Are Your Affiliate Programs Eating Away Your Money And Time

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.

Ten Ways Affiliates Sabotage Themselves

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!

Article Marketing 101 For Affiliate Program Managers

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 ) 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.

8 Basic Rules for Choosing The Right Affiliate Program

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.

Why Top-earning Affiliates Have Their Own Domains And Websites

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.

Affiliate Marketing Secrets that You Can Use

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.

Free Keyword Research Tools Are Not As Effective as Wordtracker

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?

Choosing An Affiliate Marketing Program

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.

Affiliate Marketing at a Glance: Helpful Hints

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.

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

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!

**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 ours in the resource box. Thanks!

5 Affiliate Marketing Facts of Life

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.

Three Critical Affiliate Marketing Tips For Higher Commissions!

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.

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

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.

10 Things WalMart Teaches About Affiliate Marketing

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.

Six Power Tips on Resell Rights

If you are planning to take the path of the reseller in your Internet Business undertakings, you will do well to use these power tips I have laid out for you. I hope you will find them useful as they have been for me.

[1] Source for Quality Products at Exclusive Resell Rights Membership Sites

A good way to source for quality products with great demand is to purchase a yearly (or even lifetime!) access to membership websites dedicated to resale rights. These membership sites offer products such as E-books, software, templates, and audio/video with resell rights.

You are advised to look for membership sites which its webmaster regularly sources for such products, preferably either the webmaster does his homework often or he has a good connection with other product creators that he usually has the product before the launch day, if not one of the first to get it.

[2] Do Not Purchase a Product with Resell Rights If the Product Is Outdated

Chances are that the product is either over-saturated on the Internet, devalued over time or did not survive the test of time (especially true if the product contained a lot of time-sensitive information).

[3] Avoid Purchasing Packaged Products with Resell Rights That Are So-called Worth $2,500 but Sells for $47

In most cases, the bundled packages are really worth just that amount. If the product and its resell rights are too cheap to be true, this is often because either product is already old (I personally consider over 2 years old as 'old'), over-saturated on the Internet or devalued due to low prices offered by other resellers on the Internet (as you can see, becoming a reseller is tough competition!).

Consider purchasing the product and its resell rights only if you want to give them away for free, give as a bonus, or bundle them into packages where you can add value and sell at a higher price.

[4] Choose Quality Products with Resell Rights That Have Limited Competition

Preferably if the product is rather new, you have a good chance of having a head-start. Also if the author sells to customers whom most of them do not have really great marketing power, this can be your good chance as an Internet Business owner to leverage on your own connections, Joint Venture partner's efforts, and more.

[5] Choose Quality Products that Have Attractive Back-End Income Opportunity

Choose product with resell rights that also give you an extra income opportunity to earn more from the same customers. In the first three years of the resell rights mania, products with resell rights where created only to benefit their authors. Now, things are different. Like any other wise resellers, choose to sell quality products that not only enable you to earn up-front income but also back-end income from the same customers. If possible, choose a product that allows you to earn recurring income from back-end sales.

[6] Be Sure That the Quality Product with Resell Rights Has a Persuasive Sales Letter

This should be another deciding factor in choosing your product to resell for your own. If the sales letter is not convincing, it won't sell no matter how good the product is. The best litmus test is to read the sales letter yourself. If it does not persuade you, it won't persuade your customers, either.

Also be sure that the sales letter has quality testimonials as I tend to notice that most sales letters for resell right products don't have testimonials, which is very risky on the part of the reseller.

There, the power tips explained! When you make your first ten sales, send me twenty percent of your profits and a thank you note. You know the address.

Affiliate + Blogs = Money

I've been an affiliate for a long time, trying different ways and many different sites to make money. When I first started there were many things I didn't know and it seemed like I was banging my head against the wall just to make a few dollars... and sometimes just a few cents... but over time I learned a few tips and tricks.

1. One website isn't enough. When I first became an affiliate, I had one website; a site for women that featured recipes, articles, a shopping section, and more. I put affiliate ads on every page, but the shopping section was exclusively affiliate advertising. I spent more than a year submitting this site EVERYWHERE, constantly. I never made more than 20 dollars a month. To profit from affiliate advertising, you need many websites. Do you think having multiple sites is too much to maintain? Once you get them set up and get the hang of it, you will only spend a few hours a day on them, especially if you use BLOGS instead of the standard html sites, as mentioned below in the next tip.

2. BLOG! There are some advantages to having blogs and using them for your affilate advertising. You don't have to know html. Blogging has been made so easy that you just click here, copy and paste there, and you're done. Blogging can be FREE. Many sites such as blogger.com offer you a free blog. Blog articles get picked up VERY quickly at Google and other search engines, especially if you allow people to comment to your posts. If you get a blog, add to it every day, and put your affiliate advertising right into your article. The more blogs you have the better. I have a blog for coupons and savings, one for personal articles, one for news articles, one for just jewelry, one for coupons, one with a punk theme, one for poker, and one for internet chat logs, and I'm always trying to think of new blog ideas. They all link to each other and they all have affiliate advertising on them. In fact, my friends and I are working on building a blog empire!

3. One affiliate company isn't enough. In the beginning I was only signed up at linkshare.com. Sure, I was an affiliate at 100s of online stores through LinkShare, but I didn't realize how much I was limiting myself. You need to also sign up at Commission Junction (cj.com) and ShareaSale.com, and maybe one or two more. Many merchants only use one affiliate site. For instance, if you want to be a Macy's affiliate you'll need to be a member of Linkshare, but if you want commissions from Liz Clayborne, it's Commision Junction you'll need. Don't limit yourself!

4. Coupons and Sales. Many merchants offer coupon and promotional codes to their affiliates. Look for them and take advantage of them. Advertise the sales, too! People love saving money! Have you ever shopped online and then at the checkout you saw a box for coupon or promo code? Did you then open another browser and go try to find a coupon code for that site? I've done that a few times, as many people have. If you have a blog article entitled "Perfume.com coupon code" and then list the code as an affiliate link in the article with "click here to redeem", someone shopping at perfume.com WILL find it. When they see the box at the checkout for coupon code, many people will go to Google, type in "perfume.com coupon code," and find your article listed near the top. Like I said earlier, blog articles get into the search engines very quickly. Of course, my coupon blog, percentsavings.com, is filled with nothing but coupon codes and sales from 100s of online stores, and it's all affilate advertising.

5. Don't just add a link. Tell a little about the store/company and what they offer. If they were proudly founded in 1930, say so! If your link goes to their apparel section but they also offer bedding and kitchenware and dog collars, say so in your post! When you become an affiliate, you become a salesman. If you want commissions, make the merchant sound great!

6. Submitting isn't just for search engines. In addition to the search engines, submit your blog to forums sites that list blogs. Every incoming link helps, no matter where it is! For the sites that list blogs (bloggerinity.com, technorati.com, bloglines.com, etc.) you'll be required to link back to them, but that's a good thing! You should spend at least an hour a day just finding new places to submit to.

7. Consider Pay-Per-Click. Not to your site, but to the merchant's site, with your affiliate link as the URL. For instance, I use Google AdWords to advertise single sites I'm affiliated with, or even single products. Because of the Terms of Service I agreed to, I can't use the word "ZALES" as one of my keywords. But when I was notified by the affiliate company that ZALES was having a sale on children's jewelry, and I was given an affiliate link that landed on the sale page, I started a Google pay-per-click ad for it. I used the URL they gave me as the landing page so that it would have my affiliate tracking link in it, but I used "Zales.com" as the URL that shows up in the results, so that when it's clicked on in Google it goes to Zales but I still get a commission if they purchase. My search terms were Children's Jewelry, and Children's Jewelry Sale. I set it to 5 cents per click, and my entire Adwords campaign stops each day after I've spent $1. I kept this ad running for the duration of the sale. With the small number of clicks the ad got, I only spent about $6, but one purchase of an expensive item of jewelry gave me a commission of $34. Keep in mind, I'm using affiliate advertising, in this case, without ever having the link on any of my websites or blogs.

8. RSS. RSS feeds are becoming more and more popular. I subscribe to several blogs' RSS feeds, myself. It's just so much easier to get new articles to all my favorite blogs all in one place (I use Mozilla Thunderbird), and I know people who subscribe to RSS feeds appreciate seeing an RSS button on my site. It's very easy to implement, too. Just add a link on your blog to "http://yourdomain.com/?feed=rss2" and then anyone with an aggregator can subscribe to it. If you want to give them the option to subscribe to your blog's comments as well, the url is "http://yourdomain.com/?feed=comments-rss2." If you have a blog similar to my coupon site, RSS can really help you by sending your new items directly to a subscriber's aggregator, without you having to do anything at all!

9. Email signatures. For your email signature, use links to all your sites that have affiliate advertising on them. Family, friends, clients... anyone can be enticed to click on your ads!

10. Don't give up, and POST POST POST! It can become frustrating but NEVER give up! It takes time! Just keep working at it and you WILL start seeing some commissions eventually. My first blog was online for a few months and being added to daily before I started seeing commissions. Just be sure to post articles to your blogs constantly! Never miss a day!

Basics of Affiliate Marketing

Whether you realize it or not, if you've been on the Internet today, you have encountered affiliate marketing. If you have ever "clicked thru" one site to order something from another, the first site probably received a portion of the sale. For instance, independent booksellers have limited shelf space for books. But they can offer their customers an almost unlimited inventory of titles by affiliating with companies like Amazon or Powell's. The more orders, the bigger the affiliate percentage.

Visitors to your site are interested in lots of things that may or may not be related to your product. But when you know your customers well, it's simply a matter of affiliating yourself with sites that offer what they want. What you receive is just a small percentage of the sale, but it adds up, especially when you consider that all it costs you is a link on your web page. And usually, the more sales your affiliate makes from your "click thru" traffic, the bigger your percentage will be.

The key to success in affiliate marketing is being able to track referred customers. As an affiliate manager, you want a system that reliably tracks what you want, with minimal effort on your part, and without affecting the performance of your site or server. Over the last few years a variety of technologies and strategies have been developed in an attempt to improve accuracy, convenience, and flexibility.

There are at least half a dozen methods, but by far the most preferred method is Cookie Tracking. It's popular because it makes tracking affiliate-referred sales so convenient, without negatively impacting your site. This system writes a small text file, called a "cookie," to a user's browser when they click on an affiliate link. When you are the referring affiliate, the cookie holds your ID, so that at the merchant's order page, you get credit for referring the sale. One drawback is that many computer users disable cookies, although most choose not to, since their favorite sites require them. One bonus is that the merchant can save the information, so that even if a customer buys long after clicking through your site, you still get credit for the sale.

Affiliate marketing, at its best, is a win-win scenario. It's an easy way to offer your customers more of what they want, while you benefit, both in terms of building goodwill and making money.

Writing About How Easy Affiliate Marketing Is, Dont Make It So

It seems that the VERY popular fashion of article writing is not unlike real world clothing fashion in that; the same things keep coming around with seasonal regularity. In fact, more so with the fast paced development of the 'home business' or 'work at home' article topic conveyor.

I'm probably guilty of the above for writing on this specific subject itself, having seen a few others lament the continual rehashing of the 'same ol', same ol'. Although in my defense, today's comment is not so much the same lamentation but, in my eyes at least, an attempt to put the record straight about a specific subject, of which I've read far too many articles about recently.

To be fair, I'm sure only good intentions (and a need for something to write about) are responsible for the latest round of 'Affiliate marketing is simple' and 'You'll be earning online in no time as an Affiliate' type articles. In so many of these articles, Affiliate marketing is touted as the 'way to go' for anyone who has a website (or EVEN NOT, which is rubbish for all but a few).

I currently run seven Affiliate websites, recently 'trimmed down' from twelve because of the amount of time involved in all that was required to keep each website competitive in the Search Engines and interesting to visitors, both new and returning, chasing PR and generally maintaining what have become known as 'affiliate content websites'.

Some merchants supply complete website templates, which are helpful, provided you have total SEO control, but even so, they are not generally well packed with content and certainly they don't have 'ready to go' RSS feeds, news updates, blogs and articles etc. So even though, as I said, they do help, there is still much to be done initially and maintained continually to end up with a comprehensive, interesting and SE friendly Affiliate website.

I had to 'trim down' my activities simply because, even though I am fortunate enough to be a full time Internet home businessperson, I did not have the time to keep that number of websites producing viable 'income for effort'. When you consider the amount of work involved in just one affiliate content website, I'm sure most will understand why I have had to 'streamline'. At the same time, I hope a realization of the effort and time involved will also become apparent.

Of course, before we even start any of the following, we assume we have the ability to build our own websites with a degree of professionalism and functionality, templates aside. Without these two aspects at least, anyone who does visit, will leave shortly after. For the sake of the exercise, we have magically received the knowledge and experience to achieve this? overnight!

Our website will need to be nurtured through a period of at least 3 - 6 months of little or no activity (unless we also happen to be, again miraculously, well versed, experienced, and game enough to throw money at PPC engines). During this period we will be setting up and making use of the advantages of RSS feeds, blogs, content articles (both other's and hopefully, some of our own). We'll be updating and changing things almost daily in order to achieve some targeted traffic through the SEs, when we're finally out of the 'sandboxes' etc.

While this is all coming together, we're spending a lot of time on a link exchange program (not so much for PR, but because back links are an important component in the SE results). This needs to be done manually because the automatic programs do more harm to a website's SE chances than help (but that's another article!).

Slowly, our website is gaining some targeted traffic, the only kind of any use to an Affiliate website. We may even have managed a few sales, provided we have, again miraculously overnight, become confident and made good choices of Affiliate programs and products around which we have built and nurtured our website.

The traffic and occasional sale, although exciting to the 'first-timer' serve only to create more time consuming work. These 'hits', as we call them, need to be analyzed. We need to know where they came from, what particular promotional method brought them to us, what part of the world they originated, the referring URL if any and so on, so we can concentrate our efforts in the right places and forego those which don't seem to be successful.

No serious Affiliate relies on a single product or program for an income. We all know about the security and sense in 'multiple income streams'? Well, the concept is a very important aspect in Affiliate marketing., so this ONE website we've just managed to bring to a point where it MAY BEGIN paying for some of the time effort and expense involved in it's inception, really needs to be one of a number for an Affiliate to hope to became self-sufficient through Affiliate marketing.

Of course, luck plays it's role in all things and some do make good quickly and sometimes, one product or program WILL be sufficient for the desired income. Maybe, with some, the whole exercise is more a hobby or interest and a little pocket money to pay costs is all that's wanted. These are all personal aspects, which are of no consequence. We're talking about people who are being told how easy it is to become an Affiliate for 'income' purposes.

Having now totally destroyed the Affiliate dreams of thousands, I will now say that it IS a marvellous Internet home business model and you can start and progress to the point where you are making some income, without spending very much at all. In fact, the only outlay that is absolutely necessary, in my opinion, is the domain and hosting for your website. In that respect, Affiliate marketing is TRULY the 'no-risk' home based business model.

Still again, there is much to know about the domain and hosting aspect of the preparation, which will have consequences if not considered correctly, before we even think about what I have spoken about above.

Do yourself a favor if you're relatively unfamiliar with Affiliate marketing or even halfway there, get the right advice from the right sources. The right sources are people who have been, and/or are doing it themselves and aren't afraid to explain that it's not all that EASY, but certainly possible for those who really WANT the 'work at home' dream for themselves and their families.

Choosing The Right Affiliate Program

Choosing the right affiliate program is vital for your success. We don't want to end up with lemons, right? It is not advisable to invest time and effort into something that will not yield the best return for the energy expended.

In this lesson, we're going to learn how to distinguish an excellent affiliate program from a rather mediocre one. Yes, indeed. Not all affiliate programs are created equal. Some are simply better than others. Here are some things you need to think about if you are considering entering the affiliate marketing arena:

* How much is the commission rate being offered by the affiliate program? Ideally, you would want a high commission rate. Who wouldn't, right? But don't let this mislead you into thinking that a high commission rate is equal to a good home based business opportunity. An affiliate program that offers 80% commission per successful sale, for example, may also ask you to pre-sell products that aren't really sellable. What good is an 80% commission then when you won't have any sales to speak of? So this leads us to our next consideration?

* How sellable is the product? You could always ask for statistics from the affiliate program. Don't forget that. You could demand to see the sales chart for the past few months, so that you'd know that there are people who are actually willing to purchase the product. We can safely say that an affiliate programs offering high commission rates for very sellable products is an excellent opportunity.

* How credible is the affiliate program? There are many things that should be factored into this consideration. Determine how long the program has been operating. If they have been in existence for a long time with nary a complaint that can be seen, then they must be doing something right! Do a search on Google or online forums to check out other affiliates opinions of your prospective business partner.

* How will you get paid? This may be a little too prospective a thought, but you have to ensure the utmost viability of any money making opportunity. What payment method can you accommodate? Will the affiliate program be able to oblige to such method? If the affiliate program pays its affiliates through PayPal exclusively, for example, and you're living in a non-PayPal territory, then you might encounter some problems. Ask the affiliate merchant if he could make some considerations for your case. More often than not, he will try to accommodate your request. If he can't, then your time would be better spent with an affiliate program whose payment you would actually receive.

If the above considerations are all favorable for you, then grab the said opportunity as quickly as you can. Start earning money right away, for time is gold in this business!

In the next article, we're going to discuss the proper steps you should take in starting out with this type of home based business opportunity.

Make 100% Commission on Your Affiliate Sales!

If you've been involved in making money on the internet, you will no doubt have tried affiliate marketing at some point. For the uninitiated, affiliate marketing is the process of selling another person's product for a percentage of the product cost. This is a great way to get your internet marketing efforts up and running quickly and generate some instant profits, you can refer prospects to a sales page using Google Adwords within a few hours or by ezine advertising in a couple of days.

But although affiliate marketing is a great opportunity for quick profits it has several disadvantages, the biggest of which is that you don't get to keep all the money! This article is focusing only on information products so we'll ignore the measly 10 - 15% of offer for hard goods at online stores like Amazon etc, but even with info products the norm is around the 50% mark.

So ask yourself this - why should you go to all the bother and expense of generating a sale when you only get to keep half of the money? Wouldn't you rather keep it all?

There is a way to keep 100% of your "affiliate" sales, by securing the resale rights to the product. If you own or have right to resell the product, you get to keep all of the money instead of having a large percentage of it deducted by the vendor.

Now doesn't that sound better?

There are several ways that you can obtain resale rights to all sorts of information products and packages. Firstly you could just do a search on Google or Yahoo for "resale rights" and "information" or "software". These will return a lot of results and you could uncover some good products that you can sell using this method. Watch out however for packages that are stuffed with tired old books that everyone's already read - nobody will buy these.

Then there's our old friend eBay. Again you may find the odd one or two new titles that you can buy and get resale rights to, but the vast majority of ebooks on sale at online auctions are very low priced products that have become devalued by being undercut by one vendor after another. You will not make very much money on products that are selling for 99 cents on eBay!

The only real way to make money with resale rights is to buy good quality, fresh, exciting products that are in demand. Make it your business to search out high quality top-end material that you can buy the rights for and you will be able to sell it for months and even years to come.

Affiliate Programs - Can I Really Make Money?

If you have been looking around the internet for a while in search of ways of making money you cannot fail to have seen the words "join our free affiliate program" - probably followed by something about making thousands of dollars a month!

If you are like me you were a mixture of skeptical, intrigued, excited and also thinking "could this work for me?" Well to cut a long story short I was looking to work from home at the tail end of 2004 due to ill health and was surfing the net to find a work from home business. I kept seeing these adverts for affiliate programs but had never heard of them in my life. To say I was a newbie was a massive understatement!

I decided to find as much as I could about them and everything I needed was online. I soon discovered Google Adwords and pay per click as a way of promoting my programs and also found Clickbank.com, Commission Junction.com (cj.com) and Tradedoubler.co.uk as "libraries" of thousands of products to promote.

I then tried to learn all I could about how to promote on Google Adwords and also how to research the market place. I cannot stress how important this point is! It is vital to find a market BEFORE you find your product. I tried to promote many things I thought were great products before I realized it was not what I thought would sell that mattered! It is what people are looking for that is important.

You may have heard the term "Niche Market" and this is what you are searching for - a niche that may not have a huge number of potential buyers - but that has a large enough group of people who are very HUNGRY to buy your products. It is your job as an affiliate to target these people as accurately as possible.

There are many different e Books out there that will help you learn how to do this. Using the Overture search tool is an excellent way of finding popular searches and Niche Markets.

You can also promote affiliate programs through your own sites and this is the way to really generate those huge incomes you read about - but it can be a huge learning curve! Don't worry however as there are lots of good programs out there that will teach you step by step how to do this. The best I have come across is the Incredible Wealth Building System (see below)

As I said before I started as an affiliate just less than a year ago and now make my living full time - it can be done - but.....

You must put in the time, effort and, yes, money to prepare yourself. And you must research, research and research some more the market place! This is not money for nothing but it is definitely a business you can succeed in if you do your homework and are prepared to learn from those who have succeeded before you.

Best wishes for your financial future!

One Little-Known Secret to Wealth the Gurus Never Told You About!

When I started my internet marketing career, I knew that in order to succeed online I had to duplicate what my mentors were doing.

I had read several popular ebooks at that time, written by marketing gurus, and each of them explained how to research niche markets in order to find out what products to create or sell.

But right in front of me, staring me in the face were ebooks that I had bought. So I thought to myself, if this guru wrote this ebook and sold a copy to me, then obviously the best thing for me to do is to create an ebook to sell!

Boy was I wrong, and I'm glad I never wrote that ebook to start my career. Do you know how many $20 ebooks you would have to sell in order to make your first $10,000? 500 sales! That's right, you have to make 500 sales just to clear $10k.

Now don't get me wrong, ebooks have many important purposes including lead generation and viral marketing, but when you are just starting out and need cash flow, you might be better off saving the $20 ebook project until you've built up your following.

And now for the secret you don't often hear about from the gurus!

You need to sell high-ticket items!

Let's say instead of the $20 ebook you decide to sell a product that gives you a $1000 commission. How many sales do you have to make to reach your $10k goal? Just 10!

And remember, as long as you have a great offer, it isn't much harder to sell a big-ticket items than it is to sell a lower-priced item.

Now think of one more important point. Think of all the time you would need to spend supporting 500 customers vs. 10 customers. I don't know about you, but I would rather focus my energy on just 10 customers each willing to pay me $1000 each!

Have you ever wondered why the gurus put on so many seminars? They like to go for the big kill! Many seminars charge upwards of $2,000, $5,000 or more. When you do the math, it isn't hard to see that $50,000 is pretty easy to make when you are selling $5,000 products.

So, if you racking your brain trying to figure out what products to promote next, follow these 3 simple guidelines in order to narrow it down:

1. Focus on 1 or 2 products to promote at first so you don't get overwhelmed.

2. Make sure the products are ones you believe in. Don't let great sales copy from mediocre product talk you into joining the affiliate program. You may be putting a lot of effort into something that might only pay miniscule commissions!

Affiliate Marketing Nightmare - Dont Let This Happen To You!

Everyone knows that affiliates can make or break a company's success rate. Ken Evoy has a whole army of people motivated to earn click-through commissions on his Site Sell program. Marlon Sanders and Yanik Silver have made fortunes with (and for) their affiliates.

"If you've got an e-commerce website," I was frequently told by my internet savvy friends, "you have GOT to have an affiliate program." I took that to heart. "Ok!" I said, and when I created www.ArticleMarketer.com, I made sure that I developed a compelling offer for affiliates.

So what's the nightmare? Here I had created the perfect program for affiliates and what kind of results was I getting? None. Nada. Zilch. A big fat zero. There was no lineup of affiliates banging at the door.

Has this happened to you? Is your affiliate program going nowhere? Here is the step-by-step analysis of what makes an affiliate program take off, and how my results were impacted by each one.

Offer a good deal - make it worth their while

Affiliates will not promote your product because it "feels good". An emotional payoff might be sufficient for non-profit organizations or political campaigns, but that's not enough in the cold, hard world of e-commerce. Affiliates are looking for products and services that quickly convert to sale.

Affiliates don't mind pre-selling your goods to their lists and visitors, but you have got to make it worth their effort. Don't be cheap. Give your affiliates a good deal. Unless you're selling Lear Jets or Rolls Royces, that 5% commission you are thinking about isn't going to get anyone excited about being your representative.

How did I fare against this point? I nailed it. I made sure to offer 50% commissions and a lifetime customer program. Residual and recurring revenue are automatic. For any customer that one of my affiliates sends to my site, they get paid. Not just on the first sale either. They get paid every time that person spends money, renews a subscription, or buys something else.

But evidently that was not enough. I had my program set up to offer a good, profitable deal for affiliates. So I moved to the next point:

Provide personal service - be responsive

Affiliates are your business partners, not cattle to be herded. Treat them with respect, provide them with the tools they need to be successful, and be responsive when your affiliates ask for help, guidance or tools. In the end, it will make things better for you. Make sure you take care of your affiliates.

Well I am a naturally outgoing guy, so I have a tendency to reach out to customers, partners and business associates. It's just who I am. I like people. I send email, write articles, post in the blog - I'm a communicative guy. I've got my phone number on the site, and I personally answer my phone. So personal service couldn't be my problem. But still, why weren't people signing up to be affiliates? I moved on to the next point:

Why You?

It's likely that you're not the only company offering the chance to sell a product or service like yours. Give your prospective affiliates a reason to choose your program over your competitor's. Do you do it faster, better, cheaper? Why is it going to be easier and more profitable to sell for you than for someone else? Why do you deserve their attention? Why do you deserve the attention of their visitors?

With 20 years of direct sales under my belt, I certainly know how to craft a presentation to crush my competition. I put direct comparisons to other article submission services right on my home page. I created an instructional video to make it easy to submit articles. Audio prompts explain every step of the way. I have a long listing of places that articles are submitted. There is no reason someone would want to do article submission on their own (because it's tedious) or with any of my competitors (they don't have the reach, and their prices are exorbitant) so I knew that there was no problem in this area. So I moved on to the final point.

Promote! Promote! Promote!

You have to be as diligent in promoting your affiliate program as you are in promoting your products. You have to let people know that you've got a great deal for them. You must let people know that you have an affiliate program, you must provide tools, banners, graphics, articles, ads, and links that they can use to drive traffic to your site.

This was my problem. I was suffering under a "If you build it, they will come" delusion, and it almost killed my response. I didn't even know how hidden my affiliate link was, until I had a conversation (remember, I'm a talkative guy) with a new affiliate. She was an existing customer. She had been to the site, pored over it, in fact, and had asked questions. She had used our services, so when I asked her what prompted her sudden interest in joining the affiliate program, I was shocked by her response. "I didn't even know you were set up for affiliates until I read it Michael Campbell's Internet Marketing Secrets newsletter. When I saw that he was telling people how great your service was, I said, "Hey, I can do that!"

So it wasn't until I started promoting the service that I discovered how important it is to promote the affiliate program as much as it is to promote the article submission service itself. To ensure that it's easy to find, I have moved the affiliate link on my site. It's now prominently displayed right in my main navigation and clearly marked "Become an Affiliate".

I hope that you'll take this story to heart and implement these four techniques. Start by adjusting your program, make sure you talk with your customers, check your value proposition, and then begin trumpeting your affiliate program from the rooftops. You'll see a quick improvement in your affiliate sign ups!