Archive for September, 2009

So Many Affiliate Programs! Which One Do I Choose?

September 18th, 2009 Iwan Bagus

Ask questions first before you join an affiliate program. Do a little research about the choices of program that you intend to join into. Get some answers because they will be the deciding point of what you will be achieving later on.

Will it cost you anything to join? Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. So why settle for those that charge you some dollars before joining.

When do they issue the commission checks? Every program is different. Some issue their checks once a month, every quarter, etc. Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. Many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet or exceed in order for their checks to be issued.

What is the hit per sale ratio? This is the average number of hits to a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. This factor is extremely important because this will tell you how much traffic you must generate before you can earn a commission from the sale.

How are referrals from an affiliate’s site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system? You need to be confident on the program enough to track those people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. The period of time that those people stay in the system is also important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. Know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.

What are the kinds of affiliate stats available? Your choice of affiliate program should be capable of offering detailed stats. They should be available online anytime you decide to check them out. Constantly checking your individual stats is important to know how many impressions, hits and sales are already generated from your site. Impressions are the number of times the banner or text link was viewed by a visitor of your site. A hit is the one clicking on the banner or text links.

Does the affiliate program also pay for the hits and impressions besides the commissions on sales? It is important that impressions and hits are also paid, as this will add to the earnings you get from the sales commission. This is especially important if the program you are in offers low sales to be able to hit ratio.

Who is the online retailer? Find out whom you are doing business with to know if it is really a solid company. Know the products they are selling and the average amount they are achieving. The more you know about the retailer offering you the affiliate program, the easier it will be for you to know if that program is really for you and your site.

Is the affiliate a one tier or two tier program? A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two-tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor. More like a recruitment fee.

Lastly, what is the amount of commission paid? 5% – 20% is the commission paid by most programs. .01% – .05% is the amount paid for each hit. If you find a program that also pays for impressions, the amount paid is not much at all. As you can see from the figures, you will now understand why the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is important.

These are just some of the questions that needed answering first before you enter into an affiliate program. You should be familiar with the many important aspects that your chosen program should have before incorporating them into your website. Try to ask your affiliate program choices these questions. These can help you select the right program for you site from among the many available.

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Affiliate Marketing

September 13th, 2009 Iwan Bagus

One of the fastest growing Internet opportunities that are available today is affiliate marketing. With this type of marketing, the individual can take part in advertising products and services for companies, without having to actually deal with any merchandise. For many people this is the perfect way to make an income and if done correctly, can produce one that is very lucrative.

In order to make money with affiliate marketing, you first need a website. The website is the portal in which you will be able to draw in individuals that will want to purchase the products and services that you are advertising. Without this website traffic, marketing the programs of the company will not succeed. In order to draw the traffic that you will need, the website needs to be set up to certain specifications. Take a look at the type of product or service that the company is offering. Who would want to buy it? Who does it appeal to the most? Once you have answered these types of questions, you will understand who you will be marketing to. In order to draw in these particular people, your website needs to be one that these individuals will enjoy.

Keeping this in mind, you will need to design the website so that it will attract this particular group of people. For example, if the affiliate marketing program is one that is designed best to fit working mothers, you would not want to market to teenage boys. When you are setting up the website, design it in a way that will be appealing to the eye of your target market.

It is important to note that when taking part in affiliate marketing, when individuals visit your website, they most likely will not click on your affiliate link or ad the first time. This is why it is important to make the website interesting and attractive enough that they will want to return. Most people like to think about their purchases before they actually make them. If your website offers them a lot of information and gives them what they are looking for, they will return to your website and hopefully eventually click the affiliate link.

While this will only be the beginning of your affiliate marketing adventure, it will be one of the most important things that you will do. The traffic that you will draw to your website will mean everything; it will either make or break your marketing business. Once you realize that this is the meat of your business, you will be able to better understand how you will need to set up your website and also maintain it. If possible, try looking at the websites of other individuals that are doing Internet marketing. You may be able to pick up some ideas that will help you with your own website. Understand that it may take a while for you to get your website the way that it needs to be in order to draw the type of traffic that you need. However, once this has been done, it may be just the type of moneymaker that you have been looking for.

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Make Money Online With Affiliates

September 9th, 2009 Iwan Bagus

To make money online you do not need to have a website. You will just need a few good products – affiliates that you promote and are paid for promoting them.

Choose the Best Affiliate Product

You must have heard about commissions that people earn when they sell a product of a specific brand. What we are going to do is similar in context only our product will be Internet based. Digital products are the high value products that generate much higher commissions that any other products. Electronic books or e-books and most Internet software’s today are classified as digital products as they can be directly downloaded after purchase. “Commission Junction ” and “ClickBank ” are some of the websites that offer such services .You get a unique affiliate link that has your reference ID as soon as you sign up for a product that you find interesting. The reference id on the affiliate link will allow the commissions on each sale to be tracked correctly and assigned to you.

Go one step ahead and make your affiliate link look Genuine by buying a Domain name (.com)

Get a domain name to redirect/forward to your affiliate link. You can easily register a domain name at a very cheap price ($7.99). Therefore, when someone types in your .com or domain name in his or her browser, it will go to your affiliate link. The visitor will obviously see the website with the product that you promote, and the commissions will be tracked correctly.An affiliate link looks very weird eg. affiliatedoman.com/product?refid=mmhaas compared to the domain name which you will be registering. For eg: If you are selling a digital camera photo software like photolightning then your domain name can be something like photosoftwaresale.com etc. A domain name masks the affiliate link look like it’s your own website. Therefore you have a website for free :) as well as a product to promote with large commissions to earn.

The winning formula: Higher Traffic = Higher Sales

If you are a good writer then write an article promoting your product and a link at the bottom to your website. Articles are the best ways to spread the word about your product and generate traffic. If you are not a good writer, get an article written from some freelancer. In order to make high commissions from your sales, you need to get traffic to your website and thus the affiliate website.

Start an advertising campaign, make sure you do not spend more than you earn. Make a definite plan of action about the amount of money you will be spending on advertising. Many article directories and websites will readily publish your article free with your links. You will be generating money without spending a dime on advertising if you follow this method. This strategy is simple if you have a good article people will read your article, if they like what you describe they will click your link to buy the product, generating commissions for you.

Repeat this step for other products and you will definitely be earning money in a few months and all this without a website.

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Are You Already Marketing On The Internet?

September 5th, 2009 Iwan Bagus

Take a moment to think about how you would really answer this question. If given enough thought just about any business owner who utilizes the Internet for any purpose will likely find that whether or not they intentionally organized an Internet marketing campaign, they may already be marketing their products and services on the Internet. This article will examine some subtle ways business owners may already be marketing their business on the Internet.

Do you have a website for your business? Business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their products or services online just by virtue of the fact that they have a website online. Having a live website means there is the potential for curious Internet users to access your website. You may not be actively promoting your website but you may still find that your website generates interest in your products despite the lack of promotional endeavors; this is a form of passive marketing.

Do you participate in message boards and include a link to your website in your signature? Again business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their website online. Savvy business owners realize the importance of participation in industry related message boards to create an interest in their products and services, establish themselves as knowledgeable about the industry and offer a link to their own website even if it is in the signature line of their posts. However, even business owners who do not realize this may already be inadvertently enjoying the benefits of Internet marketing which result from message board participation just by doing something they enjoy and may be doing as a form of leisure activity.

Do you include keywords which are relevant to your business in the content of your website? Business owners who answer yes to this question are also already marketing on the Internet by optimizing their website for these keywords. These search engine optimization (SEO) affects the websites whether or not they were even aware of the concept of keyword density and how it can help to SEO a website. Business owners will likely use certain words often depending on the type of products and services they offer just because it is natural and logical to do so. This tendency, however, can result in search engines boosting your website rankings for these particular keywords. The concept of SEO is much more involved and complex than simply using keywords frequently but business owners can gain some benefit just by naturally applying relevant keywords to their website.

Do you solicit feedback from your customers online? This is yet another example of how business owners may be accidentally marketing their business on the Internet. Most business owners realize the importance of soliciting feedback from customers for business purposes and business owners who offer products online might solicit feedback in the form of online surveys. Although the business owners may be doing this simply for a business purpose the fact that it is done online makes it fall into the category of Internet marketing.

We have already discussed several ways in which business owners may already be marketing online but what about business owners who want to have an increased online presence? Business owners who may already be marketing online accidentally may wish to launch a full scale Internet marketing campaign. The best way to do this is to hire a consultant with experience in Internet marketing to assist you in creating a campaign which is effective for your target audience.

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