Archive for December, 2005
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
It is true enough that affiliate marketing is financially rewarding. People who have gone through everything to be able to succeed in this business are reaping the seeds that they untiringly sowed. Many of them enjoy the kind of existence that was not possible for them to have had under ordinary circumstances. Having gone through the A-Z of affiliate marketing, however, these people are the ones who know that while such business is lucrative, there is absolutely no easy money in it.
Ignorance of this fact is one of the main reasons why there are people who fail miserably in the internet business. There are those who believe in myths concerning the easy money involved in systems such as affiliate marketing. They do not know that there are those who have wasted time, effort and too many resources in trying to pursue the life of ease that they believe this business will give them. And so they go into affiliate marketing armed with nothing but myths and fantastical notions of wealth swimming in their consciousness, never realizing that they bound to make mistakes that would prove to be their downfall.
What may be the reason why in businesses such as affiliate marketing, many are called but few are chosen? Perhaps the answer lies on the fact that many affiliates make mistakes that result from their ignorance of facts concerning how the entire business runs. Affiliate marketing is not as simple as an affiliate promoting a merchant?s wares through his website and getting paid for it. It is also about knowing the market and the customers at hand.
Discovering what the most common mistakes affiliates make can perhaps dispel the gloom about myths surrounding affiliate marketing by correcting some wrong notions about it. It might also be able to make those concerned understand that like any other business, there are dos and donts involved in this one if they want to make each of their steps count. The first common mistake affiliates make is their lack of knowledge concerning principles involved in their business. This refers to the affiliate?s knowledge of search engines in particular.
Affiliate marketing involves advertising, and advertising through the internet could not have been better without the existence of search engines. What every affiliate has to do is to make these search engines his best friend through studying search engine optimization closely. This way, he is able to know what to do in connection with building a better website to ultimately use for his business.
The second is that affiliates make the mistake of stuffing their sites with banners that do not provide enough information about the product at hand. The best way to battle this mistake is to provide good content hand-in-hand with such banners. It is important for customers to know and understand the features of a product, and good content will be able to help them realize this goal.
The third is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting only one product. Consequently, customers are not given enough options to choose from. There is also the risk of generating fewer sales as compared to having more options for customers ponder about. It is always better to give them a few better alternatives than to give them only one.
The fourth is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting too many products. As a result, customers are confused and end up beyond making a choice. It is perhaps good to give them only the best choices. This is because it is ultimately up to them to judge which one is the best for them to patronize.
All in all, affiliates that are doomed to fail in this business are those who do not exert enough effort to understand everything involved in the industry that they are in. Knowing their path step by careful step will prove to be beneficial to them, as there is no other way to succeed than to go through any path slowly but surely.
Posted in Affiliate Programs | No Comments »
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
Affiliate marketing is defined as a revenue sharing relationship between advertisers or merchants and online publishers or affiliates. It is a low cost way for merchants to sell their products and services.
In this type of online business, you don?t have to take any risk because you only have to pay the affiliate once the result is achieved. Once a customer is gained, a portion of the profit from that customer will be given to the affiliate as commission. Usually, an affiliate gets a commission for referring clicks, leads or sales to the merchant?s website. The said affiliate income can be a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage.
From this simple commission-based referral system, some affiliates become experts on this field. In fact, some of them are gaining more than five figures every month. However, among the thousands of marketers, only 1 to 5% of them reached this level. And if you?re among the lucky ones who achieve this so-called elite level, you can now be aptly called a ?super? affiliate.
This means you are capable of achieving noteworthy percentage of sales or traffic on your merchant?s website. Super affiliates are not only experts on search engine optimization; they are also great in newsletter marketing, email marketing, reciprocal linkages, keyword optimization, link exchanges, advertising in forums and other methods to advertise and promote their products and services.
But how does a person become a super affiliate? And how can they overachieve their way to super affiliate stardom? Making your way to super affiliate stardom is not that easy; and it surely won?t happen overnight. Bear in mind that you need to embrace some tactics, carry out effective online business strategies and of course give hefty time commitment. You can?t be a super affiliate without blood and sweat and without the following traits – patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge. Matched with efficient strategy, these three traits provide you the formula towards super affiliate stardom.
Affiliate marketing strategies are a bit difficult but they are achievable; you just have to work hard on it. First, look for a unique and exceptional niche and focus in it. The reason why most people in the affiliate marketing business didn?t turn out to be very successful is that they try to offer almost everything under the sun instead of giving all their attention in a particular niche market. If you want to become a super affiliate, try not to scatter all your efforts; concentrate on your niche and make it grow by means of promoting, advertising and selling it well.
The next step you must do after you have established your affiliate storehouse is to promote it. Most affiliates resort to pay-per-click engines. But what?s more advisable is to discover how to accomplish organic search results or better yet, hire a search engine marketing company. Through this, you can be saved from losing all your profits on pay-per-click engines.
Then, familiarize yourself with your product and know your audience. Remember that credibility builds trust. And you can only make information that puts up your credibility if you know the products and services your site is offering. If you?re target audience don?t trust you, how could you expect them to purchase from your affiliate storehouse? Moreover, if you take time to learn the products and services you are recommending, it will be way too easy for you to establish a website that converts well, which will enhance your affiliate income in return.
Try to promote and resell products from different merchants. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this strategy because it is just a way of protecting your business and broadening your horizons to be sure that you won?t experience the so-called famine effect. Aside from that, promoting different merchants on the same site provides your site visitors a handful of destinations to choose from. This strategy will also make you aware on what your visitor want to see and it can also help you find out how well various merchants perform against each other.
As mentioned earlier in this page, a super affiliate wannabe should have this trait – thirst for knowledge. It is because this trait can help him or her stay updated and remain on top of the trends. If you are knowledgeable in internet marketing, then you know that what was adopted few months ago may not be applicable at present. So it is important to seek knowledge and make sure that you are updated on what?s new about affiliate marketing daily. Keep in mind that super affiliates take time to read, learn and embrace the changes in online marketing business.
And what?s most important? Never, ever give up. Being engaged in affiliate marketing business is hard, that?s why you must be equipped with patience and persistence. Check your statistics and find out the things that are working and those that are not. Make changes if the situation calls for.
These are just few suggestions and ideas if you want to boost your affiliate income. Let me reiterate, you have to be patience, persistence and knowledgeable. Then, follow the above mentioned strategies and you?ll surely find yourself on the road to super affiliate stardom.
Posted in Affiliate Programs | No Comments »
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
As an affiliate, all that is required of you is to simply place the merchant’s ad on your website. Then after that, you virtually do nothing but wait for anyone to click on the merchant’s ad and later collect your profits. Easy, right? Well, not quite often. Many affiliates earn almost nothing from their affiliate programs simply because they do nothing. Remember that affiliate marketing is but another form of marketing, and you’ll definitely need to market your merchant’s product for you to earn something.
Successful affiliates in any affiliate program simply don’t sit there and wait for money to come. Why? Because there is no money in simply sitting and waiting. If you want to be successful in affiliate marketing and if you want to continually grow your affiliate checks, you’ve got to do something. Think of ways on how to promote your merchant’s business and products better. Think of ways on how to induce other people to click on the link or ad provided to you by your merchant. Think of ways on how to make your affiliate sales increase!
So if you’re new in affiliate marketing and you try to follow the easy go lucky pit that most unsuccessful affiliate marketers follow, then you’re definitely on the wrong track. But we’re not advising you to stop right there. No. Rather, we want you to take some steps to make your affiliate program work better and gain more commissions for you. How? Here are a few guidelines that may help you to continually grow your affiliate checks:
* Become an expert on your affiliate product.
You can promote your merchant’s product better if you know a lot of things about it. To become an expert, the best thing you can do is purchase your merchant’s product yourself. This way, you can tell your customers about your first-hand experience using the product. You can even write a testimonial or a personal endorsement ad about it. But if any condition does not permit you to purchase the product, you can at least make a thorough research about it.
* Host your own website.
Or at least have a domain name that is short and easy to remember. You certainly wouldn’t expect a visitor to remember a very long and incomprehensible URL. And if that’s so, you also wouldn’t expect him to visit your website any time soon. That means less traffic for your page and the less chance for your affiliate ads and links to be clicked.
It is also a good idea to create a private website and offer access to it to anybody who clicks on any of your affiliate ads. Visitors usually get interested with these private websites. Private websites also gives you a venue to promote your back-end affiliate products.
* Write your own affiliate ads.
Many merchants usually wouldn’t mind if you write and design your own ads for their products, for as long as you ask permission from them and present them your ad before posting it on your site. This gives you a greater advantage over a lot of other affiliates who must be advertising the same affiliate products.
* Participate in chat rooms, discussion boards, and forums related to your product.
If you use to ignore them before, then it is time for you to start focusing your attention on them. You can start your own chat or join an existing chat related to your product. You don’t have to promote your affiliate product at once, but find the chance to advertise and promote it as you go along. The same would be true for message boards, discussion boards and forums.
* Create a free ezine or newsletter.
Ezines and newsletters are periodical publications whose aim is to inform a group of people about a certain subject. In your ezines and newsletters, you don’t always have to promote your merchant’s product for this may greatly annoy your subscribers. Rather, find a way to insert your affiliate ads and links on some portions of the letter. Also, don’t forget to promote your ezine or newsletter on your website.
These are but a few guidelines on how you can increase your affiliate sales and continually grow your affiliate checks. Sure there can be a lot of other tips that out there, and if you think they would work, we won’t discourage you from following them. What’s important is that you be able to find a way to: attract more traffic to your site, induce your visitors to click on the ads on your site, and be able to promote your merchant’s products even outside the boundary of your website. If you can do these, there’s no reason for you to fail in affiliate marketing.
Posted in Affiliate Programs | No Comments »
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
In two-tier system, the first tier of commission is just like in the usual affiliate program. The sole difference is that it has an additional tier/s or sub-affiliates, whereby marketers also gain a commission once the people that the additional tiers referred to the program generate sales. Theoretically, affiliate programs can have multi-tier program with infinite number of tiers, however, there are practical limitations. As tiers increase, the affiliate program draws more webmasters who are mostly interested in gaining profit from other?s work and effort.
Two-Tier affiliate program is also recognized as Multi-Level Marketing. When you sign-up for an affiliate program, you are identified as the first tier and the person that you have recruited or encouraged to sign up is the second tier. If there are additional tiers, then the system can now be regarded as multi-level marketing (MLM). But today, MLM isn?t as effective and successful as it was several years ago. It is because at present, affiliates can freely select from thousands of affiliate programs and they can quickly switch from one program to another.
You could probably go wrong if you?re thinking that you can depend on your second tier to do the job for you. So if you want to use two-tier affiliate program to your advantage and generate more income by encouraging sub-affiliates to sign-up below you, make sure that you carefully choose your affiliate merchant. Pick those merchants who generate stable stream of high quality products, give high or just commissions, offers real time tracking, furnishes you with a proven and tested advertising arsenal and treat their affiliates very well. You can also sign-up for the merchant who gives high visitors-to-sales conversion rate.
It is also advisable if you engage yourself with a web merchant that has a user-friendly website which you can access anytime so that you can monitor your statistics including visits and sales. And if possible, choose the one with powerful marketing tools which you can use in promoting their products.
You?re just wasting much of your time and effort and worse, damaging your integrity once you promote poor affiliate program because your visitor will surely presume that the product or service you are reselling must be dreadful too. That?s the reason why it is important to pick first-rate affiliate programs. Through these, you can not only build up a good relationship with your visitor, but also, you can easily get more tiers to sign-up under you. You should also be cautious of some affiliate programs that give more importance on the profits to be earned in taking on other affiliates than on the income from sales, because you?ll just eventually find out that someone has already close those sales without informing you. Usually, this kind of affiliate program offers a very low first-tier payment but a sky-scraping second-tier commission.
If you want to start an affiliate program of your own, you surely have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program. Who am I to say which of these two programs are better? But let me tell you the benefits you could get out of two-tier affiliate program.
First, your profit will increase due to increased sales from the customers that your second tier has referred. Second, you have a much broader customer base to which you can sell your products and services. Then, you gain more and stable income because the customers referred by your affiliate and sub-affiliates could probably develop a lifetime loyalty on your site and your products. Plus, you have an army of sub-affiliates who will promote and resell your products and services to their visitors and subscribers.
Two-tier program has been a proven winner and should be the number one choice for the budding affiliates as well as for the affiliate program managers. When you start gaining profits from your site as well as your tiers, this is now the right time to say that you have used two-tier affiliate program to your advantage.
Posted in Affiliate Programs | No Comments »
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
It is rather interesting that most people do not take free online marketing tools seriously. Never mind that there is plenty of evidence around and even more examples of web sites and online entrepreneurs who have taken off in a hurry using only free online marketing tools.
In a way this reaction is not surprising because we have been brought up in world where we have been taught to firmly believe in the facts of life. One of the major facts of life is that there is no such thing as a free lunch and nothing valuable costs nothing.
While all this is true, most people have failed to realize that the World Wide Web has arrived with its’ own unique and rather unorthodox but highly effective set of rules.
Even fewer have taken note of the fact that the most successful online business model so far has been based on the heavy use of free marketing tools and heavy spending in marketing comes later when the web site has already started enjoying some success.
A Famous Example
When Bill Gates was playing catch up on the internet after an initial error of judgement over the future importance of the net, one of the areas where he found himself way behind was in free email services. The likes of Yahoo already had millions of users when Hotmail was re-launched.
Did one of the richest men in the world go for prime time television to advertise his new free email service? Did he book newspaper spots across the states? Not really, he used a free online marketing strategy that worked like a dream. A brief signature at the end of each email sent out invited the recipient to open a free Hotmail email account. The rest is history. This simple referral marketing strategy that cost nothing took Hotmail from virtually zero users to millions in a few short months.
There are numerous other examples, but I shoe this one because it is somebody we all know rather well.
Conventional Advertising Does Not Work Online There is one other reason why free online advertising tools are so effective. And this is based on the fact that conventional advertising as we have always know it has so far been a big failure online.
Banner advertisements with all the color and gimmickry was such a huge failure that it prompted somebody to come up with what they thought would solve the problem and become a huge success. I am referring to the much- disliked and extremely annoying pop-up advertisements.
Even the so-called pop-under ads that are supposedly less annoying have not been received with much enthusiasm online.
All these options are not free and people have been paying good money for them.
The reason why conventional ads do not work is simple and yet most people still don’t get it. Folks do not come online to be advertised to. They come online, usually with very little time on their hands and looking for some very specific information. Is it any wonder that any form of unsolicited advertising, be it pop-up ads or unsolicited email (SPAM), is so annoying?
This is why informative well-written articles are such an effective free online marketing tool. Only those who are interested in the information you have to offer will read your article. And they do not mind whatever advertising you put in the resource box at the bottom of the article, because it does not look like advertising to them.
Especially when they are interested in getting more information on the subject at hand.
Marketing Is No Longer That Simple
What people need to realize is that marketing online does not fall into the neat offline categories we have been used to.
For example the most successful online advertising has been PPC ads or Pay -Per-Click ads. The main reason is that these ads have been based on relevance to the information being looked for right from the beginning. We first saw them next to search engine results. Those ugly small text things that looked like they were part of the results searched. They have worked like magic because advertisers only pay for actual clicks on their ads, so results and response to the ads are easily quantifiable.
It should not be lost on anybody that these ads actually do not look like ads. More so now when the market leader in PPC ads, Google have their AdSense ads in small sites and blogs all over the net. There is even more emphasis on relevance to the information being looked for.
Free Is Actually Not Free
Then the other extremely important factor to note is that many of the most effective online marketing tools are really not free. For instance, even if you write your won informative articles to use for marketing purposes, this is a very time-consuming exercise. Time is even more valuable than money because unlike money, it can never be recovered when it has been lost. So it is just that people pay using some other currency.
Conclusion
Anybody planning an online marketing campaign should look very carefully at the so-called free marketing tools and options, the effectiveness of some of the techniques will surprise them.
Article by David Callan.
David is the leading search engine consultant with AKA Marketing.com’s Search Engine Optimisation team. AKA Marketing.com provide full SEO services as well as telephone based consulting for those preferring the DIY approach.
Posted in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) | No Comments »
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
If you use Google’s Adwords program you know thatin the past you had no control over where yourtext ads were displayed. By adding “site tar-getting” Google has finally given control backto the advertisers.
Site Targeting allows you to pick and choosethe websites you would like your ads to appearon. Of course, the websites you get to choosefrom must be in the Google network and bedisplaying “Adsense Ads” on their pages.
Now don’t think that site targeted ads willbe replacing Google’s “Keyword Targeted Ads”.It’s simply another tool at the advertisersdisposal and is an option, not mandatory orrequired.
The program works differently then the normal”keyword targeted ads” where you only pay perclick. With site targeting you pay CPM (costper thousand impressions). The minimum bid perthousand is currently .25 but if you’re tryingto appear on high traffic sites you’ll need tobid higher to win top placement due to thecompetition for these spots.
Remember, you’ll pay for being shown whetheranyone clicks on your ad or not. To set upa “site targeted” campaign you’ll need tolog into your Adwords account and go toyour “campaign summary page” then select”create a new site targeted campaign”. Youcan name the sites where you want your adsto appear or type in a list of words thatdescribe your website and Google will takethat input and come back with sites you canchoose from.
Keep in mind that this type of ad campaigncan be expanded text ads and animated imageads. Giving you more flexibility and options.
If you’ve been waiting to pick your own audienceand hand pick the websites that display yourads, you’ll want to take a closer look atthis advertising option. For more informationsee …https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=342
Posted in Pay Per Click / Paid Placement | No Comments »
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
WHAT RSS WILL DO FOR YOU AS A MARKETER?
a] Get your content delivered without fail to all of your subscribers.
E-mail delivery rates are dropping, spam is everywhere and it?s getting increasingly difficult to get our marketing content read by our subscribers, prospects and customers.
RSS is the way out.
b] Increase your web traffic and your online visibility.
With more and more sites competing for business every day, you need to do everything in your power to increase your online traffic, and RSS will help you get an upper edge.
c] RSS enables you to easily get your content published on dozens and dozens of other sites.
d] It will serve as a platform for ad sales,
e] It will provide advertising opportunities to promote your own business
f] It will help you get more content for your site without you having to write a single word.
WHY YOU NEED RSS, FROM THE END-USER POINT OF VIEW?
a] People want to receive content in a controlled environment where they are in-charge, not the publisher.
b] Delivering content using e-mail is becoming increasingly difficult, due to blacklists, spam filters and over excessive amounts of e-mail in your recipients’ mailboxes.
c] RSS allows you to deliver content beyond your e-zine, giving you more content delivery opportunities.
d] RSS is a natural tool for content syndication, which means easily and instantly delivering your content to hundreds of other content sources, thus creating additional exposure.
e] When using RSS to deliver all of your web site content updates, RSS will actually increase your web site traffic, thus giving your promotional messages more exposure.
f] People are afraid of subscribing to e-mail lists, which makes getting new subscribers difficult; RSS is a whole different story.
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
Either as an end-user or as business person, content delivery should be one of your top informational concerns.
a] As an end-user you cannot function properly without having relevant access to the information you need. Content delivery mechanisms affect your ability to access this information.
b] As a business person you must understand that your business success, among other things, depends on information, and in large on your ability to deliver it.
Without the proper content delivery vehicles you cannot get content in-front of your target audiences, at least not in a relevant fashion.
RSS answers the needs of both.
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