Article Categories

• Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Blogs & Podcasts
• Branding
• Business
• Cloud Technology
• Ecommerce
• Email Marketing
• Facebook
• Google
• Keywords
• LinkedIn
• Linking Strategies
• List Building
• Local Search
• Marketing
• Miscellaneous
• Mobile Applications
• Page Rank
• Pay Per Click
• RSS
• Sales Copy
• SE Optimization
• SE Positioning
• SE Submission
• SE Tactics
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Security
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Networking
• SPAM
• SPN Featured Articles
• Technology
• Video Marketing
• Virtual Office/Telecommuting
• Web 2.0
• Web Design
• Web Development
• Webmasters
• Website Promotion
• Website Traffic
• WordPress
• Writing

SiteProNews Blogs

• Editor's Corner
• Darren Dunner
• Jerry Bader
• John Sylvester
• Kalena Jordan
• Mel Strocen
• Titus Hoskins

10 Ways to Be Successful with Affiliate Sales

By Terri Seymour in Featured

Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and most affordable ways to get started making money online. In essence, what you are doing is selling other companies’ products for a commission. You can make money without developing your own product or building your own sales site. All you do is promote the product and send the customers to the company’s site to make the purchase.

Of course, I don’t want to make this sound too easy. It does take work, commitment, persistence and time like any other business. By following the ten tips below, your affiliate sales should increase and thereby increasing your monthly income.

1. Personal Recommendation – You always want to try the product before you start promoting it so you can give it a personal recommendation. A personal recommendation can be very powerful in persuading people the product is “real”. This is especially true if you are already established online and have a good clean reputation. If you are not well-known a personal recommendation will still carry a lot of weight.

2. Quality Products – Be sure to only represent quality products that you would actually use yourself. People might ask you if you do or would use the product yourself. This is another reason for trying the product before you sell it or at least do extensive research on the product.

3. Know the Product – This is another reason you need to do extensive research on the product. People will ask you questions about the product and you need to know what you are selling.

4. Know Your Target Market – What type of people come to your site/blog? What are your readers’ needs and wants? If you have a health and fitness blog, you probably won’t want to promote a dessert cookbook or movies because these things will not benefit your readers. Be sure to match the products to your target market.

5. Reliable Company – Be sure to also check out the company before you sign up with them. Research any reviews, complaints, awards, etc. this company might have. Contact other affiliates and ask how the company manages their affiliate program and payouts.

6. Product Updates – Keep abreast of all product updates so you can keep your readers and visitors updated as well. Check out the company’s product info frequently. Always know the latest about the product you are representing!

7. Sales Material – Most companies will provide professionally written sales materials for their affiliates to use. They will have ezine ads, solo ads, email signatures, graphics, etc. Take advantage of these sales materials instead of trying to create your own.

8. Be Selective – Find just a few quality products to promote rather than signing up for every affiliate program you can find. Choose a few good products that complement your site and each other. This will enable you to focus more on the products and promote them more effectively.

9. Spread the Word – Don’t make the mistake of just slapping one of the company’s ads on your site and think the sales will start rolling in. Promote them on your social networking sites. Add a blurb in your email signature. Post them on forums, groups, etc. Add them to your article resource box. Mention them to your mailing list on a regular basis. You need to promote them heavily and consistently to make a good amount of sales. Keep abreast of new and innovative marketing strategies.

10. Test and Track – As with any online business you should test and track your marketing and sales strategies. Find out what is working and what is not. Concentrate more on what is bringing in sales to raise your income.

Affiliate marketing can be an effective way to make money online by itself and it can also be a supplement to your main business. Unfortunately, many people will sign up with an affiliate program, paste an ad on their site and think that is all they have to do. When I first started online, I too signed up for any program I could find and just threw up a bunch of ads on my site. This is a common mistake that can be overcome.

Affiliate marketing will not work for you unless you make it work. It is a business like any other and needs to be given the same attention and commitment!

---

Don’t be one of the 95% of people who fail at their online business. Terri Seymour can help you make money online. Find out how to increase your traffic and sales with her popular “How to Build Your Online Business” ebook for FREE at: ==> http://www.SeymourProducts.com

Affiliate Merchant Mistakes To Beware Of

By Jeff Schuman in Featured

You will no doubt make many mistakes in your affiliate marketing career. One thing you do not need is help from your affiliate merchant in adding to that.

I have found over the years that not all affiliate programs are created equal. Surprisingly to me there are many affiliate programs that do not do a very good job of representing their product in a way that will benefit the affiliate marketer the most.

Here are a handful of mistakes I see affiliate programs make. You may want to think twice before joining a program like this.

1. Building the affiliate merchant’s list first. This is become somewhat of a pet peeve of mine as I see affiliate merchants building large lists at the expense of their affiliates.

Most of them will tell you that they will continue to follow up with the subscribers and to promote your affiliate ID number. However, when a new product is launched the merchant is going to contact those affiliates and you are not going to get credit for the sale.

If you are promoting a program that sells a product the emphasis by the merchant should be put on making the sale, not building their list first. Before you join any affiliate program you can take a look at the sales pace to see where that merchant is putting their priorities.

2. Build your own website first. This is a way to avoid the mistake we just read about.

If you are going to promote a product where the merchant wants to build their list, build your list first. The way to do that is to promote your own landing page and have subscribers go into your autoresponder before passing them through to the affiliate sales page.

In reality this is a better approach to doing affiliate marketing anyway. Building an email list is an excellent asset that allows you to make money online in many ways in the future.

3. Greed by the merchant. You can get a pretty good idea how the merchant values their affiliates by how much they are willing to pay.

Some affiliate merchants are greedy. They would prefer to keep more money for themselves. The smart ones do not do this.

They understand that the best affiliate marketers are greedy. If you develop into a super affiliate you can always contact any merchant and negotiate a better rate.

The smart merchants are willing to pay more to both their regular affiliates and super affiliates.

4. Lack of marketing materials. There is no need as an affiliate for you to have an overabundance of affiliate marketing materials.

However, today there are many ways to promote on the Internet. The best affiliate programs will provide banners of various sizes, pre-written email marketing messages, landing pages for you to promote, and videos that can be customized for video marketing.

There really are a lot of excellent affiliate merchants you can join today. Be cautious of the merchant who is making mistakes that can hurt you as an affiliate before joining any program. To make money online with affiliate programs you want to join the right merchants from the start.

---

If you enjoyed this article by Jeff Schuman please visit his article marketing website today. If you are not an article writer he offers a hands off program for getting backlinks and traffic using the power of writing and submitting articles. http://www.HandsOffArticleMarketing.com

Affiliate Marketing is E-commerce At Its Best

By Jeff Schuman in Featured

There are many ways to make money online. Ecommerce is one. E-commerce is a great word. It means products bought and sold on the Internet.

I used to be an outside sales rep in the wholesale end of things. I got paid to get products from the manufacturer to the retailer. I was one of the top reps in the country and was paid very well.

Today you can actually make more money as an affiliate marketer than I did as a sales rep. You can get paid to sell other people’s stuff and you do not even need to leave your home.

100% of your business can be conducted strictly online. To me affiliate marketing really is e-commerce at its best.

The reason this is true is because the affiliate marketer can impact the sale. All affiliate marketers have the same opportunity to sell products online.

The difference lies in how you go about doing it. There are many proven strategies for selling products with the affiliate marketing business model. If you do it right you really can make money with affiliate programs and products.

1. Email marketing. This works well when the affiliate marketer is promoting products to a list of people who have requested information via email.

This could be done to your own email list which is the best way to do it. You can also purchase solo ads to other email marketers lists. This is a good way to get started if you do not have a list of your own, or if you want to reach people outside of your own email list.

2. Product reviews. This strategy works well because the Internet can be kind of impersonal.

People come online looking for information to problems they have. Product reviews work well because you can write about a specific affiliate product and give your opinion on it.

This strategy works the best way and you have actually purchased the product. Then you can truthfully write a review based on your own experience.

The best reviews are written to include both the positive and negative of the product. Nobody expects everything to be 100% perfect. You will actually sell more products online when you present a few negatives as well as an overall positive viewpoint.

3. Your own website or blog. As an affiliate marketer you are given a website to promote. Every affiliate is promoting the same website which is not the best way to go about doing it.

Putting your own personal stamp on a blog or website will really increase the amount of affiliate sales you make. It’s also an excellent way to build your email list for future affiliate sales.

These are a few tips on affiliate marketing. It truly is e-commerce at its best and as a business model will only continue to grow in the coming years.

---

If you enjoyed this article by Jeff Schuman please visit his take paid surveys website today. Join JV With Jeff for free and receive tips on how to make money online without any experience or website of your own. http://www.Team-Schuman.com

New Affiliate’s Guide: Lingo – Part 1

By Breena Theseira in Featured

Nobody can deny that a person who speaks more languages than the average Joe will go further in life. This is because learning and mastering an extra language allows a person to communicate with other ethnic; exchanging ideas, information and resources. Besides that, the person would also feel a sense of belonging among different communities, simply because he speaks in their language!

Thus, it is important that when you get started in this online business, you must know the different terms that are used within this online community… otherwise you will end up terribly confused as you would not understand what others in the Internet Marketing niche is saying.

Here are some of the terms used frequently when you become an affiliate marketer:

Affiliate

A person who sells a merchant’s product with his affiliate ID. The affiliate’s role is to direct traffic to the merchant’s sales page, and if the traffic converts, the affiliate makes a commission which is cut from the price of the merchant’s product.

Affiliate ID

This may be your username or a generated jumble of words or numbers. This ID is used to identify traffic that goes through your link to a merchant’s sales page from a crowd of other people’s traffic.

Merchant (sometimes called “Vendor”)

A person who creates a product and sells it with a sales page.

Traffic (also known as “Visitors”)

People who visit a certain webpage, or a website.

Converting Traffic/Traffic Converts…

Traffic that “converts” to buying customers. For example, they visit a sales page and they decide to buy the product.

Sales Page

A Sales Page is a webpage where the vendor puts up a sales letter to sell his product. Usually, a sales page is a really long letter that has a Headline, the Body, an Image of the Product, Testimonials and an “Add To Cart” or “Buy Now” button that leads to a checkout page.

Squeeze Page

A webpage that has a box that has a “Name” field and an “Email” field. Sometimes, they only have an “Email” field. This page is where the vendor “captures” the traffic’s email addresses in order to send relevant e-mails to his potential customers for follow – ups, adding value and promoting other products.

IM – Internet Marketing

The common term that has the meaning “Make Money Online” attached to it. The only way to make money from the internet is through marketing products… regardless of whether you are an affiliate or a vendor.

The terms above are the most frequently used terms once you have become an affiliate marketer. You do not need to memorize each term and definitions like you will be quizzed for it, because the longer you are in affiliate marketing, the more you will be able to understand what other affiliates, vendors and all who are in this business are saying.

---

If you are new to Internet Marketing, I would like to extend a warm welcome to you!:) Curious of how to make money online? Download my free report at autoaffiliatemarketing.com right now! Reading and applying the techniques will definitely make you a Successful Affiliate In 30 Days! Once again, welcome and Best Of Luck!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Breena_Theseira

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6193655

Affiliate Marketing And How to Sell More

By Lawrence Hamilton in Featured

The questions you first need to answer are:

1. Are you capable of selling more online and how can I do it?
2. Do your ads generate enough excitement in your prospects to get more clicks?
3. Are your sales letters able to convert more prospects into customers?
4. Are your articles effective and do they help in getting visitors to your site?

If you are getting the traffic but not the conversions, then you need to analyze how you can redefine your strategy to change this. Redefining your strategy is only the first step; you then need to take action to solve your dilemma. I believe the answers are simpler than you think, and I would like to share them with you.

Strategy 1: In your website, blog, or Email campaign, you have probably listed all the features, advantages, and benefits of your wonderful product or service. You can’t imagine why people would not want to exercise their option of taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity you have laid out before them. After all, you did extensive keyword research to ensure SEO engines would find your site. You even marketed the product wisely through solo ads, classified ads, banners, or your Email list. How could I have 10,000 visitors and only one conversion? Bottom line here is that selling is still a simple process, and there are no hidden keys to the mystery of selling. First and foremost is the fact that people buy what they want and not necessarily what they actually need. They came to your site because they wanted something, and what did you do to satisfy that want? Since people buy on emotion, you have to stoke that emotion. Retailers stoke emotion by putting magazines and candy in their checkout lanes. Anyone reading this knows you have made that very same impulse buy based on emotion and not logic.

Action Step 1: Since your prospects don’t know you or care about you or your success, you have to define the benefit of your product. The first basic principle of selling anything is this: “the customer must understand what’s in it for them”. I need to reiterate; this is the first vital key to selling. If I am your customer, I need to “buy in” to how this product will benefit me in my life. You need to give clear examples of how this product or service you are promoting has changed your life, why you are committed to it, and what it will do for them. Features and advantages are all great for exploiting the enhancements of your product, but you have to expound on the benefit of: “what’s in it for me”. Remember, a feature is what the product does. An advantage is what the product does better than a similar product. A benefit is what the product can do for me. Go back to the drawing board and redesign your efforts to include that benefit in your marketing. If you are getting that traffic but no conversions, this is the answer to that haunting query. Why am I not converting prospects to customers?

Strategy 2: You have a marketing strategy to get traffic to your site, and, once again, you are not converting. How have you designed the copy in your ads, E-Mail responses, or articles? I find most people are lead to believe that keywords and long tail keywords are the total answer, and without them, no one will find or visit your site. Well, keywords are important to a point, but they are far from the end all to be all. In fact, they can actually hurt you, if not used properly.

Action Step 2: Once you discover an effective strategy to get prospects to your site, you have to talk to them as you would talk to a friend. Meaningless ad copy, website content, or articles filled with loads of keywords are a strict taboo if you want your campaign to be effective and successful. Your main focus should be on imparting useful knowledge, ideas and practical tips that readers can use.

You also have to employ the benefit factor discussed in Strategy One. You can certainly use strategic keywords in places where you deem it necessary, but randomly populating your copy with keywords will just jeopardize the hours you put into your campaign. Your message will sound like a keyword stuffing party, and your reader will quickly lose interest. You have offered your prospect nothing of value.
The key for on line business people like us is we have to quickly tell our prospective customers why they should want what we have. We must convey that message in an articulate manner so you can generate that emotional interest in your reader.

Strategy 3: Have you provided any emotion driven reasons to purchase your product? Have you generated powerful enough emotions to cause prospects to take action steps NOW? You have to understand what encompasses the best motivations that apply to most every product. Using these tactics properly will spark interest in finding out more about your product or service and cause them to take action.

Action Step 3: You need to employ some promise of gain. How does your product help your prospect gain something? I can’t answer that question for your product, but I can tell you that you gained something from the product you are promoting. How and what you have gained needs to be conveyed to your prospect in a manner that is subtle but important. Don’t hard sell; but let them know how important this gain can be in their lives like it was in yours. You also must impart a fear of loss. Fear of loss is the other side of gain. This is where all the scarcity online selling comes from. Offline merchants use the same tactic as well.

How many times have you heard your local department store claim they are having the “biggest sale of the year!” That is the fear of loss telling you to act now or you will pay more later. Don’t scare your prospect, but they need to know they could lose out on a great price (or something else), if they don’t act now.

The more you understand how to employ all these strategies and then take action, the better your chances of converting prospects into customers. I hope these strategy tips and action steps help you in your endeavor.

---

Larry Hamilton is a successful entrepreneur who now focuses on helping people succeed with online marketing. For a more definitive look at affiliate marketing, or if you need help and just want to start making money with internet marketing, you are one click away at:
www.academyforinternetincome.com or visit my blog at: www.eliteaffiliatetools.blogspot.com

Web Marketers – Are You Liable For Your Affiliates’ Trademark Infringement With Keyword Ads?

By Chip Cooper in Featured

You’re an online retailer, and you’ve got a network of affiliates that are committed to selling your products. You expect that your affiliates will engage in online advertising to generate sales. Some of your affiliates will purchase keywords for sponsored ads from major search engines including Google and Bing, and some of these keywords may be trademarks of your competitors.

The purchase of a competitor’s trademark as a keyword is likely to result in litigation. Do your affiliates’ purchases of a competitor’s trademark for sponsored ads amount to trademark infringement? And if so, will you be held liable for your affiliates’ trademark infringement?

Keyword Ad Litigation Trends

The practice of selling and purchasing keyword ads that contain competitors’ trademarks continues to be hotly litigated. To date, most of the lawsuits filed by trademark owners has been aimed at the sellers of the keyword ads – the major search engines, primarily Google.

The current trend of the law seems to be that neither the sale of keyword ads using trademarks (by search engines) or the purchase of these keyword ads (by advertisers) is inherently infringing by itself. The focus now seems to be shifting from the sale and purchase of the keyword ads to the precise wording of the ads generated by the keywords.

To date, there has been little if any guidance from court decisions regarding whether online retailers can be legally liable for keyword ad buys by their affiliates – that is, until the recent case of 1-800 Contacts v. Lens.com decided by a Utah U.S. District Court.

1-800 Contacts v. Lens.com

1-800 Contacts sued Lens.com for trademark infringement based on purchases by Lens.com and its affiliates of sponsored ads that contained 1-800 Contacts trademarks and variations of them.

The Court ruled that Lens.com was not liable for trademark infringement for its purchase of the keyword ads stating “…that the mere purchase of a trademark as a keyword cannot alone result in consumer confusion”. Also, the court noted that Lens.com had not used 1-800 Contacts’ exact trademark, only variations of it.

After dismissing 1-800 Contacts’ claim against Lens.com for Lens.com’s purchases of keyword ads and the wording of the ads the keywords generated, the court turned its attention to the issue of whether Lens.com was liable for its affiliates’ purchases of keywords ads. In its analysis of this issue, the court addressed:

* whether the keyword ads purchased by affiliates were infringing, and

* if so, whether the infringement by affiliates could be used to nail Lens.com.

Regarding the first question, the court focused on “…not just what keyword was purchased, but what was the language of the advertisement generated by that keyword”. The court ruled that some of the affiliates went too far in their ad copy because they used the exact 1-800 Contacts trademark. This caused a “strong likelihood of confusion” and therefore infringement.

Regarding the second question, the court ruled that the actions of Lens.com’s affiliates could not be imputed to Lens.com because Lens.com used the Commission Junction affiliate network to acquire its affiliates, and for this reason Lens.com didn’t know who most of the affiliates were and had little direct contact with them. The court noted that Lens.com had nothing more than “general information”
of its affiliates and their activities, and ruled that Lens.com therefore cannot be charged with contributory infringement because Lens.com had no actual knowledge or willful blindness based on that information.

Conclusion

The 1-800 Contacts v. Lens.com case is important for keyword ad cases for at least two reasons:

* the court made it clear that it’s about the ad copy, not the ad buy, and

* online retailers won’t be automatically be held liable for infringing ads placed by their affiliates; the result will depend largely on what information the retailer had regarding the identities of the infringing affiliates and their activities, and what it did (or didn’t do) with that information.

Although this case is not the last word on the issue of a retailer’s liability for keyword ads placed by their affiliates, it does provide some guidance regarding where this emerging trend will lead us in the future.

---

Leading Internet, IP and software lawyer Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting your SaaS agreement. Use his free online tool — Website Contracts Determinator — to determine which documents your website really needs for website legal compliance. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to draft your SaaS agreement at http://digicontracts.com/.

Affiliate Marketing – How Do I Generate An Income?

By Lawrence Hamilton in Featured

There are several different ways to generate a viable and sustainable income in Affiliate Marketing, The very first thing you need to determine is what product or service you want to promote or sell. Out of the millions of products and services out there, how are you going to choose something that is desirable to the public, yet has a low threshold of competition? My first recommendation would be to think of a product you are passionate about. Doing research and promoting a product or service you love will be fun and exciting for you. Don’t get too general and pick a huge market idea but grill down to a niche within that large market so you can concentrate on a specific area that is of great interest to you.

After you have made this determination, you need to find someone who has this product and needs other people (affiliates) to help sell their goods or services. That’s one thing that’s so great about Affiliate Marketing; people are out there doing the work and are looking for people to help promote and sell what they have. There are several affiliate services available to you such as ClickBank or OfferVault where you can find the product(s) you have an interest in. You sign up in the program that interests you most, and you have the first step done. The next obvious step will be to figure out how to get traffic to your product so prospects will purchase it. These is where a great percentage of people get frustrated or give up, because they lack the skills to promote or market what they want to sell. It can be a very daunting task, but there are many venues at your disposal which will alleviate the frustration and make your plans and ideas come to fruition.

Let’s go over some ways you could market your product or services so you can monetize your efforts.

1) A Website – A website always becomes an issue because most people don’t know how to go about putting one up on the Internet properly. They either don’t have the skills, knowledge, or the determination to create a website. The first question would be: can you generate an income without a website? The answer is a resounding…YES. The facts are, however, your chances of generating a viable income rise exponentially with a website at your disposal. If you research enough, you will find all the information you need to create a good, professionally looking website on your own. There are also sites out there that charge very little to teach you how to do it. They won’t build it for you (site builders can be quite expensive), but you will learn the fundamentals of putting together an income producing website.

You will also have to choose a domain name (very reasonable cost) and find a hosting company. There are hosting companies that do exist that are free of charge and do a good job. Once you have your website up and running, you can link to a blog, post links to the product or service you want to promote, and create several pages to inform people about the different advantages and benefits of your products you would like to sell. The main thing is to find a reputable site that will help you accomplish this without spending more money than you are willing to expend.

You usually won’t create and market your particular niche for absolutely no expense involved on your part, but it can be very minimal. It is a good idea to find some site(s) that can help you with your foundation so as to avoid the frustration involved with finding everything on your own.

The website you create can be your most important ingredient for guaranteeing your success with Affiliate Marketing.

2) Article Writing – this is another simple way to get started in Affiliate Marketing. If you are going to write articles, you are going to have to post them somewhere so people and prospects can read them. There are an abundance of free article sites upon which you can post your article(s). I would have to say that one of the most popular sites is ezinearticles, but you can find several out there that are also free. You can also find article submission sites that charge you a monthly fee. If you feel you can get more bang for your buck using a fee based site, then you have to weigh that decision out for yourself. One important aspect in reference to your title in any article you write and post is that you need to use the right keywords so you can expect to draw some traffic. Google Keywords is still the place where you can research the best keywords available for your niche product.

If you don’t ever get anybody to read your article, you will never get any traffic. You also have to do that research we talked about because if you do not project a level of professionalism and knowledge on your subject, you will lose them to another site. You do have to be aware that when you submit an article; you cannot refer anyone to a particular affiliate link. You are allowed to put your referenced blog or website in their resource box, but you do have to follow the protocol of the article administration. You also will have to get used to publishing about 6-8 articles per month if you ever want traffic. One article won’t do it, but you will get the hang of it, as this is a great system which will allow you to gain the traffic you need to sustain an income.

3) Blogging – a relatively easy way to get started is to create your own blog. You can go to Blogspot or any free blog site, and you can get set up with a free blog page. It is not my favorite method to promote a niche product with Affiliate Marketing, but it does have its advantages. What I like least about blogging is the aspects of promoting it, and how you have to continually keep it fresh. If you have the same information on your blog all the time, prospects will quit coming, because you offer nothing new to help them make a buying decision. So, how do I actually get prospects to my blog? There are two very acceptable methods that work, and I will share them with you.

First, you can go to Google Keywords and find the right keywords that will draw traffic to your blog site. If you’re passionate about being physically in shape, you can’t just use the keyword “HEALTH”, as it is way too broad. You have to look at keywords that go deeper into your niche that promotes abs, thighs, buttocks, biceps, or jogging, and then you have to determine if you are going after the male or female traffic (or both). It is necessary to narrow your competition down by using more of the long tailed keywords that will apply to your niche product, and Google keywords will do that for you. An example of a long tail keyword might be: rock hard abs, or how to run a marathon, or enviable buttocks in six weeks. We could go on, but you have to find the right combination for the product you have chosen. If you go the blog route, I feel it’s important to use a keyword in the Title of your blog, as well. This technique helps draw traffic to your blog site and should convert to sales. Once you have decided upon your niche product, done your research, and picked your keywords, you can now create that blog. I would recommend that you start out with a review of the product, how or why you used it, and how it helped you. Then you will need to add the appropriate link to your product.

Second, you could use your social networking to attract people to your blog. Whether you tweet and follow people, have a following, or you do the same on Facebook, you can get people to your blog simply by strategizing a method that would make people want to visit your blog. You need to inform your prospects something about what is in it for them to visit, they, in turn, need to see what’s in it for them, and you need to make that call to action for them to at least visit your blog. These will be your prospects, and you then need to make them your customers.

Regardless of how you go about getting yourself involved in Affiliate Marketing, you need to do your research, not only for the product you want to promote, but the method(s) you choose to employ to promote it. Once you have a solid foundation, it will not only get easier, but you will continually get better at it and generate that income you deserve.

---

http://www.academyforinternetincome.com

Affiliate Marketing And The Free Gift

By Lawrence Hamilton in Featured

How do you separate yourself from the rest of the pack in Affiliate Marketing?

How do you entice people to at least look at your website?

How do you spike interest in your product enough for prospects to at least have a modicum of interest at what you are offering and opt in?

The answer is simpler than it may seem. You need to offer them a free gift. Let’s be realistic. Put yourself in your prospects’ position and determine what would motivate you to take the next step and find out more about the product you are offering. How can you possibly earn from doing this? By looking at this from your prospect’s perspective, nobody will want to refuse a free quality gift, since they do not have to pay money to get it. Even so, the quality and value you create in your gift should be the same as you create in your product. Most people will not want to give anyone money without getting some value in return. So if you want to attract more customers, you need to create high value in your products and services. The disappointing aspect of this is that most people just don’t take the time or make the effort to offer a free gift.

Now don’t get excited and think you have to go out and purchase expensive items to give away to all the people who visit your site. That would not work for any of us. What you have to do is learn how to offer some important material that is closely associated with your product or service that makes it more enticing to your potential customer.

Overall, your objective is to let people see and recognize the value of your offer before they opt in to the actual product or service. In doing so, you need to think strategically. One way of doing this is to research and find what it is people want, what their needs are, and the problems you can solve. Then you will know how best you can help them. Offering a gift as a temporary solution will best serve your prospect before you give them a permanent solution in the actual product.

So, how do we go about accomplishing this objective?

There are several ways to effectively accomplish giving a gift to your prospects with little or no money involved. There are PLR’s (product license rights) that are available to you at no cost (you will find some in which you will have to make a small investment). If you purchase a product on the internet that is a guide for your product, you have the right to promote that guide as a gift. You could create a PDF file that explains all the features, advantages, and benefits of your product that your prospect could download to their computer. You could offer a series of auto responder E-Mails that explain what the product is, how it helped you, and why you use it. You could even offer a free audio or visual report that explains all the benefits of your offer. There are several ways to go about offering something of value to your prospects that they would appreciate, and you need to consider each of them strategically.

Just because you are offering a free gift does not mean prospects will visit your opt in page and fill in their name and email to get it. Your gift must be relevant to your actual product or service in terms of features, advantages, and benefits. If people like what information you have to offer, they will certainly come to you regularly for the value they perceive. Unless your gift is relevant and can supplement the main product in use, your potential customers will have no reason to opt in or make a purchase. This makes it a perfect opportunity for you to sell with minimum resistance. Once you apply these strategies, the conversion rates in your products will increase dramatically.

I would be remiss if I did not inform you that if your gift is from a PLR or anything similar, you will need to know how to use an FTP (file transfer protocol) to upload it onto your site or blog. It is not hard to learn, but it’s the only way to get the gift uploaded.

There is no denying just how popular affiliate marketing is as an online business model because of its simplicity and excellent business potential. However that does not mean it is a business that is guaranteed success. On the contrary, the failure rate for our industry is very high, but that has not deterred many online marketers to spend lots of their time and effort to build their business. Your mindset must be that of determination and success.

It is also very important to understand that it takes quite some time to see the results of using a free gift as a marketing strategy. First, it may take some time, effort and even a small investment to create quality gifts that people enjoy. The gift must relate or compliment the affiliate marketing product that you are promoting. It may even take you some time to get this gift prepared, as PDF’s or an E-Mail series will require some effort on your part to create.

So the final question remains, how do I go about learning what to offer and how to offer it to my prospects? The process can become tedious by searching the internet for answers or using trial and error. I would personally recommend you join an organization where you will be introduced to the many facets of gift offerings and how to place them on your website. There are many skills you need to learn in promoting a product using Affiliate Marketing.

Once you learn them, you will repeat it many times over and it will become second nature. You just need to be trained (how much depends on your skill level), ask questions, and become proficient. I encourage and recommend you learn all the fundamentals and develop a solid foundation for your on line business. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

---

Larry Hamilton is an aviator and retired entrepreneur who is passionate about teaching people how to succeed on the internet. To learn more about building a solid foundation in Affiliate Marketing, you are on click away at:www.academyforinternetincome.com

Super Affiliates-5 Characteristics

By Suzanne Morrison in Featured

The simple definition of a super affiliate is a person who generates a significant percentage of an affiliate program’s activity. When you look at the leaderboard to see who is making the most sales super affiliates are always at the top.

So what does it take to be a super affiliate? Here are 5 characteristics all of them seem to have!

1. They have a large responsive targeted email list. I should also add they work at developing relationships with their subscribers.

They build lists for any affiliate product they are going to promote. They do this by promoting landing pages and a review pages as opposed to the affiliate sales page directly.

2. They do not promote everything under the sun. This is a common mistake that many affiliate marketers make.

The best way to get the most sales you possibly can from a product is to not promote every a product you come across. By focusing your efforts you will increase your sales.

3. They market programs that have the highest commission rates. Obviously you will make more money if you get paid more.

Many programs will be very similar in what they offer in terms of products and marketing materials. By choosing a program that offers a higher affiliate commission you are selecting the one that has a slight edge.

4. Before taking on another one they maximize the results of each affiliate program. This is especially true when there are new product launches.

The key is to promote as early and is often is you possibly can. Promote your products in as many ways as possible so you are maximizing each potential sale.

5. They get the most website traffic. Ultimately making money on the Internet comes down to getting visitors to a website.

Super affiliates know how to do this and they know how to do it at the most profitable way as possible. This means combining both free advertising and paid advertising to generate a lot of website visitors.

Most of these people run successful ppc campaigns with either Google, Yahoo, or both. They also are good at outsourcing some of their work including article marketing.

A good way to learn from a super affiliate is to carefully watch what they do. You can do this by subscribing to their email newsletters, or by receiving their blog updates via an RSS feed.

You want to be careful to not try and follow too many super affiliates at one time. Another characteristic that these people all have is learning how to spend your time online in the most effective way.

---

Suzanne Morrison is on the staff of the Affiliate Power Group where they help people learn affiliate marketing. Check out their affiliate marketing help if you need help making money as an affiliate marketer. www.affiliatepowergroup.com

Turn YouTube Into Your Affiliate Marketing Weapon!

By Laxman Samtani in Featured

Affiliate marketing has been gaining tremendous traction across the web. Many marketers are switching to a novel way of generating wealth through passive income using various strategies. Blogging phenomena and a plethora of article directories and book marking sites such as Digg and Delicious are used to promote affiliate marketing. Those who understand the power of Internet to market their products are also leveraging the power of viral videos to those ends.

YouTube is the primary tool of affiliate marketers to introduce new products or services. Most marketers find this to be an extremely useful tool which delivers the most bang for almost no bucks! , YouTube attracts millions of viewers. Numerous affiliate marketers are able to attract thousands of eyeballs by cleverly placing videos and keywords related to their products and services on YouTube.

YouTube and other broadcast yourself media sites such as Vimeo and Viddler are leveraged by all sizes of businesses – one man/woman basement business owners to multi-billion dollar international corporations. From music industry, to large aircraft like Boeing are marketed by cleverly placed tags and keywords in videos posted online. Recently YouTube introduced click-to-buy links attached to their videos and linked to Amazon. Amazon has seen a significant upward spike in their sales of music, DVDs and other products.

For an average affiliate marketer who wants to use the power of video marketing, there are many screen capture softwares such as Camtasia that will help create video tutorials, events and product demonstrations. This gives affiliate marketers considerable power as they can redirect potential customers from online video pages to their web sites and convert visits into a sale. Thousands of such affiliate link redirects occur every day and make affiliate marketers millions of dollars.

When your target audience views a video of your product or service in action, their enthusiasm gets ignited. Such exposure has ballooned sales of products and services on the Internet. Writings alone cannot match the power of visuals of video on the Internet. This enables people to feel more of an impulse as they get to view what they are seeking.

As an example, a potential customer can see how a new website or software will look like and work. Tutorial videos will give them added comfort as they navigate the maze of installations and operations. All this puts them in a comfort zone to click on your buy button.

Yet, web marketing is in its infancy. Merchants who had no marketing skills, and who thought they could not successfully launch a marketing campaign, are suddenly finding themselves successful. Advent of online video and the net has changed all that and given them tools which did not exist just a decade ago. For online affiliate marketers, YouTube has become a gold mine. No wonder YouTube is the world’s number 3 most popular website and number 2 search engine!

In conclusion, if you want to be a successful affiliate marketer, create something of value, identify your customers, create a video of your product/service, load them to YouTube, and link them to your website. Yes, it is that simple – just some thought and effort.

---

Laxman Samtani is an Internet entrepreneur based in Toronto, Canada. Visit his website www.aff-resource.com and find out how you can enhance your internet marketing business.

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

Home Newsletter Archives SEO Forums Webmaster Tools Webmaster Resources Link to SPN Top SEO Tools Website Templates SPN Partners Contact Us Privacy Advertise

ExactSeek SiteProNews MetaWebSearch SPN Videos EzineHub ISEDN DropJack NewWebDirectory.com SEO-News SEO-News Forums Blog Search FreeWebSubmission SmartWebGadgets