affiliate should understand the structure.

Compensation Plan : There is lot of variation in compensation plans starting from simple commission to more elaborate plan in which affiliates additionally earn thru the efforts of their sponsored downline members and also from a common pool. I personally favor plans which have provision for leveraged earnings where teamwork really counts. Residual earning is another attractive feature of affiliate marketing which can build into sizeable income over a period of time. I am not against any compensation plan so long as it is understandable and appears reasonable. You have perhaps noticed that I have put this factor as the last consideration. However it is an important consideration after all other considerations are found acceptable.

Persistence Pays - It takes time to build up business with any affiliate program, no matter how good the program appears. After joining any affiliate program after thorough evaluation, one needs to stay with the program giving it time to build the earning. Get-rich-quick scheme do work some times but they are rare exception rather than the rule and cannot be depended upon.

This small slogan should be ingrained in the thinking when someone joins an affiliate program:

PERSISTENCE PAYS.

============================================
Sanjay Johari

The 5 Sure-Fire Ways of Building Massive Traffic and Making Thousands in Affiliate Sales

2008-06-30T00:03:00.003-07:00

Why are those top affiliates able to easily make so much money just by recommending and selling other people's products?

What did they do to be so different from the rest of the 96% of the affiliates out there who are making little or no money at all?

The key to making those huge affiliate sales really lies on what you portray to your visitors and what you can give to your visitors.

But before that, let's deal with getting lots of targeted traffic to your website so that you could build a huge mailing list to mine your income from.

There are a number of different ways to increase your targeted traffic and in this article; I will touch on 4 different effective methods.

Sure-Fire Way #1 - Ezine articles

Writing articles is a very good strategy of a free advertising establishing you as an expert in the field. When people read your article which provided them with good quality information, they will tend to follow and click on your link to learn more about how you help them.

In this way, your credibility is quickly established and you will soon be recognized as an expert in your field. Being an expert in a field will automatically attract hundreds or even thousands of visitors who will be looking for a solution on your website.

Your articles can also act as a one way link giving you a steady stream of traffic to your website permanently as long as it is being published.

If you need more articles or information on how to write quality articles, you can go to these websites:

http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.ezinesearch.com
http://www.dime-co.com
http://emailuniverse.com/ezine-tips/

Sure-Fire Way #2 - Reciprocal Links

This free method is another great way to guarantee your website in getting a steady stream of highly targeted traffic. But in order to get highly targeted traffic, you will need to exchange links with websites that can both complement and compete with yours.

Not only that, they need to have a stream of huge targeted traffic so that you can tap into that vast wealth of the traffic using your link.

All you need to do is just to type in your keywords that describe what you are offering in any search engines and search through the results and finding those sites. After that, you will need to send them a personalized email requesting an exchange of links. Most will be happy to exchange links with you. Sometimes, you will need to include a few incentives in the offer.

Therefore, you will have many good quality websites providing you with a small amount of targeted traffic that will amount to a huge permanent source of highly targeted traffic to your website.

Sure-Fire Way #3 - Search Engine Optimization

You may want to optimize your website content so that the major search engines can easily spider your sites and rank them accordingly.

You need to maintain a good number of specific keywords targeted to your market on your website. This has to be done in a way such that the search engines spiders love the keywords and your visitors love your content.

This way, you not only attract visitors but also spiders from many search engines that will be happy to index your site. If you need help in creating theme-based content site pages that are full of keywords filled content, you can get this free ebook that will teach you how to create them.

Get the free ebook titled: "The Affiliate Masters Course" at: http://aff-masters.sitesell.com/acemarkbiz.html

Or if you want any good quality search engine optimization service, what I recommend is 1st Search Ranking at http://www.acemarketingbiz.com/links/1stsearchranking/

Both of these resources will definitely be able to help you in greatly improve your site's ranking.

Sure-Fire Way #4 - Pay-Per-Click Search Engines

This method is the most direct and effective in getting the type of traffic you want. This is because you can specify the kind of keywords your target audience will key in to search for what you offer.

If you are selling golf clubs, all you have to do is just to bid on keywords such as "golf clubs", "golf equipment", "golf" etc. You can specify the amount of money spent for every visitor who clicks on your link, so you can immediately calculate the total cost and the rate of return before you make a sale if you know your sales conversion rate.

In a way, you will have complete control over your advertising budget. A good big name pay-per-click search engine is Overture at http://www.overture.com but there is also another good quality pay-per-click search engine that charge a flat rate bid at http://www.acemarketingbiz.com/links/1stsearchranking/ppc.html

Ultimate Sure-Fire Way #5 - Building Your List and Pre-selling Affiliate Products

With all these traffic building and driving methods in place, you can get a substantial amount of traffic to your website. Now, in order to build a huge mailing list, you will have to create your own freebie or bundle one up as a package.

It can be in the form of a course, ebook, software or audio etc. this freebie has to offer not only good but absolutely incredible information to immediately entice and encourage your visitors to join your mailing list in order to get your freebie.

Once you have people in your mailing list, continue to offer them quality information, you can get readily available articles at ezines sites such as:

http://www.bizsitebiz.com
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.ideasmarketers.com

This is absolutely essential in continuing to build credibility and reputation for you. Once you have established a trust between your subscribers and you, you as an expert can easily make a few thousand dollars by personally recommending a few quality affiliate products that can help them solve their problems.

All you need to do is to send them an endorsement email stating the benefits you have gotten from the product and tell them they also can get those benefits by using the products and then direct them to your affiliate link.

Do not sell them; just create the urgency and the excitement to find out more about what and how the product you recommend can help them.

The key is to pre-sell them and lead them to the affiliate sales page with an open mind.

So all in all, you just drive highly targeted traffic to those quality affiliate sites which need your traffic and with your established credibility and reputation, you can easily make a couple of thousands with just one personal endorsement mailing.

Thus, this is the ultimate key to making the most affiliate sales and income for you.

By Richard Lam

5 Deadly Mistakes That Affiliates Make - A Quiz

2008-06-30T00:03:00.001-07:00

Some people are making big money with affiliate programs-some are not. With a little research I have discovered that the people that are not cashing many checks are making the same five mistakes. Why not take a short quiz to see how you rate? Do you qualify as a novice, average, or super affiliate? Try this true and false quiz. You might learn something!

1. To make sure that you get all of the traffic you need, all you have to do is to put a link or banner on your site. Sales will come flooding in. (T or F)

2. It is a good idea to promote as many programs as you can on one web page created solely for that purpose. (T or F)

3. Free classified ads and FFA's generate sufficient traffic. You don't HAVE to invest money into advertising to be effective. (T or F)

4. Use the words, "amazing, fantastic, and incredible" as many times as you can to generate enthusiasm when advertising a site. (T or F)

5. If sales do not come immediately, you should drop the program and find another one that sounds better. (T or F)

How did you do? Let's see?

1. False. Although a smart affiliate will include his link on his web site, this alone will not result in much traffic. It is much smarter to branch out with several kinds of advertising such as paid emails and solo ads to business opportunity seekers. I have found that sending my ads to targeted traffic results in far more sales than "shot gun" marketing to one and all. Although we hope that people will click on our links, we have to get them there first. Targeted traffic programs are best.

2. False. While being actively involved in several different affiliate programs is not harmful, including a dozen affiliate links on a single page with no "main" product advertisment, brands the webmasters as amateurs-especially if the offers conflict with one another! On the other hand, a list of "resources" to the side that complements the main product is a good idea-and may result in sales!

3. False. Although these "freebies" may sound tempting to newbies, we that have been around the net for awhile have discovered that they are generally a waste of valuable time. Using that time to write articles with urls in the signature boxes or gaining testimonials for your site is more profitable. Actually, most super affiliates are willing to invest a few bucks to be successful. Paid email programs and solo ads are inexpensive and still effective. Many good programs will let you begin with as little as ten bucks. That's less than the cost of a decent lunch!

4. False. Using these "hype" phrases when advertising may not generate as much enthusiasm as it does skepticism. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. We know this. So, tell the truth. If you have a good product, then tell your potential customer how he can benefit. Then let him decide how "amazing" it is. If it really is so awesome, then testimonials will do the real advertising.

5. False. Big mistake! Give the program some time. DON'T give up quickly. While it's not a bad idea to test out new programs, don't jump from program to program. You'll find that legitimate programs with good products will pay off if you are patient. Your score: 2 or less correct. Right now, you are in the NOVICE rating. Your affiliate marketing skills need to be honed. But don't despair! You need help and there are lots of terrific techniques out there that are just what you need to achieve that affiliate income that you've always wanted!!

3-4 correct. You are an AVERAGE affiliate. You have obviously been around affiliate marketing awhile, but you could use a refresher course. I highly recommend finding a pro to learn from! Before long, you too will be a SUPER AFFILIATE!

All 5 correct: You are a SUPER affiliate! Keep up the good work and don't forget that the best affiliate marketers NEVER stop learning!

What affiliate program do I recommend personally? Well... mine, of course!

Smart Author Software. People are making money.

(See? No hype. Just the facts.)

By Kristi Sayles

Higher Commission Is Not Always Better

2008-06-30T00:02:00.023-07:00

I have seen it a million times, especially from newer affiliates. They find two similar affiliate programs and immediately assume that the one that pays the highest commission is automatically the better affiliate program... not true! As an affiliate you need to look beyond the commission and evaluate the entire program. Yes, high commission are always nice to have but there are some things to look for that can make a high commission affiliate program practically worthless and a waste of your valuable time.

The first thing that you should look at is see how much the merchants are charging for their products. Merchants that pay a high commission is usually passing it off in the product prices. By boosting their prices up they make up for paying their affiliates high commissions by trying to get the customers to pay the bill. If the price is to high the customer will leave the merchants site and search for another merchant with lower prices. So you can promote the higher commission merchant to your hearts content. But if the prices are just to high for the customers you are simply wasting your time and effort on a dead cause.

Now, if you go with the merchant that pays a slightly less commission but has much lower prices then the customer is going to buy from them instead of the other merchant, therefore, giving you more conversions which will make you alot more money in the long run.

By Chet Brzezinski

How To Make Money On A Music Website Through Affiliate Programs?

2008-06-30T00:02:00.021-07:00

Do you find yourself looking for a way to make some extra money? How about creating a website on something that everyone includes in their life, Music? The opportunities are endless and what's great about it is that you can make money on it while you're eating, sleeping, or just sitting around watching TV.

Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of work in the beginning to get everything started. Once you get your website built the way you want it though, all that is left is maintaining it to keep it at tip top shape. From there you'll be making money off of it 24/7. So, how do you get started and how do you make money off of it you may be wondering?

To start off you need to purchase a domain name, which is your website URL. You can do this at GoDaddy.com for a cheap price of $9.20 per year. Now you have your website name, the next step is to pick a host for your website. This is where you will build your website. You can do this at GoDaddy.com starting at $3.95 per month, or choose to go to another hosting company as there are many out there.

From there you are set to build your website, now how do you begin making money off of it?

There are many ways to make money off of your website. One way is to join affiliate programs through companies around the world. How an affiliate program works is you join under that company and refer people through your website to their website. Then, as people go to the companies website through yours, whatever the person buy's you get a certain amount of money off of their purchase.

The amount made varies from company to company and it even varies among the different products sold. The big name companies you'll often make less money off of, such as Best Buy and Circuit City you'll make approximately 3-7% on all sales. Smaller companies some times offer more through their affiliate programs, but people sometimes will opt to go to the well known companies instead.

For a music website you'll obviously want to join affiliate programs dealing with entertainment of some sort. Bestbuy.com and CircuitCity.com are good ones to join, but can be difficult to get into when you're just starting out. One good one can be found at:

http://www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com/buy.html

Clickbank.com is an affiliate network that is extremely good to join as you instantly gain access to you choice of over 10,000 digital products to sell on your website. There are nine categories associated with clickbank.com, but categories to focus on with a music website through clickbank.com would be fun and entertainment and sports and recreation.

Where you find the registration form for the affiliate programs is on the companies' homepage, and it is usually listed on the bottom of their homepage as affiliate program. When doing a music website you don't have to just stick with music affiliate programs either. You can focus on entertainment as a whole that way you can join affiliate programs for games, movies, posters and more.

Another way you can make money through affiliate programs is two-tier programs. Two-tier programs are programs that you make money off of people signing up for the affiliate program through you. Not all affiliate programs offer two-tier programs, but they are out there and signing up to affiliate programs with two-tier programs is to your benefit. A few entertainment two-tier programs that I have joined include;

www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com/allposters.html

www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com/mp3dollars.html

The best thing with affiliate programs is that they are free. You make money off of selling companies' products and it doesn't cost you a thing to register under the company. Another bonus to affiliate programs is that there is no limit as to how many you are allowed to join and put on your website. The sky is the limit with affiliate programs and money can be made 24/7 on your music website today at the cost of nothing.

By Jeff Schuman

Are Your Affiliate Programs Eating Away Your Money And Time

2008-06-30T00:02:00.019-07:00

So many times I have heard this. So many examples I do remember. People have left the internet business after being disappointed with their so called affiliate programs.

An affiliate program is an excellent way to earn money especially in the beginning. I said beginning because at that time one does not understand the market and is too naïve to bring his own product out in right way.

Affiliate programs fill that gap nicely. You have got a ready-made product and a ready-made webpage too (though you can develop your own and you should be doing that). There is only one aspect left to make that money.

Making sales.

But you need to choose your affiliate program carefully.

An affiliate program should be free to join. You should be cautious of the programs that will charge you upfront to be able to become their affiliates. Sometimes you buy a product and get affiliate status as bonus. That is acceptable. But a good affiliate program should not charge you a membership fee monthly or yearly whatever the case may be.

There are some programs which charge you a monthly fee for becoming a member and you are expected to recruit more for getting a commission. These are not affiliate programs but MLM programs.

Be cautious when you join such programs. They do not offer a good product to sell. The only thing that you have to sell is the membership. Such programs may eat up a lot of your money before you realize their worthlessness. In such programs you sell a membership and your recruit is expected to sell the same in return.

This kind of sale is not only hard to accomplish but also associated with high attrition. That means the rate of members dropping out is very high.

Also you should get a good commission. Check the percentage offered. Good programs offer 50-60% commissions. Though high priced products seem quite lucrative due to apparent volume of money in commission but selling a high priced product may not be that easy task too. It is because the market for those may not be that large. So you need to select your product carefully.

One very important factor that is often ignored is your aptitude for the particular product. Select a product that you can associate your interests with. For example if you like gardening then a product that caters the gardening needs will be easier to sell than a selling a real estate product.

Because in sales first of all you need to be convinced about the usability and benefits of the product before you attempt to sell it. If the product is around the area of your interest you can easily identify the beneficial aspects. Then you will find it easier to convince your potential customers.

Study the market and demand for that product.

If the demand is high the sales are easier. To study the demand go to Overture or Google and look for the search made around the keywords of your product. It will give you a fair idea about the demand.

Plan your market strategies beforehand.

It is better if you make your own website instead of promoting the copy of the original page laced with your link. Having your own website gives you a unique identification and professional look. The other advantage is that you can promote multiple products on the same page rather than promoting different pages separately.

Web hosting is quite cheap now a days and webpage can be easily built in front page.

Try and give your full efforts into promoting what you have got. Affiliate programs are good way to learn the market tactics. Learn and try them best to your abilities.

Stick with the product you have chosen instead of jumping to the new offer of some other product. New products are being released everyday but being new does not mean that it is better and easier to sell.

Analyze regularly. Test regularly and keep working.

Your commission graph would definitely rise.

Wish you success.

By Arun Pal Singh

8 Basic Rules for Choosing The Right Affiliate Program

2008-06-30T00:02:00.017-07:00

Joining an Affiliate Program is a great way to start earning a sizeable income on the Internet without many of the hassles that come with running your own business.

But the problem is? there are so much affiliate programs out there for you. In this article I will guide you to choose the most suitable and profitable Affiliate Program for you. I recommend you to follow this rule before choosing an Affiliate Program.

1. Find a great quality product or service

Remember that any recommendation you make will reflect directly on you. If you recommend a great quality product, the people you recommended will always trusted you and be interested in future recommendations that you make. If you recommend a bad quality product, and I'll guarantee that they will likely hesitate to act on any offers you recommend.

Don't get greedy. Only recommend products that you truly believe in.

2. Look for a program that offers top commissions.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to expect to be paid 30% to 50% of the profits on each product sold. 5% to 10% is very low. You should look for companies who understand the "lifetime value" of new customers you refer and appreciate your efforts.

Only consider joining programs that show a similar level of respect for their affiliates.

3. Make sure they have a high sales conversion ratio

Make sure that the affiliate program is turning a reasonable number of visitors into sales. If not, then your efforts directing traffic to their website will be completely wasted. A 1% conversion ratio (1 out of every 100 visitors) is quite good, 2%+ is better.

4. Be sure you'll be credited for every sales you make

You should find out what kind of tracking software the Affiliate Program that you're interested in joining uses. You MUST look for a program that uses quality affiliate tracking software that is reliable and tracks ALL (online, by phone, fax, mail orders, etc), because there are many companies only track online orders, and this means that you will never get credit for anywhere from 5% - 10% of your affiliate sales!.

Make sure they have a high sales conversion ratio and a good tracking software.

5. They should allow you to access your sales statistics real time

What I mean is that the Affiliate Program you join should give you a special username and password that you can use to access your own personal affiliate sales information right on their website. Many affiliate programs have done this, you don't have to worry about that, but incase they don't, you should reconsider to join them.

6. Look for a program that teaches you to maximize your affiliate sales

A good affiliate program will provide you with everything you need to be successful. They'll provide you with traffic-generating banners, text-links, and recommendation letter templates. They'll tell you which techniques work well in which circumstances.

Find an affiliate program that is similarly dedicated to educating their affiliates.

7. Make sure they are reputable.

I still feel I should mention the importance of doing business with a reputable company. I know many people who have worked really hard, made a lot of sales for a company, but then they have never been paid or forced to wait months and months to get their money, I've been there too. If you have any concerns about a company that you are thinking of doing business with, ask for references and do some checks on them before you join them.

8. Be sure to read all contracts and agreements.

Before you join any affiliate program, just make sure that you read all contracts and agreements very carefully. Pay very close attention to exclusivity clauses in the agreement. Be careful that any affiliate agreement or contract you sign does not restrict you.

By Syahriansyah

Why Top-earning Affiliates Have Their Own Domains And Websites

2008-06-30T00:02:00.015-07:00

Many affiliate programs usually provide special web pages for their affiliates. This is one of the reasons why it may appear very strange, at first, that most top affiliates and the high earners from affiliate programs will most certainly always have their own websites, complete with their own domains specifically for promoting a certain affiliate program that they are involved in.

Why should these affiliates spend the extra money for a website, and even a domain name that both come with their own heavy demands when they already have so much visibility already through an affiliate program website? Actually there are a number of reasons.

Having your own website and domain will tend to attract more traffic than an affiliate site

A domain is bound to attract much more traffic than a long affiliate address. When surfers see what looks like a registered domain name, they will tend to take the site much more seriously than if they were to see the rather long affiliate website address. The affiliate can even ensure that they select a name that will be quickly picked up by search engines to give the site a high ranking.

It is possible to carefully monitor where the traffic is coming from

One of the major weaknesses of the vast majority of ordinary affiliate websites lies in the fact that it is not possible to analyze traffic and establish exactly where it is coming from. You would need to install some code and most affiliate sites do not give access to codes of the pages that they supply to their affiliates. The result is that folks are forced to operate blindly. Even as they instigate various advertising methods to get traffic to their sites, there is really no way they can track their visitors.

One of the most effective Internet marketing methods calls for the constant analysis of your traffic to establish where they have come from. The idea here is to find further ways and means of reaching that particular market niches. In this way you will find that your site traffic is constantly on the increase.

It becomes possible to harvest email addresses

With your very own affiliate website, it becomes a lot easier to collect names and email addresses from visitors to the affiliates independent website. It is usually not possible to do this from an affiliate website. When you do not do this, you fail to make efficient and maximum use of the leads you generate through your website and from all the marketing efforts you make to attract traffic. A person harvesting email addresses and building an opt-in email list is bound to make much more sales from lower traffic than a person with a much larger volume of traffic who does not build an opt-in email list.

It has been established that buyers usually need to be exposed to any product or service that you are advertising, several times before they can make a decision to buy. Emails are a great way to do this, and the only legal way to send out mass email is through permission marketing of using safe lists or your very own opt-in email list. This is a list of persons who have opted in to receive the latest updates and developments. This is naturally the more effective option.

There are various ways of harvesting email addresses from regular visitors to your affiliate website. You can offer an amazing free e-course or offer to send them some free fascinating software in return for their email address that you can then use to market to them again and again. It really is not surprising that top affiliates and top earners from affiliate programs insist on having their own websites and domains.

By Lois S.

Article Marketing 101 For Affiliate Program Managers

2008-06-30T00:02:00.013-07:00

This article is for Affiliate Program Managers: Interested in increasing the amount of revenue that each of your affiliates creates for your business? Read on to learn about how to use your existing articles to grow your affiliate program strength.

From an affiliate perspective, there are only a few 'deal breaker' type things that I insist any affiliate program that I join must provide me:

Real-time reporting statistics

Real-time email alerts upon each sale

Payment on a consistent monthly basis

High price-point products

Package of articles that I can reprint on my websites and ezines

One strategy that many newbie affiliate program designers fail to offer is a package of articles that can be reprinted on my website along with my unique affiliate link. Of the tens of thousands of dollars I'll do this year as an affiliate, you would be shocked at how much of the revenue comes directly from reprinting articles of the affiliate programs I am involved in. This strategy works for me and it can work for you!

Here's what to do:

Designate 10, 25, 50, 75 or 100 articles that will be made available to your affiliates as a dump (meaning all at once and immediately).

Provide them with 3-10 articles per month thereafter that they can reprint along with their affiliate link.

Be certain to spell out the reprint rights of this type of affiliate article marketing so that your articles don't show up on bad websites you wouldn't want to associate with.

Here's what NOT to do:

Allow your articles to be private labeled. This is a poor strategy and will dilute your credibility. They should carry your name or the name of your primary author brand.

Don't give out all of your articles for your affiliates to use. Best to designate a specific "lot" of them that can be used by your affiliates and the rest are yours to keep exclusively for your direct sales audience.

Why this type of article marketing is important for affiliate program managers and affiliates:

Articles are like "sales agents" in that they keep selling for you, day after day, year after year. They also help expand your reach as each article gets indexed by the major search engines. Lastly, they give you another reason to send an email to your list members about the articles available.

This is a credibility builder for the affiliate program manager and it's a "Give" before the "Take" which begins the reciprocation cycle in a positive direction.

Note For Affiliates Who Use Articles To Promote Their Affiliate Programs:

Some sites (like ours at http://EzineArticles.com/ ) don't accept articles that promote affiliate programs, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go find other sites that do accept articles that promote affiliate program links. I really meant this article to speak directly to affiliate program managers and not the needs of affiliate marketers.

To save you the trouble of sending me an email to ask why EzineArticles.com doesn't accept articles that promote affiliate programs, there are three reasons:

1) Because we don't accept articles that are available on a non-exclusive basis (meaning we only want to see original or exclusive licensed content) and...

2) Because affiliate marketers are not our ideal author profile type and...

3) Because most ezine publishers don't want to reprint articles that pitch an affiliate link. One of the primary purposes of our site is to be a resource for ezine publishers to find supplemental content for their next email newsletter.

With that said, there are plenty of competitor article sites that will allow you to submit your affiliate-link-laced articles, not to mention listing them on your own website.

Bottom line: If you offer an affiliate program to promote your products and services, consider immediately offering a package of articles that your affiliates can add to their website or send to their email newsletter lists to further promote your business.

By Christopher M. Knight

Affiliate Marketing Secrets that You Can Use

2008-06-30T00:02:00.011-07:00

Affiliate marketing is a very hot topic on the web right now. Not surprising when you consider the fact that a vast majority of successful online entrepreneurs make their money from affiliate schemes and programs. Since the early days when Amazon was being set up and founder, Jeff Bezos was establishing affiliates as key marketing tools for any online enterprise, affiliates and affiliate marketing has come of age.

The amounts of income being made have clearly transformed affiliate marketing into a very serious business. There are more and more affiliates comfortably raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars every month.

The first important affiliate marketing secret to bear in mind is the reason why affiliate marketing remains the most effective way of marketing any online enterprise. It is all about the power of the referral. It is rather awkward when a website is trying to promote itself directly to prospects. Actually very different from the situation where somebody else refers the business to others, including people they do not know personally.

This works out superbly for several reasons. Firstly the affiliate as a consumer themselves is able to quickly identify the strong attractive points of the business that will best attract others like them.

The other little known affiliate marketing secret is that most of the top-earning affiliates have their own websites and blogs. Having their own websites gives these affiliates a tremendous edge over others. The sites are usually very closely related to the affiliate program that they are promoting. By having their own site, they are able to harvest the email addresses of the traffic to their sites.

Usually, most people you send to your affiliate site will not end up purchasing anything. However when you have their email addresses in your opt-in email list, you can continuously market to them and the affiliate will automatically end up with a much higher conversion rate from the traffic they generate as opposed to an affiliate without a website who just sends traffic to their affiliate website.

This is the affiliate marketing secret that makes a difference between affiliates struggling to pull in a good income and those comfortably making hundreds of thousands of dollars.

By Lois S.

Free Keyword Research Tools Are Not As Effective as Wordtracker

2008-06-30T00:02:00.009-07:00

One of the most unanswered questions online today is, how to perform keyword research that gets free traffic from the search engines. Many SEO experts recommends using one keyword or keyword phrase per page, while others recommends using secondary keywords with your main keyword.

My philosophy is simple, you simply use both methods and check to see which method works best. You will also have to draw the line and recognize which is working best and continue with that method.

For me, I love to use one keyword phrase for review pages and for content pages I use secondary keywords with my main keyword, making the theme of that page much more search engine friendly. Our job is to please the spiders as well as our visitors.

My advice for newcomers is to build our first page using only a free tool such as GoodKeywords. I did the same with my first site, which ranked very highly for my choosen keyword phrases, due to the fact that the competition wasn't very high and I also didn't use the highly targeted keywords found in the search results.

Now, I must admit that I wanted to take my keyword research to higher heights and even discover a niche of my own with very little competition, and that is where free keyword research tools fails. They don't supply enough data for you to analyze if your keywords are actually worth while or highly competitive.

That is where, wordtracker and KRA comes into play. Wordtracker is the number one keyword research tool online, has been for many years and still is. Those who generate five figure monthly commission checks with affiliate programs knows the importance of wordtracker and just can't live without it.

KRA, is a tool by SEO expert Andy Williams that you can use to filter out secondary keywords and related phrases. If your into optimizing your pages for better search engines result, then I highly recommend you get yourself a copy.

You can reap the benefits of online keyword research by using these tools, and stop fiddling around with free tools. Free tools are for beginners who are testing the waters. It is now time for you to join the rank of professional marketers and stop hoping for success.

The best feeling you can get from your online marketing is when you make that first sale, and it doesn't matter how big it is. Stop targeting the wrong keywords and start building much more profitable content pages that only the smart marketers are targeting.

My final words: If a keyword research tool is so good, then why would you create a tool with an import possibility for wordtracker data?

About the author:

By Alexander Marlin, Ebenezer St. Maarten A.N

How To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions!

2008-06-30T00:02:00.007-07:00

So you've joined an affiliate program, but really haven't figured out where you should start? Here are 12 great tips to get you started on your feet and enjoying the new year.

Here are 12 Awesome Ways To increase Your Affiliate Commissions!

Participate in web discussion boards and online forums. When I first joined an affiliate program, I read as much information as possible in the discussion boards http://www.sfidboard.com. This is a great discussion board to lurk in and understand the affiliate program and how things work.Once you get enough confidence to post your own comments, try a forum more like a Home Business Forum. This forum lets you include a link to your web site and any personal signature you choose, but is monitored. I included my web site link under my comment so that other could click on the link if they chose. Best part was that the search engine spiders took notice too.

Advertise your link in your signature file with every email you write.Use an attention-grabbing headline for them to visit your affiliate site. Also make sure your signature file doesn't get too big.

Your link should look something like this:
--
Jennifer Schilling
email address here
http://www.thinkingfaster.com
http://www.internet-business-success.biz
http://www.internet-business-opportunities.biz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why build JUST a Web site,
When You COULD Build a Business?
http://www.thinkingfaster..com/successsite.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your link should look like this http://www.internet-business-success.biz/free.html. By redirecting your affiliate number and making your address be part of your web site, you will not loose out on any affiliate commissions.

Create unique affiliate program ads and your own banners if possible. If every other affiliate is using the same ad you are using, many web visitors may leave your web site quicker than you think. Give yourself an edge over your competition, by making an ad that makes your website stand out from the others.

Use a personal testimonial ad. You should only use this if you've actually bought the product or service. Tell people what kind of results and benefits you've received using the product. This can be VERY powerful.

Trade links with other webmasters who are promoting the same types of products you are promoting. You want to attract the same type of people that would be interested in buying the product you're reselling.

Some advantages might include more traffic for you and the other webmasters. Once your website gets ranked by Google, you will find more and more webmasters requesting link exchanges to your website.

.Create a newsletter or an electronic magazine (e-zine) advertising your website. Use your newsletter to advertise the affiliate programs you've joined. Or offer a free e-book in your newsletter with the advertisement and links of your affiliate web site. The free e-book should draw your target audience to down-load it instantly. You can also submit your newsletter to directories and start a traffic virus getting people to visit your website.

Offer free online services, utilities or useful website links from your web site. They could be search engine submissions, language translations, web site tune ups. Make sure that the service or utility that you are offering them is something you would personally use and is of an interest to your website. There, make sure to add as many of your affiliate links as possible so that people can see them and click on them.

Start your own affiliate program directory. If you have joined more than one affiliate program, list them all in a directory format on your web site. Advertise your free affiliate program directory to others so that they will want to be part of your directory as well.

Write articles and submit them to websites that do accept them is another great way to drive more traffic and increase your affiliate commissions. The MOST important thing to do is to add a "resource box" in the bottom of every article that you write. This has been used and proven to work by all top marketing gurus online.THIS is BY FAR the most effective way to increase your backlinks!

Make sure you practice good follow up skills and get back to all of your affiliates within 24 hours or sooner. If you are available to them, they will want to stick around. You will be able to answer questions just like you do with your own affiliate mentors. Copyright 2004 Jennifer Schilling

By Jennifer Schilling

Affiliate Marketing--Huh?

2008-06-30T00:02:00.005-07:00

In my search for a presence on the internet, I searched many avenues, but was finding more scams and dead ends than I would care to speak about.

It was one last scam and six months of my presence on the internet that I realized that the only way I could possibly make a living on the internet -- and gain any amount of satisfaction --was to work for myself. Duh! But how? Affiliate Marketing seemed to be the answer.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the promotion of another person's or company's product, in which you get a percentage of the profit if a sale is made. That doesn't sound so hard, does it? Well -- it's doeable if you have the information you need to get you started in this field -- and it is work. So let me begin the enlightenment.

First and foremost, you need passion?

What is Passion?

Passion is a feeling that you have -- a feeling that is so strong that it is your driving force in doing it.

As you can see, passion is needed in any venture if you want to succeed. With passion, it will drive you forward through the hard times, the bad times, and the good times when developing your business.

This passion thing, I must admit, was my first stumbling block. I believed I didn't have a passion for anything -- and feared that maybe, just maybe, the corporate world and it 70 hour work weeks may have consumed my passion.

However, I was not willing to give up. Not yet. I searched out sites, read articles, examined web sites -- in search of my passion. Then one day, in the middle of my research, I heard myself asking probing questions of -- Why? Where? When? How? My passion was found.

Research, curiosity and learning -- my strengths and my driving assets. My creation -- "My Affiliate Place", was born. It would be a place where an affiliate marketer or a want-to-be affiliate marketer could find information, articles, and free tools.

So, I say to you, if I can find my hidden passion, you can too.

Onward and upward --with my passion defined, I needed a web site.

Web site! Do I need one?

Many people say you can do affiliate marketing without a web site -- however, with a web site you can promote more than one product and reach a greater number of people with the same interests. And last but not least, marketing is the act of connecting with people -- and on the internet -- a web site is your vehicle.

Web Site Is Built. Now What!

Now that your web site is built, you will need to begin the promotion process. There are many avenues in which you can venture. To name a few:

1. safelists

2. ezines

3. classified ads

4. writing articles

5. Off-line advertising -- brochures, flyers

6. Search engine optimization -- To get help in this area, go to my web site at: www.myaffiliateplace.biz/affiliate_info -- to begin your optimization process.

As you can see, advertising is only limited by your own imagination.

To conclude, affiliate marketing is a viable way to begin your journey on the internet and to your own business. But as you know, with anything that is worth having, you must work diligently and passionately, and continue to grow and learn -- if success is to be yours.

To your success.

By Vickie J Scanlon

Affiliate Programs : Golden Opportunity or Waste of Time?

2008-06-30T00:02:00.003-07:00

Now that the idea of doing business over the internet has been firmly established, many potential internet businessmen are searching for the best way to do business. Usually the choice comes down to whether you want to set up your own business and online store, or sign up for an affiliate program.

First of all, let's define what we mean by an affiliate program. An affiliate program is basically an internet business set up by someone else. They could be selling physical goods, education, information or any other products that can be sold online. By signing up as their affiliate, you are helping them promote their business or store. In return, they will pay you a commission for each sale you bring them. The amount of commission varies between different affiliate programs. Examples of affiliate programs include Amazon.com and Wordtracker.

1) EARNINGS

So how does an affiliate program differ from starting your own online store? Let's start by looking at the potential earnings. (After all, the main reason everyone wants to start an internet business is for the money). When you sign up for an affiliate program, you will be paid a commission for each sale you refer to the online store. This commission can range from 5% to 15% for physical products, and possibly up to 50% or more for virtual products such as subscriptions and ebooks.

On the other hand, if you start your own store, your profit can be much higher. For virtual products, your profit can be 100% of your selling price. After all, once the newsletter or ebook is created, you do not need to spend any more effort. When someone buys your ebook, they just download it from your website. If you are selling a physical product, your profit depends on whether you are manufacturing the product yourself, or buying from a wholesaler or dropshipping company. Your profit in this case could easily be more than 40% or 50%.

So, if you only consider the potential earnings, starting your own business is more lucrative than joining an affiliate program.

2) LOGISTICS

However, money isn't everything (Or so they say). When you are starting your own internet business, there are a number of logistic issues you need to look at. Here are a few things you would need to take care of:

a) Create your website

b) Design your product (if you are selling new products)

c) Create your product (if you are selling new physical products, or any virtual products)

d) Set up an online store

e) Set up a merchant account or payment gateway

f) Set up a warehouse or storage space (if you are selling physical products)

g) Have procedures and staff ready to fulfill orders

h) Set up an affiliate program to get others to market the products for you

i) Monitor for fraud

j) Monitor stock levels

As they say, "No pain, no gain". Having your own store pays very well, but requires a substantial time investment from you.

On the other hand, if you sign up for an affiliate program, all you need to do is set up a website to promote the program. All the ads, banners, marketing text etc will be provided to you by the affiliate program. Your only responsibilities would be to get people to visit your website, and hopefully click on the affiliate links to buy the products that you are promoting.

3) CONVERSION

Whether you have your own business or are promoting an affiliate program, the bottom line is the conversion rate, or the percentage of visitors that actually buy something from you. A number of factors influence this conversion rate. Factors as quality of the product, quality of the website, customer support are all important. However, I personally believe that the most important factor is trust.

When a potential customer arrives at your website, he will need to trust your site enough for him to be willing to buy from you. After all, on the internet you are just a faceless salesman. He doesn't know who is actually running the site and whether he will actually get the goods that he orders.

Having said that, one of the key methods of garnering trust is by recommendation and referral. If a store is being referred to or recommended by another website, the potential customer will feel that the store is trustworthy. After all, if the store is not trustworthy, why would the other website recommend it?

This is where affiliate programs shine. When you refer a potential customer to the store for which you are an affiliate, the customer will feel more relieved, since the store is being recommended by your site, a 3rd party. The customer will be more likely to buy from the store, benefiting both the store, and you as well.

There are both pros and cons to joining an affiliate program. You might earn less with an affiliate program compared to starting your own store, but I believe the benefits of not having to be responsible for the logistics makes affiliate programs are very viable "passive" source of income.

By Steven

Choosing An Affiliate Marketing Program

2008-06-30T00:02:00.001-07:00

If you are new to affiliate marketing, you are probably overwhelmed with the number of programs available out there for you to join and promote. This article will provide a guideline to help you choose the right affiliate program for yourself.

In deciding what affiliate marketing program you would like to join, you should choose a product that you are interested in. The success of how well you do in this program will depend on how good you are at marketing the product. If the product is something you have no interest in or know nothing about, this will be reflected.

Also in regards to choosing the right program, you should pick one that can be easily marketed. If you become the affiliate of a product that only you and the product owner is interested in , you will not make any money and have a hard time getting people to sign up.

After you have chosen a product that you like and can market, if would be a good idea to investigate more closely the affiliate program that is being offered. If the product has a successful number of affiliates who are generally happy with things, then you can consider joining this program. However, if the affiliates of a particular program are disgruntled have many complaints about the company, then you should stay away from this company. This is why it is important to receive feedback from other affiliates.

Also this would be a good time to mention that it is not a good idea to choose a program with thousands of affiliates. This is because the market will be saturated with them, and instead of signing up or buying your product; the customer will just ignore one of many hundreds of ads they have seen before. There is one affiliate program that comes to mind! However, it is best to sign up with an affiliate marketing program that is not too saturated but has been stable for a few months.

Of course the best piece of advice about becoming an affiliate is to market and promote continuously. This could mean either offline or online types of promotion. Many affiliate programs will provide marketing tools to their affiliates such as banners and text links. You can use these everywhere to encourage people to buy the product. How good you are at marketing will determine how successful you are with your affiliate program.

Until The Next Time,

By Dr. J. Elisha Burke

Affiliate Marketing at a Glance: Helpful Hints

2008-06-30T00:01:00.017-07:00

Regarded as one of the choice Internet marketing systems offered to small businesses, affiliate marketing has caught the attention of accomplished entrepreneurs across the globe. With virtually no risk involved in the affiliate marketing game, payment is made only after results are provided. That is one of the several reasons that this form of trade has such a high level of popularity. And with a considerable number of programs currently available online, it is critical to make yours shine brightly above all other professional affiliate marketing systems.

Those with affiliate marketing expertise can easily secure an income of five figures per month. However, less than 5 percent of all individuals involved in these affiliate programs reach this milestone. A huge blunder that many affiliate potentials make is trying to merchandise too many products instead of concentrating on one particular market. In lieu of dispersing your endeavors, focus on your passion, advertise it, and sell it to the best of your abilities.

It is your responsibility to research the product or services that you are offering to the public. With the information you gather, you can produce a resource that builds your credibility with future customers and fellow affiliates. When you have the confidence of your peers, you are building trust in the world of affiliate marketing.

Once you have decided the affiliate market you are interested in, it is time to actively recruit partners. It is in your best interest to find individuals that have already developed traffic and would profit from your offer. You should provide your partners with promotional material, and make their affiliate marketing job as fun and easy as possible. Always keep in contact with your partners, and be sure to deliver updates or changes on products and services. It is also advisable to send tips on how to be successful in the marketing environment.

Promotion is a major component in any form of marketing. Several top affiliates use pay-per-click search engines. However, use these search engines with caution. If you don't know what you are doing you may lose money. It is best if you discover how to obtain natural search results or employ a search engine marketing firm.

Becoming a marketing guru is definitely not something that will happen overnight. Affiliate marketing takes research, motivation, and most of all, patience. But, as with all things, in the end it is all worth it.

To keep yourself motivated and to receive more helpful information about the nuts and bolts of starting and maintaining a profitable online business subscribe to one or more online e-zines and read every line of every issue. There are also many e-books and e-courses full of step-by-step, how-to instructions to help you get started in this profitable business.

Until The Next Time,

By Dr. J. Elisha Burke

Three Critical Affiliate Marketing Tips For Higher Commissions!

2008-06-30T00:01:00.015-07:00

Affiliate marketing is quickly becoming a very specialized form of online business. It seems that people all over the Internet are clamoring for more affiliate tips. And there are a ton of products, services, ebooks, ultra-high priced DVD sets, and a plethora of other "things" geared for affiliate marketing.

So, the question of the moment is how do you weed through this avalanche of "stuff" and find out what actually works. Because, after it's all said and done, the name of the game is making a living from affiliate marketing.

There are plenty of strategies and tips. There are plenty of people telling you which way is best and which way you absolutely should not do. Funny thing is, the things you should do don't work sometimes and the things you shouldn't do, work sometimes. It's really anyone's guess at what works and what doesn't.

However, there are three critical affiliate tips that you should take heed of and use on a consistent basis.

Affiliate marketing is built around content

Do you really want to make a name for yourself in affiliate marketing? Do you want a long lasting online business? Then you have to take very seriously this first critical tip.

Content is what drives affiliate sales. Period. You can advertise as much as you want, in as many different places that you want, but at the end of the day, it's the content on your site that will make the sale. Notice I said "your" site.

Affiliate marketing becomes a very lucrative form of business when you have your own website. A website that contains timely, relevant, and informative content. This content can be in the form of articles, product reviews, industry news, interviews with key people, or whatever people will want to keep coming back for.

Ken Evoy of Site Built It!(buildit.sitesell.com/glimmersales.html) says that content is the only way to Pre-sell your site visitors. I whole heartedly agree. Content will effectively pre-sell your visitors, that you work so hard to advertise to, into taking action... clicking through to the merchant and ka-ching... making you commission.

Affiliate marketing is made stronger through your list

Any type of online marketing depends heavily on a way to keep in frequent touch with previous website visitors. Having an ezine, newsletter, or other type of e-mailing list is a key component to affiliate marketing. A strong list of subscribers is a gold mine for savvy publishers.

The key to making an ezine work for you though is, again, strong, quality, and relevant content. Something that people will want to keep reading on a continuing basis. A weekly, or bi-weekly ezine can easily boost your affiliate commissions sky high by placing a few links within the content or as a product review or special recommendation.

Again, please note the use of "a few". Many ezine publishers just don't seem to get the idea of "a few". That means one to two affiliate links within the whole ezine. The key to publishing an ezine is to establish contact and grow a relationship with your subscriber. Not force affiliate links down their throat. When you can build a strong relationship with subscribers, they will be more likely to listen to your advice, your suggestions, and your recommendations.

An example of this would be Alan Gardyne of AssociatePrograms.com. His newsletter is crammed full of great tips and case studies of successful affiliates and what they are doing. He has grown a great list of over 22,000 subscribers who he can actually call a friend. Why? Because he has never crammed affiliate links down the throats of his subscribers. But, each and every issue of his ezine earns him thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions.

If you don't have an ezine, start one. If you do then take a hard look at it and see if you're using too many ads and not enough content.

Affiliate marketing depends on strategic linking partners

Search engines like Google, MSN, and Yahoo! are looking hard at sites and one of the criteria for high rankings is how many relevant links to your site there are. Meaning is there any other sites out there that are linking to you. This is very important for affiliate marketing websites.

And another reason why content is so important.

Every day I set aside one full hour of time in my day to research and email potential linking partners. Once I find someone who's site is comparable to mine I will email them, by name, and present my proposal. Keep in mind they do not have to link back to you. So, you must make it appealing. Either by reciprocating with a link to their site, a special comission for everyone they refer who buys from you, or some other way of enticing them to link to you.

Now, just any site will not do you any good. They must be relevant to your particular niche. For example, a fishing oriented website would not benefit, either by traffic or search engine rankings, by having a diet site link back to them.

Content, mailing list, link partners. Easy, right?

It is, but it takes time and dedication. You can create a very profitable affiliate program. Anyone can do it. But, it depends on you. Are you dedicated enough to do it?

Use these three critical affiliate marketing steps in your online business and you'll see an immediate increase in your bottom line.

By Tim Bossie

5 Affiliate Marketing Facts of Life

2008-06-30T00:01:00.013-07:00

Affiliate Marketing (AM) is fast becoming a major trend in line business. With the internet still in its adolescent years, it has already established itself as an extremely viable career opportunity, bridging the advertising gap for companies, while providing much sought-after work at home revenue.

With the boom in affiliate marketing, however, there is a growing wave of new marketers that become easily discouraged when the initial hype wears off and they don't understand what to expect in the business. For those just entering the arena, here are a few Facts Of Life about Affiliate Marketing:

1) YOU WILL HAVE TO INVEST SOME MONEY

Affiliate marketing being a hybrid of the independent contractor & the self-employed small business owner, it is inevitable that some money be invested. While a contractor might earn a base pay + commission, they also have little or no control over product, promotion or price. And, while a self-employed owner controls all these, they also pay all the bills.

But an AM is neither. They don't control price nor, once they sign up, product. But they do control promotion. And, unlike a self-employed worker, they bear only a fraction of the costs. The advertising fraction.

So, the bad news is affiliate marketers do have to invest some money, at some point, even in the best programs or scenerios. But this has also become a growing trend in all sales positions, as well as positions in all industries. Many positions include a certain amount of investment. Any job that requires a uniform, for example, means investing in special clothes. Plus most realtors must pay for their own advertising.

The good news is that, unlike other sales positions (but similar to small business), the AM controls that cost because they decide on which advertisements to invest.

The best news is that many companies, like Plug-in-Profits (http://trackermo.com/pips.html), now offer great affiliate support and will guide the new AM until they understand the business and can stand on their own two feet.

2) YOU WILL HAVE TO INVEST SOME TIME

Affiliate marketing works on the slide-rule effect. That is, the more effort the AM invests, the richer the dividends. And, like a microcosm of a career, the AM works their tail off in the beginning-- then works less and less as their sales build. But this can be measured in months, rather than years (thus, the mirocosm).

Still, many enter the AM arena thinking all they have to do is sign up as an affiliate, then sit back and reap the rewards. And that's just when they should be getting busy. The rewards will come, but not until they've put in their time.

The bad news here is to expect to eat, drink and sleep marketing-- at first.

The good news is that, according to experts in the field, an affiliate can expect to see a return on their investment within the first 3-9 months, depending on how much time they spend at it.

3) YOU WILL GET BURNED ONCE OR TWICE

It's inevitable. Either by paying astronomical fees for hosting, for leads or for some other service (not to mention, the existence of scams), it happens. That's why "expert" and "experience" have the same root word. It takes experience to know what's going on, how to spot a scam, and to know a good opportunity when it arrives.

The good news is, experience is the best teacher of all. And a new AM will soon learn from their mistakes.

4) YOU WILL HAVE TO UPDATE YOURSELF

The internet has been called the most fluid industry ever. That's a poetic way of saying it changes faster and more often than a body of water. Engineers call it expotential growth, though it's more reminiscent of growth on a cellular level: Rather like a baby starting as two single cells and, in short nine months, becoming a fully formed infant. Or, like a pyramid scheme that really works!

Whatever the analogy, the point is the internet is constantly, incessantly, (sometimes annoyingly) changing. What was vital two years ago (SE placement, keywords, Pay-Per-Click), is now becoming passe, replaced by new types of more effective marketing techniques (PowerLinking, Opt-in lists, pay-per-buy).

All of which leads to--

5) YOU MUST BE PRO-ACTIVE

To keep the revenues up, AMs must find good resources to monitor the business. Newsletters, forums and affiliate resource pages all become vital to watching the latest trends. They are filled with the latest information, the latest ideas and the newest concepts in advertising.

Also, in the case of the AM with their own website, that must be updated occasionally, too while the affiliate landing page will be updated by the company. But when an AM opts for their own page, they must be aware that every few months or years, a new enhancement takes off. Right now, the latest is audio and or animated spokespeople.

Once an affiliate marketer arms themself with these facts of life, they have a very good chance of succeeding in this new arena.

By Marige O'Brien

Affiliate Marketing Step... Set Yourself Apart from the Rest.

2008-06-30T00:01:00.011-07:00

I'm sure you've heard the expression, "This is where you separate the men from the boys."

It's usually used when you're faced with some ridiculous stunt like jumping off a bridge with a rubber band tied to your foot. Or when you're staring at a sheer cliff with nothing to climb up it but your hands and feet. Or when you have a job walking around six inch beams 200 feet up in the air.

Yeah, I'd say that would be some severe separation.

We can use the same expression for affiliate marketing also.

The real men (and women) are the ones that can set themselves apart from the rest of the pack, make a name for themselves, and start making new trends. The boys and girls are the ones that follow and try to pick up the scraps left over.

How do you set yourself apart to start building a long lasting, profitable affiliate business?

True affiliate marketing success lies within creating your own product.

I know that sounds like a strange tip for people involved in affiliate marketing, where you sell other people's products. But, if you take some time to look around at the most successful people in the affiliate marketing world you'll see one major difference between them and the rest. Or the men from the boys.

They all have their own product, or products.

You're probably asking yourself, "Doesn't this defeat the whole affiliate marketing concept?" Actually it strengthens it.

Set Yourself Apart for Affiliate Success

More than anything else, having your own product to sell sets yourself apart from the rest of the field. Most affiliates try to get by with the ads and articles that are supplied by the merchant. Some will buy Google Adwords in the hope of turning that traffic into commissions. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

Having an ebook, software, membership site, print newsletter, or whatever other product, or service, you can think of will leverage your affiliate business exponentially. You are no longer a follower, but someone who visitors will see as one that is trustworthy and determined to stay in business, not just collect a quick buck.

Increased Reach Through Your Mailing List

Your own product means more subscribers. More subscribers means more reach to place reviews of affiliate products, small ads, and recommendations of products.

Expert Notoriety

This is more of a side effect from having a larger mailing list. You are perceived as an expert and your recommendations will be taken more seriously. It's a lot different than being a nobody and having a few articles about a topic linking to an affiliate product.

Trend Setter

A majority of our population here on earth don't like to be first in line. They like to follow. Let them follow you. Be a trend setter in developing new products to teach or help others.

If I could give you one magical affiliate marketing tip it would be to create your own product. A short, well thought out and informative ebook can do more for your affiliate marketing business than any automated software or DVD package every will.

By Tim Bossie

Are Affiliate Riches Within Your Grasp? Discover How to Cash in Starting Today

2008-06-30T00:01:00.009-07:00

There is some speculation about how much money you can earn online without your own product. Although marketing your own digital product on the Internet can be very lucrative, there is no reason why you and I can't profit mightily using creative methods that offer real value to Internet surfers. Here are five simple ways you can start exploding your online income through affiliate programs starting today.

1. Write marketing articles filled with valuable, practical advice and back-end them with free viral special reports promoted through article resource boxes. You can also capture e-mail addresses via an autoresponder address in your resource box as well.

What creative incentive can you give people to pass on your viral ebook? What methods aren't other people using? Catch their eye with powerful, information-rich article content and then blow their minds with a killer incentive that gets them sharing your ebooks with everyone! Simply tie multi-tier affiliate links into your ebook content and start earning more and more commission every time it is given away.

2. Create a "super-affiliate" blog or website. If you're strapped for cash, you can start out with your own blog. Forget what doesn't work and add valuable marketing information to your website or blog on a regular basis, and make sure you allow people to use your articles (and other viral marketing materials) as long as they don't change any of the article content.

If there are affiliate links within the text, allow them to change your links to theirs, thereby giving them an incentive to carry your articles in their ezines or on their websites or blogs. Try to come up with unusual ways to keep people coming back, and never promote products that you wouldn't buy yourself.

3. Become a special report specialist. Write informative special reports that are five to twenty pages in length, and develop creative methods to get people giving them away for free. Tie in multi-tier affiliate links, as well as links to recurring and residual income opportunities.

A powerful viral special report is like a floating website that goes from person to person, earning you more and more money as it is spread all over the Internet. A great way to profit from this method is by creating special reports that are preludes to related informational products that others are selling.

4. Create your own affiliate directory. Only add affiliate programs that you would join, and put a creative spin on your directory as well. What makes your directory different from everyone else's? How can you monetize this directory using methods 1, 2, and 3? How can you monetize this directory with your own autoresponder and ezine?

5. Start your own Internet marketing forum. Give marketers a good reason to go there. Again, tie this concept into the above methods, and see how you can expand on these ideas as well! The secret is to create something of value that people can't do without!

These are five simple ways you can begin profiting in no time, even without your own product! Combine them in whatever manner you so choose and have fun as you grow more and more profitable online!

10 Things WalMart Teaches About Affiliate Marketing

2008-06-30T00:01:00.007-07:00

We already know about wal mart because of their ads in local papers, on billboards, on the radio and TV. So finding a local Wal Mart is easy, and so should it also be easy to find your web site. Although you may not need to use radio and TV advertisements, you should still use offline promotion such as business cards or direct mail. Naturally, you want other web sites to put your billboard ad onto theirs. So that's our first lesson on how Wal Mart can teach us effective affiliate marketing. Now let's visit a Wal Mart store.

Once we arrive at Wal Mart, we enter a huge parking lot. Your web site must also enable a lot of visitors. If your site is on a slow server, you may be losing customers. That's lesson #2.

As soon as we enter Wal Mart, we are welcomed by a Wal Mart greeter. This greeter not only welcomes us to the store, but also offers help in pointing out where to find what you're looking for. That's lesson 3a and 3b. Your site should welcome visitors and provide navigation to all the products and services you offer. You can do this by simply including a graphic on your page that says "Welcome, Click Here to find what you're looking for" and have that link go to your site map.

Beyond the greeter is a wide path that branches out to different areas of the store with banners overhead that tell you what you can find in those areas. Your site map should consist of main links, as well as sub-links to corresponding pages. Now we get to lesson 4, that each page of your site needs to have a topic, a main header, that defines what each page is about, as well as provide links, pathways to corresponding pages, because you'll notice that Wal-Mart arranges their store to group products that are similar. The hardware section is near the automotive center, housewares are near food items, lawn and garden items are near the hardware and pet supply areas, etc. But you can still get from one area to another.

As you browse the shelves, you see more than one type of item. If you're in the grocery section; for example, you'll see many different types of beans. Canned beans, dry beans, even beans from different companies. That's lesson #5. You should offer your site visitors more than one choice. If your site offers auto loans, for example, offer your visitors new auto loans, used auto loans, even auto refinancing loans. And, you may want to offer them more than one choice for each type of auto loan. Afterall, visitors came to your site because they are shopping around... so let them shop and choose from multiple options. Just remember not to stick cheese products in your automotive section!

Another thing you'll notice as you browse the shelves, which leads us to lesson #6... although the shelves are stocked full, it's still easy to pick out your favorite can of beans. This is because the shelves are stocked neatly and orderly. The ads you put onto your site should also be neat and orderly. Mixing in tall banners with short banners and having banners for totally different products and services can make shopping your site more difficult. For example, if you have a page about auto loans, you wouldn't want to put a tall auto loan banner right next to a short casino banner. Instead, put a tall auto insurance banner next to the tall auto loan banner.

As you roam the store, you frequently encounter employess who can help you find items. This goes back to lessons 3a and 3b. Each page of your site should have a help link to your site map, or you should have a site search.

Since Wal Mart makes it easy to find an employee to ask for assistance, that leads us to another lesson: Does you site offer customer service? Can visitors click on a button to ask you questions before they make a decision? Or do they simply exit your site?

Lesson #7: How many times have you heard announcements in Wal Mart? They frequently announce specials over their public address system. We are not suggesting that you force visitors to endure slow loading sound files. But you can make sound an option. To see how you can use this marketing option, go to www.geocities.com/pulsarmarketing

We have an example there on how you can offer your visitors the option to hear your audible promotion without forcing them to listen and making your pages load slow. All you have to do is create a wav sound file, and launch it by using a graphic or text link such as: "Click Here to listen to our promotion".

The personal touch of a person's voice on your site can help increase your conversions. But don't force the loading of sound files. Instead, use the method we recommend at the URL below:
www.geocities.com/pulsarmarketing

Another thing you can do to tell your site visitors about specials or new products and services your site offers, is to offer them a free subscription to your newsletter. Now that we've toured Wal Mart and we're ready to make our purchase, we know our way to the checkout counter because Wal Mart makes it easy for us. That's lesson #8. Your site needs to make it easy for visitors to purchase. If you do not provide any of your own products or services and strictly use affiliate programs, you need to make sure your relevant banners and text links are at the top of the page, clearly and readily visible, to the people visiting that page.

When we arrive at the checkout counter, besides asking us if we want paper or plastic and if we will be purchasing with cash or credit, the cashier asks if we found everything we needed. That's lesson #9. Make sure you offer your site visitors more options when they checkout. And, once again, if you do not directly sell your own products or services and you strictly use affiliate programs, you can offer your site visitors two links to click on: One link that opens the offer into a new window so the person may continue browsing your site after they are done applying or buying from your sponsor, and another link that simply goes directly to the sponsor in the same window.

Think we're done learning from Wal Mart? No. After we make our purchase, and even after we go home, there's lesson #10... the return policy. If you sell your own products or services, you need to assure your visitors that you stand behind what you sell, and make your return policy very clear. If you do not sell your own products and services, does your site have a way for customers to resolve problems, or to ask pre-sale questions? If not, you may lose customers to sites that do provide online customer service.

Learn How to Improve the Performance of your AdSense Account - Some New Features

2008-06-30T00:01:00.005-07:00

Google introduced some new features to AdSense account. When I checked its really useful, So I request to all adsense members to check below given points to increase your AdSense Revenue. This is equally important for Publishers who are going to join AdSense. If they read this points and put banner accordingly it would increase their Adsense income.

Tips for Maximizing Your Google AdSense Revenue.

These easy-to-implement tips to help you maximize your AdSense earnings potential.

1. Show your ads above the fold.
Placing ads above the fold (the section of your page that is visible without scrolling) will make the ads more readily visible to your visitors and increase the opportunity for clicks.

2. Try different ad formats.
Not all web pages are alike, so try using different ad formats to complement the varying layouts of your web pages. Google have a number of ad formats available for AdSense publishers, Choose one from that which is most suitable to your page.

3. Customize ad color combinations.
Try using custom color combinations for your ad units. This allows you to ensure that the text, background, and border colors of your ads complement your website. You can choose from a wide variety of colors to create your own custom color palettes, or select from over 20 pre-defined combinations. When using color palettes, follow below given points.

The background color of the ad the same as or similar to the background color of your page.

The border of the ad a color that is prominent on your page.

The title of the ad a color that is similar to the text on your page.

The URL of the ad a color similar to other link colors on your page.

For added variety and freshness, you can even choose to rotate through up to 4 different color palettes at a time. Visit http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=9981 for editing your ad colors and creating color palettes.

4. Allow the Google bot to access your site content.
To maximize your potential with AdSense, it is important that your site content is accessible to our content crawler. Certain mechanisms on your site may limit the amount of content we can crawl and use to generate ads:

Robots

If you have a robots.txt file, remove the file or add the following two lines to the top of the file:

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
Disallow:

This change will allow google bot to crawl the content of your site, so that google may provide you with the most relevant Google ads.

Frames

If your page uses frames, place the AdSense ad code within the frame containing content so that relevant ads can be served. Placing the ad code in an otherwise empty frame, or in a frame containing only graphics or dynamic content, will prevent google from gathering content and serving targeted ads.

Also, when generating ad layout code for pages with frames, be sure to select the Framed page checkbox on the Ad layout code page.

Login/Authentication requirements

Place AdSense ad code on web pages that do not require an account or password for access. Google crawlers aren't optimized to index pages that require a username and password, and as a result, relevant ads may not be served to these pages.

5. Filter out ads you don't want displayed on your site.
From within the Settings section of your account, AdSense gives you the ability to create a URL filter list. Adding a URL to your filter list will prevent ads from that URL from showing on your website. This is a quick and easy way to prevent competitors' and other unwanted ads from being served to your pages. Ads for the websites that you add to your filter list will not run on your site, but remember that filtering sites may decrease the number of ads that can appear on your pages as well as decrease your potential earnings.

For detailed instructions on how to create a URL filter list, please click here http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=9875

Please do not click on an ad to find its URL. This may be registered as fraudulent clicks in our system. learn more about how to find the actual URL, please visit http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=9876

6. Place AdSense ads on text-rich pages.
Add AdSense ad code to pages on your site that predominantly contain text. Only text is used to determine a page's content. Therefore, although Google's targeting technology is optimized to target ads to pages with frequently updated content, image-heavy pages or pages with dynamic media such as Macromedia Flash ? may not return relevant ads.

7. Create pages that are simple and clean.
People typically skim a website for less than a minute. Ensure that visitors to your site can find what they are looking for and are not overloaded with clutter. Readability, clear navigation, and speed of loading all contribute to a well designed website.

Make sure that your font colors are easily read on your background color. Use a font size that is easy on the eyes, and use visual clues such as bullets and horizontal lines to make your site easily understood. For additional information, helpful Google search terms include:

website design tips
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=website%2Bdesign%2Btips

effective website navigation
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=effective%2Bwebsite%2Bnavigation

web design readability
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=web%2Bdesign%2Breadability

8. Use channels to track performance.
Channels are the perfect way to track the performance of your pages. Before and after optimizing your pages for AdSense, group them into channels to see how your leaderboards are performing versus your towers, or track one domain versus the other. You can even see how individual color choices affect your clickthrough rate. For more information about channels, and instructions on getting started, search or browse http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/topic.py?topic=152 for AdSense Support.

For comments, suggestions, and general support questions, please contact google support team at adsense-support@google.com.

For technical support, please contact adsense-tech@google.com.

If you want, you can publish these articles on search engine positioning in your newsletter, web site or ebook. You don't need to take my permission for re-publishing these articles, as long as you display the resource box at the end of each article.

By Ramdayal Yadav

Revealed The Myth of Making Money Through Affiliate Marketing

2008-06-30T00:01:00.003-07:00

Many people enter into the affiliate marketing arena with the hopes of making some quick money whilst doing the bare minimum amount work and preparation.

They expect to be making the type of money super affiliates make within five minutes of joining an affiliate program without doing anything other than send out a few ezine ads.

How do I know?

Because I was there, I did exactly the same thing, it was what the affiliate program owner's instructions said to do; sign-up, send some of our pre-made ads out to a few ezines and newsletters and wait for the money to come in. Oh and send them straight to this affiliate link so you'll be credited with the sale.

Ok, yes, I did make a few sales, but only just enough to break even. It wasn't the sort of income they promised, so I thought to myself, 'well there must be other affiliate programs out there that'll make me more money', so I moved on to another one, and guess what, the cycle repeated.

Does this sound familiar to you? It's sometimes referred to as the 30 day average affiliate life span.

When you sign-up for an affiliate program don't they just make it sound so easy?

Well here's the truth it's not easy if you don't know what you're doing! But if you do, you can make the big super affiliate type income that only a small minority of affiliates are making. But it does require, time effort and persistence!

Now ask yourself these three questions,

-Do you have your own website?

-Do you have a newsletter?

-Do you send prospects directly from your advertising to your affiliate webpage?

If you don't have either of the first two you stand very little chance of making big commissions through affiliate programs. Sorry but it's true.

The top selling affiliates all have a few things in common; they all have their own websites and newsletters and they also never send prospects directly from their advertising straight to their affiliate webpage.

It's really important if you are an affiliate marketer to have your own website with the ability to collect e-mail addresses. I'm sure you will have heard that the money is in the list. If you have no list your unlikely to make much money.

If you can offer visitors to your website a free newsletter, ebook or training course, if they sign-up to your list, you should be able to build that list of prospects without too much difficulty. But you have to sell the opt-in as much as you would a product as people are much more wary of handing over their e-mail addresses these days. So make sure you offer something of good value to earn the trust of your prospect and build your credibility.

In the ebook or newsletter you can include or recommend products with which you are affiliated with. So instead of sending the prospect directly to your affiliate webpage, you send them to your website, where you collect the e-mail addresses; this allows you to follow-up and recommend products and related products which you believe they would be interested in.

Therefore you can make multiple sales from one prospect, whereas before you may have made one if you were lucky or simply lost the prospect forever.

Provide good content in your newsletters and ebooks, give honest recommendations on products for your prospects and they are much more likely to trust you and buy from you.

(Feel free to use this article online and in your email newsletters as long as you leave it intact and do not alter it in anyway. The byline and biography must remain in the article.)

By Ian Canaway

Ten Ways Affiliates Sabotage Themselves

2008-06-30T00:01:00.001-07:00

If affiliate marketing is so lucrative, then why do so few ever turn a profit? Read on, and I'll tell you why.

1. They don't consistently study the craft. By treating affiliate marketing like a hobby instead of a business, they squander time and money, spinning their wheels as other marketers pass them by.

2. They are a jack of all trades and a master of none. It is amazing what a little focus can do for someone trying to succeed online. By establishing a clearly defined set of goals, 20% of affiliates consistently continue to earn 80% of the commission.

3. They don't write special reports. Free special reports with giveaway rights can be powerful pre-sellers for products that offer generous commission. They're also easy to create with free PDF software available online, and can make the difference between a profitable and unprofitable marketing campaign.

4. They either rely too much, or too little on Google Adwords. By figuring out how to utilize Adwords to develop recurring revenue streams, a small percentage of affiliates are using Adwords to earn more and more income online month after month, year after year. How can you use Google Adwords creatively to move your business forward?

5. They don't capture e-mail addresses. Everyone says that the money is in your list. Then start building your list baby! It's much easier than you think. I'll cover this in greater detail in future articles.

6. They don't cloak their links. Up to 80%, or more, of affiliate commission is stolen, depending upon the product. Thus, quality link cloaking software is a must-have for anyone truly serious about succeeding with affiliate marketing.

7. They don't utilize viral marketing. Did you know that you can get a lot farther by leveraging 1% of the effort of 100 people than by expending 100% of your own efforts?

Managing a successful viral marketing campaign is as simple as filling a need that people have and giving Web surfers a huge incentive to share it with others. (If you don't get anything else out of this article, make sure you jot this point down).

8. They don't help other Internet marketers to succeed. What's that, you say? You only care about your own success? Then how will you develop loyalty among your website visitors? How will you keep them coming back?

People need a reason to choose your website over everyone else's. Do you your best to serve your visitors and you will generate customers for life.

9. They rely on the efforts of sub-affiliates to earn their commission. If you are recruiting sub-affiliates, take the time to give them the tools to make some sales. If you do, they'll appreciate your efforts and keep coming back to you again and again.

10. They don't think outside of the box. Some of the best Internet marketing breakthroughs haven't yet come into existence.

Become a visionary. Change the face of the Internet. Don't become one of the masses!

Your success in Internet marketing is completely up to you. Every day is a fresh start, and there's nothing you can't accomplish. How soon will you be earning a six-figure income online?

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners** Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site so long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content and include our resource box as listed below.

Feel free to substitute your referral link in place of mine in the resource box. Thanks!

By Wanna

How To Evaluate An Affiliate Program

2008-06-30T00:00:00.003-07:00

Ok so you think you have found a good affiliate program to promote on your website or in your newsletter? There are some basic things you need to look out for before joining any affiliate program. Some of them may seem minor but those little petty things can cause you to lose hundreds of dollars in affiliate revenue.

Here are some of the basic things to watch out for when joining an affiliate program:

No Affiliate Manager Contact Information
If they don't provide you with a way to contact them about their affiliate program then what are you going to do if you have a problem? Who are you going to email or call if your check doesn't arrive?

Commission Is To Low
Do you really want to spend time on an affiliate program that pays a measely 2%? I see these programs all over. They pitch their affiliate program and make it sound like it is a privelidge to join their affiliate program and earn pennies per sale. I usually stay away from programs that offer less than 8% commission. I will go a little lower if the products sell good and there is a good profit.

Unreasonable Cookie Length
Make sure you find this in their terms or information pages. This is the amount of time that the customer that clicks through your link remains yours. The standard cookie length is 30 days. This means that if your visitor clicks your affiliate link then they have 30 days to buy for you to get credit. You really don't want to promote an affiliate program that offers less than a 30 day cookie length.

Merchant Site Has Traffic Leaks
Probably the most common thing I see with affiliate programs. Mostly from newbie merchants that just got their affiliate program started. Most don't realize what they are doing and usually will correct the problem once I explain to them how traffic leaks are hurting their business and their affiliate program. Traffic leaks are links on the affiliate program site that potential customers can click on and go to other sites... sites that the affiliate won't get credit for if the visitor buys something. Leaks can consist of third-party banner ads, Google AdSense ads, popups, popunders, text links, etc...

No Phone Sale Tracking
With the internet market growing so rapidly every year this means more customers are shopping online. Alot of them will call the merchants 800 number to call in their order instead of submitting it online. Where does this leave you? The merchant gets the cash on the sale while you get stiffed. So when evaluating an affiliate program be sure to check to see if the merchant has measures set up to track phone orders for affiliates. It is simple to set up and it puts the affiliates ID number next to the phone number. So when customers call in they are asked for that number so they can manually credit the appropriate affiliate for the sale.

By Chet Brzezinski

Tracking Phone Sales Is Important To Your Affiliates

2008-06-30T00:00:00.001-07:00

Today the majority of affiliates are looking for compensation when your customers call in their orders by phone. One of the first things they will look for when thinking about joining your affiliate program is to see if you have an order phone number on your site. If you do not offer phone commissions you are most likely losing out on affiliates.

"But I slightly increased my commission rate to make up for not giving phone commissions..."

Who cares? I know I wouldn't. If I referred 5 customers to Merchant X and all 5 of them called in their orders I get a whopping $0 commission. But if Merchant X paid for phone commissions I would be getting my commissions that I deserve. The bottom line is that affiliates want all of their commissions that they earn, not just some of it.

There really is no excuse for not tracking phone sales other than the fact that you just don't want to pay affiliates for all of their sales. Setting your site up to track phone sales is not that difficult and shouldn't take more than a little bit of time.

Here are the simple steps it takes to set up phone tracking:

Contact your affiliate program software/network provider and ask them how to set up for phone tracking. It is just a matter of passing the affiliates ID number onto your website to display next to your phone number. Usually, it is displayed using a javascript code or a short programming script. Make sure you place the phone sale tracking code next to your phone number on every page that shows your number. Do not just put it on the index page. Customers may get your phone number from any page.

Then train your sales reps or employees that answer the phones to ask for the "reference code" when taking phone orders. The reference code is the affiliate ID number that referred the customer to you. Have them write it down or enter it into the computer so you can manually credit sales to the appropriate affiliates.

Good luck and I hope you decided to track phone sales for your affiliates. They will love you for it. Hey, it is just like getting a raise! :=)

By Chet Brzezinski

13 Killer Ways To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions

2008-06-13T22:44:00.001-07:00

1. Start a private web site. Use it as a free bonus if people buy the product you resell. You could also allow people to join for free and you could advertise the affiliate program you've joined.

2. Participate in chat rooms related to the product you're reselling. Start a conversation with a person without trying to sell to them. Later on, while you are chatting, mention the product you're reselling.

3. Do not drive all your visitors directly to affiliate website, instead send your visitors to your opt-in page mechanism first before going to your main affiliate website. That way, you can make follow-up later on and build your own lists so that you can offer another related products or services another day.

4. Start your own affiliate program directory. Join a large number of affiliate programs and list them all in a directory format on your web site. Then just advertise your free affiliate program directory.

5. Write your own affiliate program ads. If all the other affiliates use the same ads you do, that does not give you an edge over your competition. Use a different ad to give yourself an advantage over all the other affiliates.

6. Use a personal endorsement ad. Only use one if you've actually bought the product or service for the affiliate program. Tell people what kind of benefits and results you've received using the product.

7. Advertise the product you're reselling in your signature file. Use an attention getting headline and a good reason for them to visit your affiliate site. Make sure your sig file doesn't go over 5 lines.

8. Recruit lots of sub-affiliates and make it easy for your them to make sales. Give them proven ads to use, make it easy for prospects to order, provide helpful affiliate statistics, notification of sales, lifetime income, residual income, add their commission by giving part of your commission to them, provide a good tracking system and professional training.

9. Join a web ring. It should attract the same type of people that would be interested in buying the product you're reselling. You could also trade links on your own with other related web sites.

10. Participate on web discussion boards. Post your comments, answer other people's questions, and ask your own questions. Include your affiliate text link under each message you post.

11. Create a free ezine. Use your ezine to advertise the affiliate programs you've joined. Submit your ezine to online ezine directories and promote it on your web site.

12. Use referral strategies to get lots of order yourself or sub-affiliates order. Referral system can also be a good way to increase your affiliate commissions if you can give incentives to motivate people to refer and tap deep into people's network of friends, family, and associates. They don't just stop at the occasional, one-off referral.

13. Create a free e-book with the advertisement and link of your affiliate web site. The subject of the free e-book should draw your target audience to down- load it. Also submit it to some e-book directories. The more exposure your free e-book gets, the more your ad will be seen.

Kusuma Widjaja

Attracting Good Affiliates

2008-06-13T22:43:00.015-07:00

Good affiliates can be hard to get. There could be any number of reasons for this, but I am going to focus on what I believe is the one major problem that prevents someone from attracting good affiliates. But first lets look at what the make up of a good affiliate may be. A good affiliate is:

Hard Working

Persistent

Motivated to work their business

Does not need constant reassurance

Makes and implements goals

Overcomes obstacles

Recognizes and takes good advice

And Never, Never, Never quits!

The question some may ask is, "Where are these people at?" I'll tell you. Most of these people are already successful with their own affiliate program. And they are successful for the very reasons listed above. Also, they did not fall prey to the very problem that many searching for good affiliates are causing themselves. And that is advertising hype. They overlooked that and went into the marketing program with a desire to succeed, understanding that it is going to require work and time to be successful. Unfortunately though many are for the first time looking for a home business and don't know what internet marketing is all about. They are vunerable to all the hype infested ads out there.

Now. If a person signs up for an affiliate program with none of the traits listed above for a good affiliate can they indeed be a good affiliate? Yes! But it will be an uphill battle helping them to develop some of the above traits. Even though it would be hard it is still worth it to work with them in hopes they will become the perfect affiliate. Who knows.They may become your best affiliate yet! But I want to focus on getting the good affiliates from the start. Why?

My logic is this. I would rather have one good affiliate that is a real go-getter then ten thousand that do nothing or very little at all. That way you have more time to focus on your own business then spending alot of time babysitting someone who will probably eventually give up. The best route to go is to get affiliates who are already conditioned. Well just how do we do that? There is only one way to do that and that is how your opportunity is presented to prospects.

Most all advertising someone does is loaded with hype. Whether it is their search engine description, classified ads, or email. This is what prevents marketers from getting good affiliates. If possible you must remove all the hype from your advertising and sales letter. Now I know that some of us work an affiliate program owned by someone else. And you may be required to use the advertising and sales letter that they give you. But if possible use the ones that have the least amount of hype. What do I mean by hype!

Hype is where you describe something to the greatest, allowable, extreme possibility. Such as but not limited to the following:

Make a MILLION DOLLARS every time you breathe by just posting a website!!!!!

Earn $15,000 a day by reading emails!!!

Buy my ebook, "125,000 Ways To Get Rich Marketing Salt!"

Now I know these are exaggerations but the point is that while on paper you may be able to prove your claims, most do see these types of ads as exaggerations of the truth. Besides that these ads will not get you those good affiliates your are seeking. What these type of ads will get you are:

Curiosity seekers

Gullible People

Get Rich Quick Hopefuls

If you portray your business as a get rich quick scheme, then that is what you will get. People looking to get rich quick. Not exactly my idea of a good affiliate. Why? Because each person who fits into any of the above groups has their own reason for signing up none of which is to run a business. Most individuals like this sign up and do little if anything. When they realize that they're not going to get a free lunch most will opt out in a day or two. Those who remain will just ignore your emails. By the way. How would you like to go to a job interview and be told you will make $20.00 an hour. You work for 2 weeks only to find out that you have to work for the company 10 years before receiving that amount per hour. You would probably walk out the door feeling you were decieved. That is exactly what happens to people who answer ads loaded with hype. They feel as though they were decieved.

Not only that but it can be costly to run an ad campagin that uses hype. Think of Pay Per Click campagins. Your are spending money on the clicks of those who are not interested in running a business. I would rather get one hit to my website a day from someone who will do what it takes to succeed then a million hits from people who want to get rich by the end of the day.

Rather have an ad campagin that focuses on what the average person can expect. Most people are in this category. An average person. So target your advertising as if everyone who reads it already understands the ins and outs of internet marketing. Portray your opportunity as one that will take years to reach it's full potential. Be honest and up front. Then you will get people signing up who are ready to build a business up over time. Remember. Get Rid Of The Hype. If the average person won't make $15,000 dollars a month then don't say they will. If the average person will probably make $1,000 a month then say that. What's wrong with making a $1,000 more a month then they had before. If you have been able to quit your job because of your affiliate program, prove it. If you can't offer up some type of proof, (copies of checks, real testimonials, etc...) then just keep it to yourself.

The point being made is this. Most people are already aware of the saying, "If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is." There are exceptions to this rule but for the most part it is a true statement. Now if you follow the advice given above you will probably see a significant drop in your website traffic. And also a drop in the amount of affiliates you are getting. But like I and so many others say. "It's not the quanity of the affiliates you are getting but the quality of the affiliates you get.

Leave the hype to those who want to brag about the amount of website traffic and affiliate sign ups they are getting. I'll take a big fat check over hype any time.

By Jerry Lunsford.

Are You Being Ripped Off By Clickbank Merchants?

2008-06-13T22:43:00.013-07:00

I see affiliates from two perspectives.

Firstly as an affiliate, I see myself as a business partner to those merchants that I promote. I send them traffic, and if I make sales for them, I expect to be paid for my efforts in the form of a predefined percentage or lump sum.

As a merchant, I see my affiliates as partners and value the traffic they send me. My utmost priority is to make sure that any sales that are made are credited to the affiliate that sends me the traffic. This is essential if my affiliates are going to trust me and put effort into promoting my products. This is essential if I want my business to grow!

Most of my own products are related to internet marketing and webmaster tools. Because of the nature of these products, those visitors are likely to be knowledgeable of affiliate programs and probably Clickbank as well.

Imagine this scenario:

Joe goes to Google and searches for "webmaster tools". Something caught his attention over in the Pay Per Click ads, an affiliate link to a product that promises to make link exchanges easier.

"Hmmm" thought Joe. "That looks like a great tool".

Joe clicks on the PPC link and is redirected to a sales page. Scrolling to the bottom of the page, Joe sees that the product is $97.

"I want this", thought Joe, "but $97 is a bit steep".

Joe searches the webpage for that magic link, and he finds it easily.

"Great" says Joe out loud. "A link to a Clickbank affiliate program, and this program pays 50%".

After a few minutes, Joe has signed up for the affiliate program, created his own affiliate link, typed it into his browser, and revisits the sales page.

Joe's mouse clicks the buy link. He fills in his credit card details and clicks the purchase button. Closing his browser, he checks his e-mail. He watches as two e-mails are downloaded to his machine. The first is the download information for the new software he purchased, the second one is an e-mail with the Subject "Congratulations Joe, you have made a sale".

Joe checks his stats online for this new affiliate program and sure enough, he has made $48.50 commission on this purchase. In other words, he only paid $48.50 for the product.

OK, what is wrong with this scenario?

Is it fair that Joe used his own affiliate link to make a purchase?

What about the affiliate who advertised this affiliate program at Google? That affiliate paid for the click that started the sale process, yet did not get the commission.

What is going through the minds of merchants who place links to their affiliate programs on their sales page?

I would imagine that some merchants think about these points:

* I want to make $48.50 per sale minimum.

* If I offer it for $97 and give 50% commission to affiliates I will make my goal of $48.50 per sale.

* By adding an affiliate sign up link to the sales page, I can encourage people to sign up for my affiliate program, buy through their own link and get the software for the real price of $48.50, but the customer will be happy thinking they saved $48.50.

*Great plan!

I am sure that a lot of merchants don't see things this way - they just don't think hard enough about their affiliates.

A merchant that uses a link to his/her affiliate program on the sales page is using affiliate traffic as free traffic (whether they intend to or not). After all, the merchant does not need to spend time optimising pages or buying traffic - their affiliates will do that and send the traffic to the sales page for free. If an affiliate sends someone who becomes a customer, the merchant will make their money.

The big problem here is that being an affiliate is hard work. You do have to create content, buy and review products, possibly even pay for advertising. If YOU are doing these things as an affiliate, is your merchant doing their bit to protect your you? Unfortunately the majority of Clickbank merchants don't, and affiliates waste their time building pages and buying advertising to promote merchants who don't deserve it.

The bottom line
----------------

If you are promoting products aimed at webmasters, the traffic you send will likely know how to "steal" your commission. In this situation it is vital to only promote merchants without the affiliate sign up link.

If on the other hand you are promoting products to the general public, e.g. weight loss products, dog training eBooks etc, this affiliate sign up link poses less of a problem since most of the traffic you generate wont be affiliates themselves (most wont even know what an affiliate is) and wont have the necessary skills to sign up at Clickbank, create a link and purchase through their link just to get a commission.

What can you do?
----------------

If you find a merchant that you want to promote and they have an affiliate sign up link on the sales page, contact them. Tell them about your concerns and that they should treat you as a partner, not the source of free traffic. Suggest that they remove this affiliate sign up link.

The usual reaction I get
------------------------

Merchant: "I get a lot of affiliate sign ups from this link, there is no way I am removing it!"

Ask the merchant how many of those affiliates ever make a sale or ever send any traffic. This is exactly my point. The merchant is getting a lot of sign ups purely to get a discount. For every person who signs up as an affiliate to get a discount, there is one affiliate somewhere being robbed of his/her rightful commission.

Most of the "affiliates" you get via a sign up link on the sales page are only signing up to get a discount, they are unlikely to ever try to sell that product.

The only affiliates who will promote the product, are those that buy the software, use it and like it. They see the benefits and can sell it well to their visitors. These are the only affiliates worth getting, and you wont get them from an affiliate sign up link on the sales page.

The best way of getting hard working affiliates is to protect your affiliates from this type of link hijacking, gain their trust and do everything you can to help them out. Build a relationship with your affiliates and most of all, make sure they are rewarded for the traffic they send. To this end, remove that affiliate sign up link, and when someone buys your product, send them an e-mail outlining the benefits of your affiliate program. Active affiliates respond well to knowing their merchants are protecting their interests.

A final thought
---------------

If there are two similar products, similar price, similar commission, one sales page with an affiliate sign up link, one without, which would you prefer to promote? If you want to make money online with affiliate programs, take it seriously and start contacting merchants.

By Andy Williams

Promoting Affiliate Programs through Personal Recommendations

2008-06-13T22:43:00.011-07:00

Publishing articles online is a highly effective way to increase affiliate revenue. In the current marketing environment, it is increasingly important to differentiate yourself. Consumers have become savvier and are increasingly suspicious of pure shopping websites that send them to another site to complete product purchase. Furthermore, you may capture a consumerâ??s purchase once, but they are not likely to return to your site. Instead, they will simply return to the retailer you referred them to complete a purchase.

One, highly effective, way to attract new visitors and motivate them to return to your site later is to publish articles related to the product you are trying to promote. For example, if you are trying to promote a new portable MP3 player, you might publish a product review online and include your affiliate links in the article.

These product reviews add value to your website and can dramatically increase consumer confidence in your site. In addition, if you carefully craft your article, you can include targeted keywords which may help you achieve a higher rank in search engines. If your review is useful, users may even link to it from their personal blog, which may also increase your search engine page rank.

You may be thinking, "I am not a writer, so this strategy will not work for me."

However, if you choose affiliate programs carefully and focus your energy on products that you have a genuine interest in it becomes much easier. There are a couple of easy things you can do to increase your affiliate revenue and make your affiliate marketing strategy easier. Write articles that give more than a recommendation. You should talk directly to the consumer about how this product has impacted your life. Speak directly about your experiences with a product, tell a story about using it, ask questions that make the consumer think about how their life would be improved by owning the product.

By writing a product review, consumers will be less likely to be suspicious when you refer them to another site. In the consumers mind, you are simply reviewing the product, but are not involved in selling it directly. If your audience begins to trust your recommendations, you will find that you can sell products to them over and over again.

Now that you have written a compelling, personal article about your product, you have to make sure that other people find your masterpiece. How do you promote this article?

One method of promoting your articles is to publish your own newsletter. Publish an opt-in newsletter that features a teaser paragraph about your article and a link back to your website for the complete article. Be sure to avoid sending your articles out as spam. Be patient as your subscriber list grows and only send people information they have asked for.

If you do not have a mailing list, you still have options. You can publish your article in article databases so that other newsletter publishers will run your article in their newsletter or on their website. Publish your new product review in an article database with a link to your website in the articles credits. Do a search on Google for â??free contentâ?? and then learn how to submit your articles.

Finally, you can post your articles or product reviews on related bulletin boards and forums online. It is free and people will be able to interact with you. Of course, if you try posting an affiliate link, people will notice and you will immediately lose credibility. Simply include a link to your website in your â??signatureâ??. If your articles are interesting, people will visit your website where you can use your affiliate links.

In summary, provide your audience interesting, relevant content and they will trust your recommendations. If they trust you, they will buy from you. Promote your affiliate programs with personal recommendations in newsletters on relevant websites and online forums. The visitors will come, but more importantly they will buy.

By Stephen Kelly

Free Affiliate Marketing Page Pays $755 in Commissions From its First 100 Visitors

2008-06-13T22:43:00.009-07:00

Affiliate marketing is an easy way to get started making money online. You just sign up to be an affiliate, and refer new customers to the sales site(s) with a special, coded affiliate link. When your referrals click the link and make a purchase, you get paid a sales commission on the sale. Many of these commissions are now paid instantly, at the time of the purchase, as in the system below.

But few new affiliate marketing sites are as successful as the new system reviewed here. It is a free-to-copy, self-duplicating affiliate referral system that pays growing, residual sales commissions, and actually MULTIPLIES an affiliate's income, from a low, ONE-TIME purchase of less than $30.

From fewer than its first 100 visitors, it produced $755 in INSTANT affiliate marketing sales commissions from a total startup cost of $30. So it produced 25 times as much as it cost, from fewer than 100 visitors. This is a phenomenal return for ANY web site.

As you will come to realize, this new, free affiliate page is very different from anything you have ever seen. This new affiliate marketing system is very powerful and unique, and anyone can use it for free. It has several very innovative features:

First, it combines three special, hand-picked affiliate marketing programs, all of a unique type, which pay the highest commissions possible. (One pays 100%, $100 sales commissions.)

Second, you sign up sequentially, making it pay for itself from that first $30 purchase.

Third, It produces continuing, RESIDUAL income, from just that ONE-TIME $30 purchase.

Fourth, the residual income from the system GROWS exponentially, due to those special affiliate programs. The residual income MULTIPLIES automatically, in the same way that a viral affiliate marketing plan multiplies a merchant's customer base.

Fifth, you can 'set it and forget it'. After you make a sufficient number of new referral customers, it takes on a life of its own, and the income keeps growing, whether you do anything more, or not. You do NOT have to keep referring more and more new customers, to keep generating more and more income. (But your affiliate page can continue to refer more and more new customers as more people find it - each referral customer can start another multiplying pile of those instant sales commissions for you.)

No other affiliate marketing referral system has ever before combined all of these features into such a simple, copy-and-paste free system. It is very simple to use, although the affiliate plans may appear difficult to understand at first.

The secret of its success lies hidden in the special, unique affiliate payment plans. All three programs are lifetime membership affiliate marketing sites, offering 'tons' of marketing expertise and tools for affiliate marketing and traffic generation, for a low, one-time cost.

They use payment processors like Paypal and Stormpay, so a referring affiliate's sales commissions are actually deposited INSTANTLY, directly into the referring affiliate's account, even before the site owner gets his payment for the lifetime membership.

The continual growth of an affiliate's income is assured when his referral customers begin generating affiliate income for themselves. The pay plans are very unique: Every new affiliate gives up his first two sales commissions; they are automatically passed up to a sponsor above. This causes your commissions to multiply, automatically.

They are not MLM plans, they are one-tier affiliate marketing plans with a special, multi-tiered pay provision. This pass-up provision causes the pay to YOU as the referring affiliate to DOUBLE with each successive tier that spreads below you, starting from EACH new customer you find for them, after you pass up those first two sales.

You purchase from the next plan in sequence as soon as you receive $20 instant sales commissions from the first $30 plan. Each successive affiliate plan pays a higher sales commission than the plan before it. Adding up the commissions passed up, you wind up being paid $300 for each successful new affiliate you refer to this affiliate system. Yet you started it with only a $30 outlay, for membership in the first affiliate marketing site.

And those $300 sets of affiliate commissions then start DOUBLING from each tier, automatically, from each new successful referral affiliate you sponsor. From the next tier, you get $600, then $1200, then $2400, etc. That's how it was possible for less than 100 visitors to this system page to pay over $750 in affiliate sales commissions. And that's just the BEGINNING of the income from it.

Most of my referrals have not even finished signing up for all three of the plans in sequence yet, so I have much more affiliate income to look forward to in the near future, with no more effort on my part.

Like me, my referrals start their own doubling sales commissions with their third referral sale, after passing up the first two. And the passing up of the doubling commissions goes on for as long as the viral marketing of the plan goes on below you. It's the most lucrative affiliate plan ever designed.

Making the simple, affiliate system referral page free to copy-and-paste, makes it easy for anyone to duplicate it and keep it growing virally below you. Copying and pasting it for free makes the system easily self-replicating, ensuring the continued growth of your residual income, from that one-time $30 purchase. The system has instructions for setting up your own copy of the page online for free, too.

As your referrals purchase memberships in the rest of the plans and start using them, it will just continue multiplying your own affiliate income from the system.

I put my system in a free blog page, just to keep costs down as I got it started. And free blogs are as easy to use as email - just copy and paste, click a button, and it's immediately online with its own URL. Then just paste in your own affiliate links as you get them, and make some referrals to your page. There's a list of 14 free blog hosts in the system instructions. If you don't want to use a web site, use a free blog like I did.

The multiplication of your commissions is explained more fully on my free system blog page, at http://www.MoneyGrower.info

Although the affiliate pay plans are not easy to understand the first time through, the system 'works like a charm', as the saying goes. As you can see, this free system is entirely different from any other affiliate marketing plan or system in the world. And it PAYS like nothing else in the world, too.

By David L. Thorne

10 Hot Ways To Sell Your Products Like Crazy

2008-06-13T22:43:00.007-07:00

1. Turn your ad copy into a story or article. Your visitors won't be as hesitant to read your ad and will become more interested in your product.

2. Give visitors a freebie for filling out your online survey or they usually won't. Surveys will give your business valuable intelligence for your business

3. Enhance the power of your ad copy benefits by using attention getting words, highlighting keywords, using color, bolding key phrases, underlining, etc.

4. Give your visitors tons of choices so they don't get the feeling of being controlled. Offer them a variety of ways to order, contact you, navigate, etc.

5. Put yourself in your visitors shoes. Design your site for them, not for yourself. Create your product around your visitors not because you would buy it.

6. Get free advice from successful online business owners. Participate in business chat rooms and message boards to chat with them.

7. Use your free bonuses to create an urgency for your visitors to buy. Only offer them for a limited time with your main product.

8. Offer your customers extra add-on products at the point of purchase. For example, if they are buying an electronic toy try to sell batteries with it.

9. Make your visitors feel good about themselves by giving them compliments. If they feel good they will also feel good about buying from your web site.

10. Add multiple profits to your web site. If you're selling business books try to sell business services, courses and supplies too.

By Steve Li

11 Awesome Ways To Explode Your Affiliate Commission

2008-06-13T22:43:00.005-07:00

1. Start your own affiliate program directory. Join a large number of affiliate programs that go with the theme of your web site and list them all in a directory format on your web site. Then just advertise your free affiliate program directory. You will earn commissions and gain sub-affiliates. Plus you could start an affiliate-related e-zine too.

2. Do not drive all your visitors directly to affiliate website, instead send your visitors to your opt-in page mechanism first before going to your main affiliate website. That way, you can make follow-up later on and build your own list so that you can offer another related products or services another day.

3. Sell to the people who join your affiliate program. They are more likely to buy your products because they are interested in selling them for the commission. It's important to train and support your affiliates so they will know you will be there to help them. Tell them it's good to write ads about their personal experiences with your product so that it will persuade customers to buy.

4. Participate on web discussion boards. Post your comments, answer other people's questions, and ask your own questions. Include your affiliate text link under each message you post. If they read your message and like it, they may click to see what else you have to offer them.

5. Recruit lots of sub-affiliates and make it easy for your them to make sales. Give them proven ads to use, make it easy for prospects to order, provide helpful affiliate statistics, notification of sales, lifetime income, residual income, add their commission by giving part of your commission to them, provide a good tracking system and professional training.

6. Persuade e-zine publishers or webmasters to run your ad for free. Just allow them to join your affiliate program and earn commission on the sales. You could also offer them a freebie, such as the product you're selling for free, an advertisement in your e-zine in return, etc. It also helps to compliment the publishers as well as praising their e-zines.

7. Use referral strategies to get lots of order yourself or sub-affiliates order. Referral system can also be a good way to increase your affiliate commissions if you can give incentives to motivate people to refer and tap deep into people's network of friends, family, and associates. They don't just stop at the occasional, one-off referral.

8. Write your own affiliate program ads. If all the other affiliates use the same ads you do, that does not give you an edge over your competition. Use a different ad to give yourself an advantage over all the other affiliates.

9. Give free e-mail consultations or services to your customers who buy or will buy the product or services through your affiliate link. When you e-mail them back your advice include a small ad or distribute branded affiliates viral marketing tools to use like e-books or articles for the affiliate products your are selling. Just include your ad somewhere inside them.

10. E-mail targeted e-zines and ask them to do a joint venture with you. Ask them to run your ad and in exchange they would get a percentage of the profits. You would just have to get them to join your affiliate program to be your sub-affiliates. To give them better incentive, you could offer them a higher commission than the rest of your normal affiliates by giving part of your affiliate commissions for 2 years.

11. Tell your customers if they refer four customers to your affiliate web site, they will receive a full rebate of their purchase price, cut from your own commission. This will turn one sale into three sales. You could also offer them other things in return for referrals like free e-books, free software, coupons, discounts, etc.

Kusuma Widjaja

Two Quick Ways to Make Your Copy of Merchants Data Feed Different From All Other Affiliates

2008-06-13T22:43:00.003-07:00

Product data feeds are really popular among affiliates because they can help produce thousands of product pages quickly and easily. Such pages can be used to drive highly targeted search engine traffic looking specifically for those products. But there is a big problem.

The problem with data feeds is the fact that a lot of affiliates use the same copies of feeds in the same exact ways. Most data feed affiliates put just the product names in HTML titles, so they all end up with a bunch of similar pages that have identical titles. And since the search engines give a lot of weight to the titles of HTML pages, those affiliates end up competing with each other for the same highly specific keywords.

Luckily, this problem has a quick and dirty solution. It's worse than going over the feed by hand, but much better than doing nothing. What I get from affiliates is that manually modifying feed simply defeats the purpose. But being able to do it automatically can help one differentiate his site from other affiliates without losing the benefits of using data feeds.

There are two basic ways to automatically make your site a little bit different from other affiliates of the same merchant.

The first way is to add some keywords before and/or after the product name in the HTML title. For example, let's say you pick a phrase "On Sale" to add after the product name. So instead of "Blue Widget #MN-3143" you have in the original data feed, you would now have "Blue Widget #MN-3143 On Sale" in the HTML title of that product page. You simply add that phrase to the titles of all products in the feed. That lets you specifically target people who would search for "blue widget on sale" or "mn-3143 on sale."

You can also use some arbitrary keywords like "Cheap" or "Discounted" or "Quality" before the product name to have something like "Cheap Blue Widget #MN-3143." The keywords you pick largely depend on the merchant's product line.

Another variation of this technique is to randomize the keywords that are displayed before and after product names in the titles. You can use a sever-side technology of your choice to pick a random keyword out of some predefined list and append it to the name of a product to form the title for the page. Your scripts would pick a new keyword for each request for the product page. Of course, that would only work if you are using a database, and do not generate static HTML using Webmerge or a similar program. That way, even though you don't control the exact keyword that is displayed for any particular page, with enough product pages you can cover a wider market of people searching with different modifiers. You should be able to cover different shopper types -- the ones looking for bargains as well as the ones looking for quality.

The second way to make your site different from others is a bit more complex, but could yield much greater results. Instead of adding something to the product names, you can try changing the names on a large scale. As I said earlier, modifying feeds by hand would defeat the purpose of using them. But if you perform a find-and-replace operation on the whole file then you can get different content without spending much additional time.

The utility you might want to use for feed modification is called sed. You can search for that name using you favorite search engine. It's sed -- the stream editor. I'm going to skip much of the technical detail on how and why it does certain things in a certain way. Instead, I will concentrate on describing practical application of sed with product feeds.

At its core, sed takes input data, modifies it according to certain rules and outputs the result -- all done line-by-line. It uses regular expressions and can perform extremely complex operations, by for now I just want to concentrate on simple replacements.

The good thing about sed is it can use an external file with multiple commands and execute them one after another for the entire input file (in our case, it's a product feed). So you can replace as many words as you need. Also, once you define those commands, you can use them for many different feeds with different merchants.

Let's go over a few examples that should illustrate the true power of this approach.

I'll assume that the merchant we are working with sells widgets of various kinds. You looked over the feed and saw that the merchant has some porcelain widgets; red and blue, large and small. One of the synonyms for porcelain is ceramic, so first thing you would do is replace the word porcelain with ceramic in all product names and descriptions.

This can be done by adding the following commands to a sed script file before running it against the feed:

s/porcelain/ceramic/g s/Porcelain/Ceramic/g

Those commands will replace your keywords while preserving capitalization. So that a title like "Big Blue Porcelain Widget" becomes "Big Blue Ceramic Widget."

To make things more interesting, let's assume that the feed already has some ceramic widgets aside from the porcelain ones. So you do not want to end up with just one kind. Instead, you want to switch them around. Remember, your goal is to be as different from the original feed as possible.

You can achieve that with the following set of commands:

s/porcelain/MYTEMPKEYWORD/g s/ceramic/porcelain/g s/MYTEMPKEYWORD/ceramic/g

In the example above, I used MYTEMPKEYWORD as a place-holder. That let us make sure that we are not losing the original keywords.

What happens there is:

all "porcelain" is changed to "MYTEMPKEYWORD' then all "ceramic" is changed to "porcelain" then all "MYTEMPKEYWORD" (which used to be the original porcelain) is changed to "ceramic"

and then the same thing should be done for all capitalized keywords.

You can use anything in place of MYTEMPKEYWORD as long as it does not already appear in the feed. You want to use some unique keyword.

Once you are done with those keywords, you can change something like "Metallic" to "Shiny Metal Finish" -- assuming that makes sense for a given product line.

Adding that to a command file would give you:

s/porcelain/MYTEMPKEYWORD/g s/ceramic/porcelain/g s/MYTEMPKEYWORD/ceramic/g s/Porcelain/MYTEMPKEYWORD/g s/Ceramic/Porcelain/g s/MYTEMPKEYWORD/Ceramic/g s/Metallic/Shiny Metal Finish/g s/metallic/shiny metal finish/g

That would also change "Blue Metallic Widget" to "Blue Metal-Looking Finish Widget."

As I said earlier, you can add as many commands as you want for different words and phrases. And with enough such small changes, you will be able to reach traffic that is not already covered by your competing affiliates. While a few hundred affiliates with their data feed sites might be displayed for a keyword "blue porcelain widget" -- there might be just a few (if any) covering "blue ceramic widget" for the same merchant.

Even something like

s/TV Set/Television Set/g

along with diagonal sizes and brand names might help you stand apart from the rest of the affiliates who use the same feed. Any change is better than having the same exact content as others.

I encourage you to download a copy of sed and check it out. Once you get a hang of it, you will be able to automate the whole process. And if you are already using scripts to refresh merchants' feeds and rebuild sites automatically, then you can plug sed in the middle and modify feeds on the fly.

Also, if you are having a hard time coming up with words to replace, you might want to check out Princeton's WordNet. You can even download the word database and use it locally on your desktop.

By Konstantin Goudkov

Protecting Yourself From Affiliate Link Thieves

2008-06-13T22:43:00.001-07:00

So, you have worked really hard to build a fabulous affiliate site. You took the time to add your keywords and relevant information about the products. Your pages load quickly, and your site is even listed in the search engines for specified terms. You look at your stats, and you see a regular flow of traffic coming into your site. You get really excited! You log in to your affiliate program manager, and.... WHAMO! You have very few commissions from sales, and your click-throughs are extremely low. Suddenly, you are asking yourself, "what the heck happened here??" The answer... You might possibly be the victim of affiliate link hijacking!

In this revolving world of the Internet, we are constantly being bombarded by spammers, spyware, viruses, and hackers. Now, we have to worry about link hijackers stealing commissions that are rightfully ours. So, what is link hijacking and how do you prevent it?

In the simplest terms, link hijacking occurs when someone replaces their affiliate ID with yours. The result? They get the commission instead of you. You did all that work, but someone else is getting paid? Yes! You may be wondering how this happens.

Let me explain. I first heard about this phenomenon while visiting various discussion boards on affiliate marketing. Many affiliates had experienced a decline in sales while their site's traffic stats remained high. Common discussions found in affiliate forums include various software programs which "steal" information. Many of these programs download themselves onto a person's computer, either knowingly or unknowingly. These programs can override your affiliate links each time the customer visits your site, therefore giving credit to someone else.

Many times, people download packaged programs that contain these types of software. The innocent surfer may not even realize they have a program running in the background. Anyone who takes part in the Internet community, whether it be a webmaster or a surfer, should stay informed about these programs by visiting parasiteware.com on a regular basis.

Link hijacking comes in various forms... not just from downloads. Let's say your affiliate link looks like this: www.url.com/?123456 , where 123456 is your affiliate ID. A link hijacker is interested in the product and wants to purchase it. He also wants the affiliate commission from the product. He takes your ID 123456 and replaces it with his ID 999999 to look like this: www.url.com/?999999 . The result? He gets the commission from the product purchase. He modified the link to benefit himself. You lose.

Here is another example of link hijacking: A customer comes to your website and sees a link to the product that he wants to buy. When he moves the mouse over your link information, he sees your affiliate url in the status bar of his computer. Instead of clicking your affiliate link, he decides to manually type it into his address bar, leaving off the affiliate referral code: www.url.com. This results in no affiliate tracking information and no commissions for you. You lose again!

So how much money could you be losing? I have read that an estimated 10-30% of commissions are lost due to affiliate link hijacking. (In a recent article from "revenue" magazine, the estimate was as high as 40-50%). Can you imagine the kind of potential revenue that you might be losing right now?

Take Action by Protecting Yourself From Revenue Loss

In the constant search for new scripts and software to improve my websites, I have run into several affiliate cloaking devices. Most of them cost around $50 or more. However, I did run into one cloaking script that is free. It is called Affiliate Link Cloaker (ALC). The site owner simply asks that you subscribe to their newsletter.

By golly, I love free stuff, don't you! If you are interested in learning about this script and how it works, you can visit their site at webmasterinabox.net/affiliate_link_cloaker.html . They have other scripts that you might find useful as well. Now, get out there and protect those links!

By Stephani Richardson

Your Home Based Affiliate Marketing Business

2008-06-13T22:42:00.019-07:00

Did you know that you can make money on the internet without ever selling anything? There are very few home based business opportunities that are easier or cost less than affiliate marketing. There are businesses and people earning thousands of dollars each year doing affiliate marketing.

The business plan is simple. Your clients are already established online businesses selling a wide array of products and services. You get paid for bringing customers to your client which is the website you are an affiliate for. You then get paid either a set fee or a percentage of what the customer buys. Some affiliate programs also pay for every time someone clicks through.

The opportunities for affiliate marketing are numerous and growing every single day. Here is how it works. The affiliate places a banner or link advertisement on their website and every time a customer clicks through from the affiliate website to the merchant site and makes a purchase the affiliate earns a commission.

It is not that difficult to find affiliate programs because it has become so profitable and popular as an internet marketing tool that almost everyone seems to be doing it. This does not mean you should settle for just any affiliate program. It is important to choose a program that is at least somewhat relevant to your website or business. This way you have the best possible chance of your customers clicking through to the affiliate website. For example, if you sell cameras or photography equipment you might join an affiliate program with a company that sells photography books.

Be sure to read the affiliate contract carefully. While there are excellent legitimate affiliate programs out there it seems there is always somebody trying to rip you off while making a quick buck. You can avoid these scams if you review affiliate agreements carefully and go with your gut about whether a website or program is legitimate.

The great thing about an affiliate marketing home business is that you are not limited to doing only one affiliate program. You can sign on with as many programs as you want as long as you have room on your website to place their banner or link.

Here are some tips for finding a good affiliate program.

1. Will the product appeal to your customers?

2. How much does the merchant pay and for what do they pay? Click throughs? Purchases?

3. Do they pay only for the first purchase or do they give you a percentage of all future purchases by that customer?

4. How frequently are commissions paid? This information should be in the affiliate agreement.

5. Does the merchant provide access to view your account on a regular basis so you can see how the program is doing?

With some good research you can find the right affiliate programs for your home based business website and in no time you will be making money simply for referring customers from your website.

To your success!

By Paul Jesse

Self-Replication, The All Important Third Step in Affiliate Marketing

2008-06-13T22:42:00.017-07:00

'Self-replication' sounds like science fiction but it's not. It has nothing to do with cloning, in a biological sense. What I'm writing about here is a third and very important step of affiliate or multi-level marketing.

If you sell products retail or by commission, your sales are one time but, of course, you hope that you will have repeat customers. This involves good product quality and good customer support.

Anything that involves recruiting or sign-ups requires this third step of duplicating what you have done. What have you done? Step one, you have started. You have selected the affiliate programs you want to make money with. Step two, you have advertised and gotten some sign-ups under you.

Great, but really you are still in the starting stage. The real work is just beginning. If you fail to contact your new sign-ups, chances are you will lose a good percentage of them in a few short weeks or months.

The internet is full of 'tire kickers' and 'lookers' who will move right on to the next thing, if something doesn't automatically happen overnight with whatever they've just signed-up for.

You must seize your window of opportunity to contact them and try to make converts out of them. First, welcome them as part of your team. Congratulate them on the smart decision they have made in signing-up.

You must try to 'light a fire' under them and get them excited about the benefits they will get and the profits they will make by working your program. Relate to them whatever successes you have had. If you are new to the program yourself and have not made a lot of sales yet, don't be intimidated! Don't make a bunch of stuff up, though.

Do a little research with your own program. Somewhere they will tell you what the sales potentials are and you can use this information in your pitch.

Most importantly, offer to help them out and give them whatever sales tips or information has worked for you. Your success depends on their success. Lastly, stress to them the importance of sharing this information with their own sign-ups.

Remember; your success depends on this relationship that you build with others!

By Brian Beshore

3 Powerful Words

2008-06-13T22:42:00.015-07:00

I should have listened to an internet veteran back in 2000.

Learn from my mistake...

Allan Gardyne, of AssociatePrograms.com told me 3 powerful words that I overlooked as just too broad and simplistic...

And it's important that you hear this too so you won't waste time or make the same mistake I did...

His very words to me in a personal email were...

"Just Get Started"

I remember he went on to say that was the most important thing...

Now I bet that went right through you transparent with about zero impact - just like it hit me too, right?...

But don't let those 3 powerful words disguised as too simplistic fool you...

It took me almost 4 years later to catch-on and wise up. You see, I sat on the sidelines of online marketing far too long...

To me all this marketing stuff seemed like a giant catch 22...

I thought I needed to know a lot more than I knew at the time before I could actually get started... I felt I didn't have enough knowledge, so how could I get it all going???

Freeze - Stop - Do Not Pass Go - & Do Not Collect any Commissions!

As it turns out, I was wrong in hindsight... Because marketing is momentum. It's something you build-on as you go... the snowball effect.

Let me stress that again... "marketing is momentum".

Remember that... And while you DO need to keep expanding your knowledge in different areas - you can start implementing the things you learn as you go.

And you will be surprised because along the way you can start earning commissions while building your marketing momentum. This is something I was late to realize...

Again- learn from my mistake...

Just as an intern becomes a doctor or as we date before the marriage, it should be the same in marketing...

We must practice doing what we want to become... It's an evolution of a process in the making...

Ah... the magic bullet?

Not really... but the closest you will find to it...

So don't just sit on the sidelines... Get out there and do the 'Nike'... Let me explain more...

The typical 'pondering ditch' many seem to fall into... (or should I say 'fail' into)... is that they don't understand that a major part of the success formula is to "just get started".

Heck... I didn't even believe this online marketing thing was real until I saw real commissions congratulate me in my own email box... (and this is something that once it happens you're hooked :>D

However, I once entertained the thought that making a living online was reserved for gurus only ...

Hogwash!

But I had to prove that to myself... And you will too unless you take my word for it which you should simply because it's true.

Your own beliefs can be what's holding you back. But don't let anything stop you because when you are frozen going nowhere, remember there are others making commissions every day, week and every month...

So why can't it be YOU?

The fact is there are people just like you - people you will never get to hear about... but they are out there doing it right now as you are reading this.

Yes, many of them are making their living online quietly...

Now imagine if I had listened to Allan back in 2000?

So what's holding you back?

Well what I have found the hard way is you don't have to wait to get started... You don't even have to write your own ebook or create a membership site or any of that if that's not your thing... You can do affiliate marketing.

But to start profiting online you have to follow these 3 very powerful words of advice...

"Just Get Started" (or like Nike says it, "Just Do It!")

As soon you make your first sale you'll be amazed how your commissions will begin to add up... And you'll find ways to build it from there. No pipe dreams here... this is real.

There are many possibilities so just listen to those 3 powerful words. And if you implement them... you'll finally discover a formula to start your own online marketing business now... not years down the road...

So please don't waste time... "just get started" and learn from my mistake...

Go for it now... it's YOUR success... but don't make it wait any longer than it has to.

Michael Nicholas

(c) 2005

By Michael Nicholas

Preparation - the Way to Success

2008-06-13T22:42:00.013-07:00

I have two questions to ask you. One. How much time do you spend marketing your affiliate programs? Two. How much time do you spend preparing to market your affiliate programs?

Which of those two questions do you think is the most important? I say the second. Without doing your preparation "homework," you will lose your focus.

The affiliate programs that you promote are "your" products. Take the time to learn everything you can about that product. Even though you are not actually selling the product (you should be PRE-selling), you still must know what you are talking about.

The best way to do that, of course, is to own the product yourself. But whether you own the product or not, study the sales copy that was written by the owner of the product. You'll be able to lead your prospects toward "the click" much easier if you know why you want them to click on that link.

When preparing an advertising campaign, ask yourself what you want to achieve. That is your goal.

Now write down the steps that you need to take to get to that goal. Don't forget that there can be more than one way to get there. Use your imagination!

Let's say you want to use ezine advertising. There are several options that you can choose. You can use free ads, purchase ads through ezine co-ops, buy top sponsor and solo ads directly from each newsletter publisher, or write articles and send to the publishers.

Choose one of the options and follow through with it. Then choose the next option, then the next. Don't forget to track your ads to see which advertising method is working best for you.

Try other avenues of advertising as well. Explore new ones that you find and track the results. The more you have - that are working for you - the more commissions you will make.

By preparing the framework for an advertising campaign, you can use that framework for later advertising - with minor changes to accommodate the new information. I use it as a "task list" to follow. This helps to keep me focused on what I have to do.

Don't get me wrong. Advertising or marketing is important. But you MUST know what you want your prospect to do. Take your prospect by the hand and lead him or her to the click. The time it takes to prepare for an advertising campaign will be well worth it.

By Jude Wright

Dont Make This Mistake...New Affiliate

2008-06-13T22:42:00.011-07:00

Joining more than 2 programs at a time is something you don't want to do. I did this when I started as an Affiliate. If I were to advise a 'newbie' getting involved online I would tell them to promote, market or endorse only '1' product or service at a time.

Why?

You should concentrate your energies on one thing at a time. Having 10, 20 or 30 different affiliate programs floating all over is not the way to go. Take it from someone who knows.

A plan is to start with 1 or 2 programs, you want to duplicate the success you have from the first program to the second, third or twenty the key is to do that over and over again. Once you have the formula down it will work with anything you do.

I regret not doing this today, I am an affiliate for over 100 programs believe me there is no way I can effective endorse all of them in the manner I should be.

Here are a few tips I now use today, you too can learn from them as well.

1. Buy the product or service and use it. How can you endorse something if you yourself have not tired it?

2. Build your website with the necessary banners or text links with your own descriptions of how, what or why you like the product or service.

3. Endorse the product or service from your website only, you want to get the traffic to your website this is key to your success. I would not recommend promoting your affiliate programs anywhere else.

4. Use the time you would promote affiliate programs, to promote you website instead. This is key, because depending on where you are promoting these programs so are thousands of other affiliates.

5. Build content rich websites that offer information, a service or how to manual on things people are looking for or want.

You can build it, but that does not mean they will come without you having to show them where to go. Today I can say I have finally found a technique that is working for what I want to do.

There are many things you can do to improve your success as an affiliate marketer, I have listed only a few that have helped me in my business. Fine tune your own system, test it, use it; see what works for you and your business.

By Michelle

Affiliate Assets -- Discover the 3 Secrets That Will Turn Your Affiliate Link Into a Business

2008-06-13T22:42:00.009-07:00

Your affiliate marketing business is just that ? a business. To be successful, you need to treat your business like a business and focus on growth. Your affiliate links are your business; you are the owner of a marketing company, and it is an asset you can grow into more and more assets. Here are three strategies to build your marketing business.

1. Get your own website and domain name.

It looks cheap and marks you as a "newbie" when you post a long affiliate link in your ads. With domain names as inexpensive as they are now you can purchase your own domain name. You can then either forward your URL to your affiliate link or set yourself up with some free hosting and establish more of a web presence. Your best bet is to write a benefit-full description of your affiliate program and link to your program via an HTML link that is part of your description.

2. Build your own list.

Stop relying on one-shot ads to make you money. Real businesses have repeat customers that they cultivate in order to make more profits. You must do the same. Make a commitment to establish relationships with your customers and especially with visitors to your site. Create an email list to keep in touch. Send out periodic tips or articles and focus on helping your customers. Only promote your affiliate links in unobtrusive ways; don't make your emails one big ad.

One of the best ways to build traffic to your list is to write a short report that describes the benefits of your affiliate program. Make this report available only by email. When someone sends for your report, they are added to your list and you can continue to communicate with them.

3. Build traffic to your own site and list.

This is where you really make your affiliate links your own business. By having your own site and building your own list you are building your own business and brand, not just marketing someone else's. By doing this, you can market to your own customers over and over again. Do not overlook this point: When your ad redirects a customer to your affiliate link, you have lost that person as your own customer because you lost the ability to communicate with them on a repeat basis. When you direct customers to your own site and list, they build a relationship with you.

There are many ways to build traffic: write articles, post in forums, market in safelists, advertise offline, etc. My advice is to pick one traffic-building method, work on it for awhile, and master it before moving on to something else. If you focus on offline advertising, write and rewrite your ads until you determine how to get the best response. If you market on safelists, make a list of the top 50, and send your ad to 10 each day. Keep testing to make sure your safelists are responsive.

These three strategies will help you build and grow your affiliate marketing business.

By Jeremy Hoover

How To Become A Data-Feed Super Affiliate

2008-06-13T22:42:00.007-07:00

I am not going to describe what a product feed (or a data-feed) is. There is a lot of information out there about how to use one to build sites. Instead, I want to talk about how you can actually make more sales with data-feed sites.

The program that I manage offers a product feed, and I get a chance to see a sad picture of many good affiliates wasting their potential.

Here is my advice from the affiliate manager's perspective.

Whenever you join (or think bout joining) a program, you need to look for two things:

- Temporary or permanent opportunities

- Flaws of a merchant

Here is an example of an opportunity that was created by an outside factor.

Recently, we got removed from the Yahoo index because of a penalty. I have no idea when (or if) we will get included back in, but I do know that it makes one decision much easier for our affiliates.

Judging by the numerous posts on various SEO-related message boards, it looks like Google and Yahoo use very different algorithms to rank pages. So for any given site, you have a choice to make. You can optimize for Yahoo, for Google, or for both.

Since Yahoo and Google use different algorithms, it is going to be hard to optimize the same set of pages for both of those engines at the same time, unless you employ heavy cloaking. And the way I see it, for an affiliate, it is better to appear high on one search engine than to appear low on both of them in an attempt to optimize for different algorithms at the same time.

Imagine that you are one of our affiliates. Given the information I just told you, shouldn't you concentrate on Yahoo for that data-feed site that is being used to promote our products?

Why spend (at least) half of your time and resources on optimizing for Google when you know that we are nowhere to be found in Yahoo?

You have to have an extremely well linked and optimized site to get ahead of the merchant for the exact product-name search terms. The merchant is your biggest obstacle when it comes to the search engine traffic. So if there is a route that lets you get around that obstacle - take it!

Most of our well-performing affiliates did just that. Either intentionally or unintentionally, they ended up making much more money by appearing high in Yahoo results, while not being ranked high in Google.

So on a practical side of things, here is what you should do.

For your existing merchants, check if they are removed from the index in any of the major search engines, and if they are, then start reading and implementing SEO tips for that particular engine.

And if you are thinking about joining a program and can't decide between several merchants, then check if any of them is not in the index of either Yahoo or Google. If you find a merchant like that - drop everything else you are doing and jump on that program.

As far as theory goes, this was just a simple, but specific example of what you should look for to make your efforts pay off. There are many different opportunities to get ahead in existing programs with data-feed sites; you just have to look for them.

Now, let's talk about flaws of merchants and how you can exploit them to make more money and help consumers at the same time.

I will give another specific example, but you should be able to apply this concept to many different programs.

Our site has one huge structural flaw: we only list products by product-oriented categories.

In other words, there is no way to navigate our site by a specific occasion or by the purchasing intent of a visitor.

You can follow a path like:

widgets -> wooden widgets -> red wooden widgets

This setup works fine for some type of shoppers, but is a complete turn-off for others.

And the problem is that most affiliates simply mirror the catalog structure of a merchant according to their feed.

But if you structured your site to list widgets as:

- widgets for birthdays

- widgets for girlfriends

- widgets for those who are over 50

- the Independence Day widgets etc.

then you would attract different type of shoppers. You would no longer compete with the merchant, but instead you would complement them.

A visitor who is looking for a gift for his 50-something friend and has no idea that a red wooden widget would be perfect, will not travel down the path laid out by our catalog. So if he gets to our home page, we simply lose a sale. And if your data-feed-based site follows the same structure - you lose as sale as well.

Also, since the visitor does not know that he really wants a red wooden widget, he we not use those keywords while searching for a present on the search engines.

But if you attracted that visitor to your site, presented him with ideas for older friends' birthday gifts and guided him to that specific widget's page - then we would make a sale, you would make a commission, and the visitor (turned customer) would get his present with much less searching around. Everyone wins.

Such approach takes more work than simply cloning the merchant's site with a feed, but affiliates who actually do something to complement merchant instead competing with them make a lot more money. After all, if you create a copy of a merchant's site - you are not only competing with the merchant, you are also competing with all of their affiliates that use the same feed in the same way.

By Konstantin Goudkov

How to Become a Better Affiliate

2008-06-13T22:42:00.005-07:00

First of all you need to understand that an Affiliate Program takes time to make it work. No one achieved "financial freedom" overnight. All those websites claiming to make you reach in just a couple of days (I have seen even shorter periods of time) are not telling you the truth. But that does not mean you can not make money from that program. You need to realize it can be done over time and a great deal of persistence.

It is a fact that 95% of the people who joined an affiliate program is not involved in the money making process after a year of signing up. Those are the "quitters". For the rest of us, some will make it and some won't but your chances of making it are much higher due to the time and work that you put in it, and the number of referrals you gained during this time. This is when you start seeing some pretty good results, at least compared to your first month check. You have to give it a try for at least a year to even consider working with another company or don't do anything anymore.

You need to work consistently everyday and do not fear rejection. I know people who are even afraid of sending email to their downline because they are afraid of sending them too much email and they may opt-out of the program and will loose that affiliate. Let me tell you this, if you have a downline with affiliates who are doing nothing, you get that, nothing. It does not make any difference if they quit or not, but by sending them recent news from the company, new software that you know, or even new advertising method, you get good qualified affiliates that will follow you over time.

"I have no money" How many times have you heard that? The truth is that they do not trust you or the company enough to put some money into it. Everyone has 20$-30$ a month. They are just afraid you are going to steal the money from them. Tell them the truth about the company and how, with persistence and hard work from their part they can be successful. Show them your numbers, tell them your advertising methods and the amount of money you invest in your business. Make them feel part of it, and if you can, write a step by step method to become successful with your Affiliate Program.

Advertising is a numbers game, we all know that, but good advertising is hard to find this days. That is why you need to have control of your advertising campaigns and see which ones are working for you and continue doing what you are doing. You do not need money to advertise. You can use a link at the bottom of every email that leaves your computer. Write articles. Exchange links. Add content to your website. We all know these basic principles, but we also know that it is very time consuming and painful hours in front of your computer. But that is why we call it work.

You need to see it as a hobby and spend a full hour a day working as hard as you can. Put your soul into it. And remember, you only loose the game when you quit.

By Arthur Alfonso

Become A Reseller

2008-06-13T22:42:00.003-07:00

If done properly, reselling web hosting and related services can be a low maintenance, high profit vehicle to online financial independence!

Reseller programs allow businesses to lease servers, connectors and bandwidth from established hosting firms but brand the product at their own. Resellers act independent of hosting companies and are not construed as employees. Most get paid based on signups and paid on a recurring basis for each customer who retains your services.

You must first determine exactly what it is you wish to resell. What type of reseller you become depends on what you would like to outsource; most hosting companies like to outsource as much as possible so they can concentrate on running the business end of things.

The next logical step is actually choosing a program. There are many out there, but make sure to select one from an established company with a positive track record. While others may promise a higher yield, it's always best affiliating with an established and experienced company.

Once you've established your business, it's time to attract customers. When venturing out, your best bet are individuals and smaller firms such as yourself. Most of these type of customers will have small sites and won't be concerned about high tech mumbo jumbo.

Even some of today's largest hosting companies simply resell because it cuts down on staffing and equipment expenses in exchange for a reasonable fee.

Of course, web hosting isn't the only product or service with reseller capabilities. Choose a situation where you feel comfortable, find out if reseller slots are available and go for it!

By Walt Pfarr

Internet Tip of the Week: Reality Check

2008-06-13T22:42:00.001-07:00

Every time you turn around it seems you see another affiliate program which promises you vast riches. They give you all the sales material you need, and even throw in a free web page. How can I loose, one might think. Everything is all set up for me, and all I need is get a bigger PO Box to handle all the checks that will roll in. Your web site will be carried by the search engines, you have the "pre-written" ads ready to go - how can you lose?

A few ads are placed here and there, and the responses "trickle in" but there are few, if any sales. Time for a reality check. If you have seen one affiliate web site for a particular product, service or opportunity, you have seen them all. There are a number of affiliate programs, which have thousands of people who have bit. Why should a person go to your site when they know from the URL (address of your web page) what it is already?

They won't. Am I saying that affiliate programs don't work? No - I am saying that the tools they provide "don't cut the mustard". It is a proven marketing fact that it takes 5-7 exposures to your ad before someone might purchase from you. If you have a "canned" web site, what are the odds of them coming back to you to buy? Slim to none.

So how does a person who is serious about marketing an affiliate program get you to buy from them? First, they "deep six" the affiliate web site as their primary web contact, and create their own. On their web site they provide content which is interesting for anyone who stops by. They also change the content on a regular basis to keep them coming back, and let them know when it does change. They also provide a link to their affiliate web site.

The next step is to try to get a listing on the search engines. Now, think about this. There are most likely several thousand people who have an identical web site to the one you get as an affiliate. What do you think the odds are of someone "stumbling across" your site when surfing the web? Again - slim to none. But if you have your own site, your chances take a giant leap forward. The link to your affiliate site is a minor part of your web site, even though it is where you want them to eventually wind up.

Now - can you use a site that is not your own domain? While not the preferred route to take, it is "head and shoulders" above the link you get from the affiliate program. Most ISP's give you web space free. Learn a little HTML code and you're in business. Or, if push comes to shove, hire someone to do it for you. Let's face it, if I see a URL that I recognize as an affiliate program, and I've been there before, I will simply "click away".

The old saying, that if "salespeople sell themselves first, the sale of their product or service, follows shortly thereafter" is certainly true. Establish yourself on the web and in the newsletters/ezines as someone who can be trusted, and is knowledgeable in their field. If people get to know and trust you, your recommendation to join your affiliate program will carry a lot more weight.

Now that you have control over your web page, you should have a guest book that visitors can sign. Now you have their email address. Folks, these are literally worth their weight in gold. You can now send them email about upcoming events on your web site, and not be accused of spamming.

Run a contest on your web site - the prizes don't have to be off the wall. An ebook (and there are a number available for free) can be your prize - and again more email addresses. Write a free newsletter/ezine and publish it on a regular basis - even more email addresses. As long as there is content of interest, they won't mind a gentle reminder to visit your web site.

Consider a "non-competing" partner to help you with the site or to write articles for the ezine. It makes no difference to you if there is another link to another affiliate program on your site. If they are willing to share the work in return for the link, it is to your advantage. The key here is "non-competing".

So - are affiliate programs a sure thing? If you simply join and sit back waiting for the money to flow, no. If you are a "take charge" type of person and are willing to work a little, it can be a great opportunity.

Did you know that subscribers to Bob Osgoodby's Free Ezine the "Tip of the Day" get a Free Ad for their Business at his Web Site? Great Business and Computer Tips - Monday. Wednesday. and Friday. Instructions on how to place an ad are in the Newsletter.

Your Own Affiliate Program

2008-06-06T00:29:00.000-07:00

What better avenue to drive high quality and targeted traffic to your website than through your very own affiliate opportunity!
Plus, you have dozens and dozens of other marketers promoting YOUR wares at no startup cost to you, and on top of your own promotional efforts.
Another positive is that it is a win-win situation. It costs nothing for the affiliate to join, and you pay a commission only when a product or service is sold, and it's only a percentile of the actual sale price.
Be mindful, however, that you will need a clear plan of action and that the program should be unique and fill a niche. It is also time consuming.
You will need affiliate automation software that handles the signups, click throughs, sales and tracking. A quick search will find you several types of software and a wide price range. Find out what's right for your program and wallet, but always kick the tires for features and benefits.
Now, you will need to select the type of tier structure you wish to offer. With a single tier, you set a commission structure to pay your affiliates for any referring sales. With a two-tier program, you will also pay the same affiliate a percentage based on sales generated by those they brought into your program. This type also offers more incentive to your "work force."
When a marketer signs up, you need to make it easy as pie for them to promote your biz opp. This could include banners, product images, text links or other ad copy.
You may announce your affiliate program in a variety of ways: free for alls (FFAs), classifieds, ezines and getting listed in affiliate directories.
A word of caution: remember that it is the quality of your affiliates that will make or break your program. Quantity doesn't play into the picture at all.