Originally written by Charlie Essmeier
The business world is competitive; that certainly will not surprise anyone, as it has always been that way. The introduction of the Internet as a tool of commerce has changed the nature of business, as the playing field is now more level than it has been previously. It may be hard for a small business to contend with a large storefront in the world of retail sales, but the Internet makes it easier for the small business and the big one to compete more fairly.
One of the most popular means of attracting paying customers to a Website or product is through affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, the company with the product to sell pays a commission to other advertisers, or affiliates, who send customers to the retailer. It's a win-win arrangement for everyone; the seller has customers sent his way and the affiliate gets a percentage of the sale for a small bit of work. Affiliate marketing has been promoted on quite a few Websites and in many books as a good way to make "quick cash". Is that the case?
Affiliate marketing is no easier or harder than any other business project. In order to make money using this technique, you must make effective use of the following:
Find a good product or service to sell. There are actually hundreds of products available for which the publisher will pay a percentage to affiliates. A lot of of these products are either software or electronic books. The products, the pricing, and the topics vary tremendously, so you should choose something that interests you.
You will certainly need a Website to advertise the product. Many people customers search for reviews of products prior to buying. Building a Website with accurate, current information about the product you are promoting will help attract paying customers.
Your Website will need promotion for people to find it. This is the hardest part of any Internet-based business, as marketing Websites is a significant industry unto itself. You can find loads of information about this topic by doing a Web search for either "search engine optimization" or "Website promotion."
It is certainly possible to make money through affiliate marketing, and a great number of people do so regularly. Like any other business endeavor, it requires a bit of time and effort to make it work. The rewards can be terrific, but like anything else you might do, the rewards are strictly related to how much work you are prepared to put into it.
©Copyright 2006 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of http://www.Retro-Marketing.com, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including http://www.seoelite-exposed.com, a site devoted to search engine optimization.
e enjte, 28 qershor 2007
e martë, 26 qershor 2007
5 Essential Things You Must Find In A Winning Affiliate Program
It's very important you choose the right product to promote, as some aren't worth the trouble! A well-known affiliate Franck Silvestre gave me a few tips on how to find the perfect affiliate.
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About the Author
Many affiliate marketers don't make any significant amount of money online because they don't know what to look for in a good affiliate program.
It is sad because even if you promote like crazy, you will not make any money marketing an affiliate program with poor conversion rates.
Happily, once you know what to look for before you choose to promote your affiliate program, everything becomes easier.
Let's discover these five points right away...
Point #1 - High Conversion Rates.
The website you are promoting must display its conversion rates inside the affiliate members area. Don't waste your time with affiliate programs that don't take care of their affiliates, and don't help them to earn more money.
A great (or good enough) product plus a solid copy will get high conversion rates, and hence, more commissions for you.
Be sure that the merchant is continuously testing his website. Why? Because overtime, you will earn more affiliate commissions.
Be aware that video is quickly becoming a major element of sales page online, and even simple landing pages.
Point #2 - High Commission Rates.
Try to always chose the product with the highest commission rate. After all, you are here for the money. The goal of any business is to make more money.
Point #3 - High Quality Product.
Always over-deliver. Your customers must say wow, when they buy the products you recommended or endorsed. When this happens, they will buy more than one of your recommendation, but several of them overtime.
Video products sell very well, so you should pay close attention to them if you are not already marketing info-products.
Reason #4 - High Quality and Reliable Tracking System
You don't want to promote a winning product, and find out that commission were'nt tracked! So be sure to have a system in place to detect a problem, and make your research before you start your massive online advertising campaign.
So be sure to check that there is a
Reason #5 - Reliable Commission Payments Software.
You also want to be sure that you will receive your hard earned money (affiliate marketing is not so easy...).
The ideal solution is to be paid instantly. As an affiliate, the only system I know for this is the seven dollar secret system.
You are paid instantly into your paypal account when you make a sale! See an example here: http://www.makemoneyonlinehow.com.
Otherwise, being paid every two weeks is acceptable as well.
If you look for these five points before starting to promote your affiliate products, you will see a nice increase in your affiliate revenue, so do your home work.------------
About the Author
Refine your marketing skills with Franck Silvestre, a Top affiliate. For the best affiliate marketing tools, and learn how to protect your affiliate links. Visit his blog now: affiliates blog for mo
e diel, 24 qershor 2007
How to Find a Niche
Finding a good niche is something of an art. I have a number of pointers that will help you out.
Research, research, research. If you’re going all out in one niche, finding the niche is the hardest part of the whole process. But this is also where a lot of people fail. They don’t think about how tight their niche is, or if it’s even profitable.
So where do you find niches? Everywhere. Niches are all over the place. Go into a bookstore or a magazine stand and look at all the niche magazines. Bodybuilding, women’s health, internet, computer gaming, business, trade magazines, etc. You can get a whole buttload of ideas from magazines. You can go online and see what’s hot nowadays. Check out Amazon.com and look for the top sellers. Just as I was talking about pets as a niche, I see that the sixth best selling magazine subscription in Home and Garden is The Bark, a magazine dedicated to dogs and their owners. It’s number one in the Animal Care & Pets subcategory. But it doesn’t stop at magazines. There are books, DVDs, tons of products representing many niches.
You can use eBay Pulse and their hot items list to find hot niches. All this will be much more important when developing an information product, which is the topic of one of my next articles coming up. The unfortunate thing about looking for the hottest niches is just that: they’re hot. You think you’re the only one marketing the booming knitting niche? This is where keyword research comes into play. With something like the Adwords Keyword Tool, you can see how popular certain search terms are with visitors and advertisers. You can also look at keyword trends at Google Trends to see if your niche is declining in popularity, has a seasonal cycle (I imagine Christmas-related niches don’t do so well January to October), or is getting a boost because of something in the news, which Google conveniently provides articles for. Perhaps you could find an untapped subniche in the knitting niche!
With respect to affiliate programs, you want to use keywords, examine the stats on ClickBank or Commission Junction or whatever you use, and see what sort of niche isn't very competitive. Sometimes a niche isn't competitive because people look over it, sometimes it isn't competitive because nobody knows how to make money in it, and sometimes it isn't competitive because it's waaaay to small, like a few hundred searches a month or less.
CLIFF NOTES
Research, research, research. If you’re going all out in one niche, finding the niche is the hardest part of the whole process. But this is also where a lot of people fail. They don’t think about how tight their niche is, or if it’s even profitable.
So where do you find niches? Everywhere. Niches are all over the place. Go into a bookstore or a magazine stand and look at all the niche magazines. Bodybuilding, women’s health, internet, computer gaming, business, trade magazines, etc. You can get a whole buttload of ideas from magazines. You can go online and see what’s hot nowadays. Check out Amazon.com and look for the top sellers. Just as I was talking about pets as a niche, I see that the sixth best selling magazine subscription in Home and Garden is The Bark, a magazine dedicated to dogs and their owners. It’s number one in the Animal Care & Pets subcategory. But it doesn’t stop at magazines. There are books, DVDs, tons of products representing many niches.
You can use eBay Pulse and their hot items list to find hot niches. All this will be much more important when developing an information product, which is the topic of one of my next articles coming up. The unfortunate thing about looking for the hottest niches is just that: they’re hot. You think you’re the only one marketing the booming knitting niche? This is where keyword research comes into play. With something like the Adwords Keyword Tool, you can see how popular certain search terms are with visitors and advertisers. You can also look at keyword trends at Google Trends to see if your niche is declining in popularity, has a seasonal cycle (I imagine Christmas-related niches don’t do so well January to October), or is getting a boost because of something in the news, which Google conveniently provides articles for. Perhaps you could find an untapped subniche in the knitting niche!
With respect to affiliate programs, you want to use keywords, examine the stats on ClickBank or Commission Junction or whatever you use, and see what sort of niche isn't very competitive. Sometimes a niche isn't competitive because people look over it, sometimes it isn't competitive because nobody knows how to make money in it, and sometimes it isn't competitive because it's waaaay to small, like a few hundred searches a month or less.
CLIFF NOTES
- Niches are everywhere. Magazines, bookstores, television, etc.
- See how competitive niches are by using AdWords tool, other keyword tools, looking at what kind of ads are up for your keywords, and affiliate program stats.
e shtunë, 23 qershor 2007
How to Get Traffic, Part 4: Web 2.0
This is the last post about traffic (for now!) and it's about using Web 2.0 to get surges of traffic.
But Web 2.0 is really a buzzword describing new user interactions on the web, and encompasses many aspects, from blogging to wikipedia. What it's really about is using things like social networking and social bookmarking. How does it work? Basically, you use a site like Digg, Slashdot, MySpace, or Reddit and link back to your site. You will get immediate exposure and if you do it right, you'll get floods of traffic.
How do you do it right? There is no easy way to go about it, and if you blatantly advertise your site, your link will be removed at the least. You must offer valuable content. Perhaps write an opinion piece. A sure-fire way to get all these people interested is if you write about a recent, controversial topic. As of this writing, Paris Hilton is serving time in jail. This is a highly publicized topic, and if you could develop a product or write something that would catch the eyes of these surfers, you will generate server-crashing loads of traffic. Speaking of Paris Hilton, there was in fact a fake news site stating that she committed suicide. I saw it posted on several sites I frequent, so I imagine it was getting a lot of exposure online. If that site was monetized in any way with ads, they definitely saw a nice little increase in revenue during that time.
That's just one example of how to capitalize on Web 2.0 traffic. The potential is huge, and Web 2.0 marketing in general is really a broad topic on its own.
But Web 2.0 is really a buzzword describing new user interactions on the web, and encompasses many aspects, from blogging to wikipedia. What it's really about is using things like social networking and social bookmarking. How does it work? Basically, you use a site like Digg, Slashdot, MySpace, or Reddit and link back to your site. You will get immediate exposure and if you do it right, you'll get floods of traffic.
How do you do it right? There is no easy way to go about it, and if you blatantly advertise your site, your link will be removed at the least. You must offer valuable content. Perhaps write an opinion piece. A sure-fire way to get all these people interested is if you write about a recent, controversial topic. As of this writing, Paris Hilton is serving time in jail. This is a highly publicized topic, and if you could develop a product or write something that would catch the eyes of these surfers, you will generate server-crashing loads of traffic. Speaking of Paris Hilton, there was in fact a fake news site stating that she committed suicide. I saw it posted on several sites I frequent, so I imagine it was getting a lot of exposure online. If that site was monetized in any way with ads, they definitely saw a nice little increase in revenue during that time.
That's just one example of how to capitalize on Web 2.0 traffic. The potential is huge, and Web 2.0 marketing in general is really a broad topic on its own.
How to Get Traffic, Part 3: PPC Advertising
Just a small blurb for this topic. There is a third major way of getting traffic. It can be very targeted, but expensive depending on the keywords. Notice the ads when you do a search on Google, Yahoo, or MSN Live? If you click one, the people who put them up have to pay some price, ranging from a few cents to tens or even over a hundred dollars.
This is a great way to get to the top of the search engine results without actually being listed as a search engine result. You can set your bids for certain keywords, and even set up negative keywords. So if you're selling keychains, you can set up "free" as a negative keyword, meaning if someone types in "free keychains" your site will NOT appear. Succeeding in PPC advertising depends how well you can write a very short ad, how well you can select good, cheap keywords, and how well you can turn that visitor into a customer when they arrive at your site!
This is a great way to get to the top of the search engine results without actually being listed as a search engine result. You can set your bids for certain keywords, and even set up negative keywords. So if you're selling keychains, you can set up "free" as a negative keyword, meaning if someone types in "free keychains" your site will NOT appear. Succeeding in PPC advertising depends how well you can write a very short ad, how well you can select good, cheap keywords, and how well you can turn that visitor into a customer when they arrive at your site!
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