Wednesday, December 10, 2008

How To Create A Lifetime Income With Affiliate Programs By Changing Your Focus!

"How To Create A Lifetime Income With Affiliate Programs By Changing Your Focus!"

An often overlooked strategy that could maximize your affiliate earnings

by Mark Meyers

Most people join an affiliate program so that they will make some money by referring people to the products and services of the affiliate company.

This is, in fact, a great way to earn a really nice income.

However, if you JUST focus on this you are missing out on a great residual income stream.

Many affiliate programs are based on a 2-tier commission structure. This means you will earn a percentage for each sale that you bring in and a percentage for each sale that an affiliate that you referred brings in.

For example, you could earn a residual (ie you are not doing the work to earn this) 5%+ from the sales that your sub-affiliates bring in. This can really add up when you have a large base of sub-affiliates.

So where do you find these people that will help build your nest egg?

Let them find you!

Using the search information from Overture: (http://inventory.overture.come) we find that thousands and thousands of people are looking for a way to work at home:

Searches done in July 2004: Work At Home

Count Search Term

313502 work at home
310780 work from home
28662 work at home job
16197 work at home opportunity
12538 work from home job
11149 work at home moms
11053 work at home business opportunity
10371 work at home business

Thousands and thousands more people are looking for a home-based business:

Searches done in July 2004: Home-based Business

Count Search Term

401436 home based business opportunity
362672 home based business
5514 home based business idea
4398 based business earn from home home home home income money work
4200 best home based business
4079 internet home based business
3495 home internet based business opportunity
2999 based business home legite

There are even thousands of people are looking for an affiliate program to join:

Searches done in July 2004: Affiliate Program

Count Search Term

152632 affiliate program
5941 free affiliate program
3999 best affiliate program
3200 online affiliate program
2168 casino affiliate program
2120 affiliate marketing program
2046 web affiliate program
2013 web master affiliate program

Your affiliate opportunity could provide the answer that these people are looking for and this will build a long-lasting money-making business for you too! Sounds like a win-win deal to me.

If you would like to know which affiliate programs I recommend, please visit my website:
Internet-Income-Advisor.com

Have a great day!
Mark Meyers
Internet-Income-Advisor.com


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In "The Internet Income Advisor" newsletter I cut-to-the-chase and give you ideas and opportunities for earning a nice income online. Why not grab a free copy of my new book: Reliable Monthy Income http://www.Internet-Income-Advisor.com/Reliable-Monthly-Income.html-ACF-EA
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Saturday, June 21, 2008

Affiliate Marketing What Is It And Why Use It?

Affiliate Marketing is having Affiliates do your Marketing for you. What I mean by Affiliate is someone who tells people about your product/service and you pay them for a desired response, such as a purchase.

Affiliate Marketing is one of the best ways to get the word out about your product/service.

The best way to pay Affiliates is pay per sale. This means that you only have to pay your Affiliates when they actually make a sale. This reduces your advertising costs dramatically. your Affiliates take on all the risks so you don't have to worry about wasting your money on advertising which may not produce any results.

Using Affiliate is a very cheap way to advertise, however it is very effective. The software required to start up your own Affiliate program can cost only about $50 per month.

Then after that just wait for people to start promoting your product/service for you.

Please remember that 5% of your Affiliates will do 95% of the selling. What I mean by this is that most of your Affiliates will just sit there and do nothing. This can be countered if you teach them what to do, exactly how to do it and providing everything for them so they have to do as little work as possible.

To find out about teaching your Affiliates please see the "How To Super Charge Your Affiliates" article

You don't have to use this form of advertising just to sell your product or service. You can also use it to grow your opt-in mailing list. This is discussed in another article.

How Much Should You Pay Your Affiliates

How much you pay your Affiliates really depends on how much your product/service costs, its profit margin, how much you're willing to give up and what action you want to take place.

Lets say that your product is priced at $100. Lets also assume that it cost you $10 to make it. This leaves you with $90 profit.

How much of this do you want to give away to the person that made this sale possible?

Personally, I believe that you should give a rather high percentage of the profits back to the affiliate (Depending on how many sales they regularly generate), because without them, you wouldn't have made that particular sale at all, so reward them for it.

A fairly decent reward is about 50% of the revenue generated. Your product is priced at $100 so a $50 commission is quite generous. It really depends on your other costs (such as a mortgage) you have, which would help decide on a fair commission to both you and the Affiliate.

Another factor which plays a part is how much additional advertising you do, such as pay per click. For example, if you rely solely on your Affiliates to Market for you, then you may want to reduce the commission you pay to them to help you survive. However, you may want to pay them more, to encourage them to send more sales you way. It really is a judgment call.

On the other hand, if you advertise in other ways effectively, then you can afford to pay higher commissions, because you're not putting all your eggs in one basket.

In the end it's all down to how greedy or generous you are. The best advice I can give you is to pay the affiliate what you think he/she deserves. Hopefully that way everyone is happy and earning their fair share.

That is the key to a successful affiliate program.

By Stephen Warren, the creator of http://www.marketershandbook.com, the completely FREE guide to marketing online, with useful articles and links.

Affiliate Programs... Whos Really Making The Money?

There will be a million and one affiliates out there who will tell you that the affiliate program they promote is going to be the best one for you.

But have you considered who is really making the money and who gains the most out of affiliate programs.

Let's take a step back and look at the AFFILIATE.

What exactly is the role of the affilate?

* The sole purpose of the affiliate is to PROMOTE the product and/or service

What are the benefits of being an affiliate?

* Get paid a minimal commission that is regulated by the owner of the product/service

In short, As an affiliate it is your responsibility to make someone else rich whilst doing all the hard work. You take on the expenses of advertising, you are the one who usually misses out on subscribers if you haven't first made them your client before they buy the product/service you are promoting.

And all this for what??? Maybe $20 per sale if you are really, really lucky.

You also need to remember that when you are an affiliate, YOU are not the only person promoting that very same product/service.

So what will make your offer any different to someone else who is promoting the exact same product, usually using the same sales technique, offering it at the same price.

To be in the top 5%, which is the amount of affiliates who make more than $100.00 per month, you need to first have a really good, clean, targeted subscribers list of more than 50,000 subscribers, know exactly how to gain targeted traffic, and have a huge advertising budget.

For the other 95%, the only way you are going to make alot of money from and affiliate program is to OWN YOUR OWN.

It really isn't as hard as you might think to set up.

So in conclusion, the best AFFILIATE PROGRAM, obviously is the one you OWN.

About the Author:

Gillian Tarawhiti, is Founder and CEO of Community Training Centre, an Internet Marketing firm providing Online Training and Support to the new and not so new netpreneurs. Gillian is also the author of eBay Billion Dollar Goldmine and the creator of the Multiple Ripple Effect System © 2004.

Permission is granted to reprint this article in print or on your web site so long as the paragraph above is included and contact information is provided to http://www.ezy-money.com

Popup Killers - Not just killing that Popup but also your Revenue!

With the increased use of popups on sites - when you enter,
when you leave, while you are there - Popup killers (or
stoppers) are all the rage.

Companies use Popup killers as a marketing tool for
frustrated webusers - they kill the Popup, the webuser uses
their service be it as an ISP or Toolbar.

New ISP Disks, Toolbars, and Browsers all now come with some
form of Popup killer. While we all want to stop the
frustration of having several popups being delivered while
surfing around the web, to the webmaster a Popup killer can
totally kill a site's normal functionality.

** What do I mean?

If I said rename a Popup killer to a Javascript killer,
(which is how some Popup killers work), then you wil get the
gist!

With some SEOs advocating hiding links that they don't want
a search engine to spider or to hide affiliate links within
Javascript functions, having a user visit your site with a
Popup killer enabled could kill more than that annoying
Popup.

It could mean that when a user clicks on your apply button
or affiliate link, it won't work! The user can click on it
as often as they like. It won't work!

This could be costing you sales and applications.

** We tested it out!

We tested this on our Loans site (www.polarloans.co.uk). We
delivered 1,000 visits to the site where the application
process was a javascript function. We had 1 application.

We then switched the apply buttons and links to a normal
HREF link and sent another 1000 visits to it. We have a 10
fold increase in applications.

The only on-page changes were the Apply button links and we
drove the visits via PPC spend.

** What can you do?

It maybe time you looked at the major links on your site to
your product sale pages on affiliate links. If they are
running as Javascript functions it may be wise to try
switching them to normal HREF links and test the results.

You can always change them back if you need to but consider
the potential revenue option.

It certainly has worked for us!

Jason Hulott is Director of J2 Squared, leading specialists in Internet Consultancy whose specific aim is to drive more revenue to websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance, finance, and automotive industries.

How to Booost Your Affiliate Commissions by almost 30%

Affiliate marketing is one tough business. Everyone online today is looking to make or save money in any way they can.

In the good old days when internet marketing was in its infancy, most of the people who clicked on your affiliate links used to purchase without a second thought... but, now as times are getting tougher, and visitors getting more cynical, you'll be amazed at the number who won't!

Just one flaw in a system and you will find dozens of unscrupulous people waiting to exploit it. Same goes for affiliate commission tracker systems. People who know how to manipulate the system will replace your affiliate ID with theirs and "hijack" your commissions.

Most affiliate links are some form or the other of http://www.thesite.com/?YOURID

Where your affiliate id is passed as a parameter. A thief has to simply change the "YOURID" part to "HISID" to put your money in his pocket.

In other cases, there are visitors to your site who simply can't stand the thought of you "making money off them" so they bypass you by simply chopping off the end of your affiliate link that contains your ID.

Instead of buying from http://www.thesite.com/?YOURID -- the bypasser will simply "chop off" the affiliate ID at the end and simply buy from the plain URL http://www.thesite.com/ --without your affiliate ID attached!

Bam! you just got cheated out of your rightful commission.

Studies have shown that this phenomenon causes about 30% lost sales.

By following some of these simple tips you will be able to, if not all, at least confuse most hijackers and, in many cases, often disarm them completely.

You might notice i said most and not all. This is because if the hijacker is well versed at html and javascipt he will be able to eventually get to your affiliate link. However, most hijackers are just opportunists who will only act if they see an easy buck and its this segment that we can beat

The simplest way to hide your affiliate links is using a javascript redirect page.

This is where you hide your affiliate link in a page on your site using a simple javascript that redirects people to your affiliate link.

This way your "naked" affiliate link is not exposed in your actual email messages and ezine ads, but, once people get redirected to the true affiliate link.

One possible drawback of this method is that some affiliate programs, like clickbank for example, expose the affiliate link along with your ID in the browser address bar.

So if the viewer is eagle-eyed he will notice that hes been redirected through and affiliate link.

A safer method to hide your affiliate links is using a zero-frame or "invisible" frame that masks the affiliate link by making it appear you are sending people to a page on your website. In reality, you are actually sending them to your affiliate link.

This technique is also used by many domain redirection service sites.

Unfortunately is the user views the source of the page. He know whats that youve loaded an affiliate link.

The solution is to use javascript encryption to scramble up the page code.

Even though there isn't a 100% perfect solution to this problem, if you want to get paid more often through your affiliate links, make sure it's not obvious you're referring people to an affiliate link.

If they can't see that its a affiliate link, lower the possibility of you getting stiffed of your commission.

If you are looking for a tool that lets you do all this plus earn affiliate commissions even from those folk who dont click your affiliate link then do check out Covert Affiliate

Satyajeet Hattangadi is the Owner of Novasoft Inc, a software solutions provider, who specialize in affordable customized software solutions.

Working With Affiliate Programs

Everywhere you look you see affiliate program offers for
every product or service that you can think of. Some have
fully automated systems that sell high volumes of hard
products all over the world. In case you don't know, "hard"
products are those that you can touch...unlike an ebook or
downloadable web template. Many affiliate programs have
several thousand affiliates and one or two of the bigger
companies have over one million affiliates.

What are the advantages of joining an affiliate program?

They provide a ready-made business. This is a very big plus
for those people who want to earn some kind of living off
the Internet but lack the knowledge or inclination to set up
a business by themselves.

Commissions and rewards are generally good, and the more
established programs offer a real chance of advancement to
higher and better-paid levels.

Other affiliates are usually on hand to offer practical
support.

What are the limitations?

You are restricted in your promotional activities due to the
fact that you do not actually own the affiliate site they
give you. You won't be able to put such things as banners,
images, links, meta tags, etc. onto your page.
The URL of your affiliate page is often either too long or
contains such awkward things as question marks, which many
Search Engines will not index.

Any promotional ads or articles have probably already been
used by thousands of other people and consequently may have
lost its impact, making it more difficult to achieve sales
or referrals.

If the program you have joined has not yet established
itself (or in some cases even if it has), then you may
encounter problems with payments owed to you not being
honored. You also run the risk of low quality products or
sub-standard statistics that do not accurately record how
many referrals or sales you have made.

You may be required to purchase a minimum quantity of the
product on a regular basis before you start to qualify for
commissions or even before you can become an affiliate.
You may not get the technical or affiliate support you might
expect from the company. This may be due to inadequate
staffing, or the company's negligence.

Other people in your downline do nothing to promote the
program.

At least four of the above limitations can be overcome with
a little time and effort. You could, for example, come up
with fresher ads to promote the program (provided this is
allowed).

If the company supplies the email addresses of people in
your downline, then you could offer to help the less active
members. Very often these people are passive not because
they are lazy or apathetic but merely because they don't
know HOW to promote effectively! your guidance could mean
the difference between no sales or referrals and healthy
downlines and residual incomes.

As regards promoting your actual page, here are a couple of
little tricks that should overcome a number of
restrictions:

Cloak your Affiliate URL to stop hijackers Affiliate Masker
While this will not help you to get listed on the major
Search Engines, it will make your web page easier for
prospects to remember and type into their browser's address
bar.

Go to your affiliate page. Place your mouse pointer anywhere
on the page and right click once. In the drop-down box
choose "View Source". This will display the HTML for the
page. Save this to your hard drive as a HTML document using
the "Save As" function. Upload the page to your web site.
If you don't have a web site then get some free web space
from one of these:

http://www.tripod.com/
http://www.fortunecity.com/
http://www.hypermart.net/index.gsp
http://www.coolchat.com/
http://www.crosswinds.net/
http://www.htmlpublishing.com/
http://www.freehomepages.com/
http://www.pageproducer.com/

Submit your 'new' page to the Search Engines. You are also
now able to place banner codes, links, images, testimonials,
in fact anything you want onto these pages, because you are
in control of the HTML. A word of caution, though. Don't
change the actual HTML of your original affiliate page. Just
put the other stuff, like banners etc, around it.

Making this "mirror page" of your affiliate page will
dramatically improve your advertising options.


Contact Email Address: publisher@aboutaffiliates.com
Word Count: 689
Category: Affiliate Marketing
Copyright Date: 8/16/04
Internet Address: http://aboutaffiliates.com/news/viewarticle.php?id=11
Autoresponder Address: workingaff@aboutaffiliates.com
Special Requirements For Reprint:

You have permission to publish this article in your ezine or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the byline is included and the article is included in it's entirety. I also ask that you activate any html links found in the article and in the byline.

You may not use this article in any publication that is not-optin (spam). A courtesy copy of the publication or link to the website you use my article on would be appreciated.

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Working With Affiliate Programs
by Jude Wright (c) 2004

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Jude Wright has been an Internet Marketer for three
years. She has just created a product that will help
other Internet Marketers keep all their marketing
information in one database. Check it out at:
http://i-marketingorganizer.com/organizer.htm

You Have to Spend Money to Earn Money

It surprises me that many people fail to grasp this concept as they first set out to start their own businesses. Thanks to the power of the Internet, anyone who has a computer and an Internet connection can now START their own online businesses with little investment. However, generally speaking, it is a given that you have to invest money into your business to if you seriously want it to grow.

Affiliate marketing is a great way for ordinary people to start making money on the Internet. After finding an affiliate program that offers products you are interested in promoting, you can start an online business with just a website. So your total investment up to this point may simply be registering for a domain name and paying for a web hosting account.

But then what? You have to start marketing the products and getting people to your website! A lot of people are turned off when they discover that this is a demanding process that requires a substantial amount of hard work, time, AND money!

Let me give you a specific example. As all experienced Internet marketers know, "the money is in the list." Simply put, you want to build a mailing list of people who may be interested in what you have to offer.

One of the most effective ways to grow your mailing list is to use a pay-per-lead service where you PAY a company to bring targeted subscribers to you. The company will run an advertising campaign for you and deliver motivated, opt-in subscribers to your list. The cost can vary greatly depending on the information you require. The e-mail lead packages I have been using recently range from $.10 to $.35 per lead.

The best lead provider I have used is TrafficOasis. It provides targeted leads that are fresh, NON-SHARED, responsive, and affordable. If you who like to know more, check out its website: http://www.trafficoasis.com/index.php?118787

Other areas where you MAY want to invest money in include: logo design, web design, web promotion, and useful tools such as a graphics editor and a powerful autoresponder. However, there are plenty of free resources on the Internet and I encourage you to seek them out.

The saying, "You have to spend money to earn money," generally holds true for ANY business! An Internet-based business is no exception,whether your are promoting your own products or someone else's.

It is also important that you re-invest a portion of your profits into your business! That way, not only will your business continue to grow, but its GROWTH RATE will also increase! This in turn brings in MORE profits, which allows you to invest MORE into your business... Do you see a pattern!?

The key is to invest money into your business wisely while staying within your budget. If you believe in your business, you are bound to be successful!

To Your Success! Byron Wong

Visit http://www.internet-home-business.org for the BEST money-making opportunities and internet home business programs! Subscribe to our free newsletter NOW by sending an e-mail to ezine@internet-home-business.org and receive a free gift!

Will the Online Quiz Make the Old Fashioned Printed Quiz Obsolete?

Q. Can you tell me the benefits of publishing an online quiz versus a printed one?

A. Well, the first benefit of publishing an online quiz that comes to mind is the fact that it's an outstanding way to drive traffic to your web site. People love quizzes and they take ones that are printed in magazines all of the time. It's reasonable to assume that if these same people knew about the existance of an online quiz that they would beat a path to your home page.

Another great feature of offering an online quiz is that you can change the subject regularly. In fact, you could offer a subscription where members sign up to be notified whenever a new online quiz gets posted.

An online quiz can also be used as a sales tool. One of the best ways of accomplishing this is to link your quiz questions to affiliate sites where you earn money when people make purchases. Then you can have a "scavenger hunt" online quiz where people have to visit those sites to find the quiz answers.

People also like to take an online quiz because they can get instant scoring without having to turn the page upside down, or flip to the end of the magazine, to find out how they did. You can even design your online quiz so that it gives instant feedback after every answer is entered.

One last thing to consider is that you can create keyword-rich versions of your online quiz and then post the URLs to search engines. That way you will not only get search traffic from people who like quizzes, but you'll get traffic from people who are searching on the terms that you include in your online quiz!

So, while it's not likely that a printed quiz is going to become obsolete any time soon. The Internet has once again forever impacted the way that we communicate. Today's latest example? The online quiz.

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Brian Fong run the popular quiz site http://www.QuizFaq.com Quiz Faq - Your solutions for the quiz.