Affiliates: Dealing With Scammers

All affiliates know this situation: You’ve signed up, got a great deal on the traffic you’re sending and the conversions keep pouring in. The problem? You aren’t being paid for your work.

Affiliation is a great business that truly tests your abilities as a marketer and more importantly – your ability to follow up and keep track on your work and progress. The most frustrating thing that can happen is to not get paid.

Internet scams are nothing new – we’ve all been offered great rewards for helping a Nigerian prince, but we know better (you DO know better, right?). The problem is that scammers aren’t always so obvious. Affiliate scams are a great example – they provide every bit of information as any legitimate operation with one difference – the money never comes in.

How do you deal with this? Here’s a list of a few ideas to consider when figuring out who you want to offer your services to as an affiliate:

Choose Wisely – Try a more well-known affiliate program. You can always research the programs on many dedicated websites that not only detail the affiliate program’s possible deals, but also include reviews and comments from other affiliates who have had a chance to take part in the program.

Product Research – Try and understand as much as possible about the product you are promoting. You may run into user comments that can really tell you the whole story – is the product useful? Does it perform as advertised? Did the client even get the product? The answers to these questions reveal a lot about how business operates, and you can be sure that a good service on one end is a pretty good indication of how things are run in the other.

Trust Your Instincts – If something looks fishy or out of the ordinary and every bone in your body screams “no!” - don’t sign up. Even if everything looks decent but you still feel like something is a little off, you may end up saving yourself a lot of time and trouble. There are many affiliation programs out there, so there really is no need to proceed with a program that will not reward you in the end.

Be Smart – if an offer is too good to be true, it probably is. With little search you will find that there are probably many similar products out there – check out their affiliate programs and compare the deals offered. If the deal in question seems too good, you might have reason to be worried. The trick is, however, to distinguish between a scam and a genuine marketing push to out-perform the competition. Usually, the better offer will be marginally better, an not offer 4 times as much.

Cut Your Losses – If you are already on an affiliate program that isn’t paying, leave as soon as possible and let everyone know you’ve been scammed. That is the only way affiliates will be treated with more respect and dignity in the long run.

Creating the Best Landing Page

Landing pages are the mother ship of an affiliate’s invasion. Banners and mailers are usually based on them (they also direct to them) and they are you main firepower in terms of converting traffic. Furthermore, the Internet is becoming increasingly competitive in terms of how offers are presented to the client, meaning that you have to step up your game if you want to keep bringing that great traffic.

Here is a list of some of the main points to cover when creating your landing pages. If you’re choosing from a selection of ready made landing pages – be sure to follow these tips to make sure you select the one with the highest chance to convert.

Less is more – a lot of information may seem like a nice idea on paper, but in practice it does little to help conversion. In fact, it mostly does damage. When you are designing you landing page, be sure to provide as little information as possible while still delivering the main message of the offer – for example, if you are promoting an online trading service, be sure to stick to the offer without explaining the intricacies of how trading is actually done – the client does not want to be bombarded with technical information when he thinks about making a purchase – he wants the big picture.

The Banner should instantly open the landing page – there isn’t much more to say here. As an affiliate, you want your traffic easily reaching your landing page. Making things open instantly may seem a little bit aggressive in terms of a sales pitch, but it is the standard procedure at this point.

Concentrate on one product – Do not use you landing page to push more than one product – it will hurt sales. Your goal is to present a single product without over indulging in details while still maintaining necessary information. It’s hard enough achieving this balance with just one product – two is heading straight towards disaster.

Bullet points are your friend – Be sure to use bullet points when describing your products features. Paragraphs are nice, but they miss the point when it comes to landing pages.

Good graphics – You don’t have to create the flash version of Avatar, but you definitely don’t want to be looking like 1995 with tiny fonts and 3-frame GIFs. Use aesthetic imagery that is simple and serves its purpose – from there you can grow.

Be understandable – Don’t try and present the product in an overly complex way – tell your client what it does and why it’s better than the competition, but don’t try to be too clever about it – you’ll find that unless you have quite the talent for copywriting, going for something simple will bring more positive results.

Having a good landing page is one of the most important aspects to converting traffic. Following these points will ensure that your landing page is as understandable and accessible as can be.

“Waking up” Your Affiliates

While this website solely focuses on the affiliate side of things, this article is intended for the affiliate managers among us who need to shake things up a bit and get their affiliates back to making money. As an affiliate, it is important to know this side of the business and be aware of the things you can ask for as well as what would make you a favorable affiliate (beyond bringing in good traffic, of course).

Why do Affiliates Even Need to be “Woken Up”?

Affiliates earn money based on their performance – so why would they be performing at anything below their best? Sometimes, it’s down to some of the most basic elements. Often times, you’ll find that your media tools are lacking. This means that your affiliate has little to work with and feels like he’s hit a wall in terms of his ability to promote your product. As an affiliate, it’s always best to ask for more media (banners, reviews, etc) – it also shows you have the intention of working hard to bring in more traffic.

Sometimes, your affiliate may find a similar product with a better deal, leading him to move his resources to someone else. A good way to deal with this is to come up with some incentive that makes it worthwhile for the affiliate to promote your product. As an affiliate, it never hurts to ask for a better deal or exclusive promotion to run through your network.

Waking Them Up

1.     Incentives – It never hurts to give someone more to work for. While you may have a standard CPA deal, you can easily offer extra payment when your affiliate goes the extra mile. For example, if your affiliate places you in a better spot, why not make it worth his while? Eventually, a better deal will come along and you will slipped further and further down.

2.     Stay in Touch – Keeping in touch with your affiliates is a great way to make sure they know you’re watching and that business is running as usual. Furthermore, it never hurts to stay in touch – you may hear about competitors’ offerings and industry gossip.

3.     Create & Push New Media – Having great media tools is the right way to start your relationship with the affiliate, but it’s not enough. Show you’re serious by researching the different results that different texts and banners provide and let your affiliates know what works best. This shows that you are serious about your business relationship.

4.     Create Exclusive Promotions – When an affiliate has an exclusive discount to offer your clients, it means that an extra effort will be put in to bring more traffic. An affiliate earns his living by marketing – so he knows that when he has an exclusive promotion, his competitors will have a hard time pushing an inferior offer. This is why quality affiliates are the only ones who should receive such offers.

Once you’ve made contact with your affiliate, be sure to maintain communication with him – even if only twice a month – a few words go a long distance.

PageRank Myths

PageRanks are a very important aspect to determining whether a webpage generates traffic or not. Moreover, it can indicate whether a website provides an actual service, or if it’s no more than an Internet tourists’ trap.

Because of this, PageRanks are important to you – the affiliate. If you want to be able to prove that you’re worth a better affiliation deal, your pagerank will be one of the first things that will be looked at.

So what is a PageRank?

In the most basic definition, pageranks refer to the assessed importance of a webpage as provided by Google. There is a special algorithm put use by Google, but we will not delve into these technicalities here, but rather focus on what pageranks are and most importantly, what they aren’t.

MYTH #1 – Websites Have PageRanks

This is incorrect. Each specific page has a pagerank of its own and there is no median or average for the whole website. Typically, your site will be valued by your homepage’s pagerank. Even if you have a specific page that has attracted more traffic and has a higher pagerank, it does not reflect well when a specific page has a higher pagerank than the homepage – it indicates that the one article is more valued than your entire site. Furthermore, it shows that people don’t really know about your website – it only means they ran into your article via search or link.

MYTH #2 – PageRank Relies on Traffic

While traffic is undoubtedly important, it is by no means the only factor that is considered when generating your pagerank. This means that a page with a rank of 3 could potentially bring in more traffic than a page with a rank of 6. PageRanks are easily affected by good linkbuilding (more on that in a different article), content, and some more technical issues that concern domains, servers, etc.

MYTH #3 – PageRank is the Only Factor to Consider for Links

This logic is seriously flawed. It is true that a link from a low-ranked page usually hurts your pagerank, but it is NOT always true. Imagine having a link from a large and well-known website sub-page (such as MTV.com) that has a rank of 1 – this will not hurt your pagerank, it will help.

MYTH #4 – Links are Basis for PageRank

This notion is completely false. Pageranks are based on Google’s indexing, keywords and association algorithms. It is true that links are an important aspect, but quality content can be just as helpful in the long run.

MYTH #5 – High PageRanks Bring More Traffic

This is absolutely false. PageRanks only come into play when you’re doing business. The majority of end-users have no idea about pageranks and will not judge your website based on its metrics.

To conclude, pageranks are an important factor of your webpage, but it is not the only one. Quality content and good linking will naturally bring higher pageranks and not vice-versa.

Create Your Own Showroom Traffic

I get a lot of emails asking about how to get more showroom traffic and Fresh Ups, but the answer is not an easy one. It is a two part answer and one part is the responsibility of the dealership and their advertising budget for print, radio or television, but across the country more dealers are lowering their traditional media spend and raising the Internet ad budget. The Internet has changed the way that dealers and manufacturers attract customers today which has taken its toll on Fresh Ups.
The second part of the question about getting more traffic is about the car salesman and what they can do to put the odds in their favor which is what we are all about here at CarSalesProfessional.com. You have probably heard it all before, but maybe you weren’t paying attention and that is follow-up. That subject is very broad, but the main type of follow up that I am referring to is past customers that bought over a year ago.
The car buyer bought from you or your dealership once because they felt comfortable enough to make a major purchase and the odds are in your favor that they will return as showroom traffic. Almost every day I see customers come in that bought from the dealership in the past to look for a new car, but they rarely remember their salesperson so they end up working with whoever Ups them. Sometimes the car salesman that sold them in the past is no longer working at the dealership, but sometimes that salesman is still there yet they don’t remember them or don’t care to remember them because they haven’t heard from them since they bought their last car.

On the other hand I have seen a few customers come in the door and ask for a particular salesman because they received a letter, email or phone call from them about a new model, special sale or low financing rates. They felt special because their salesperson made them feel special and they returned to the same place they bought their last car and asked for the car sales professional that contacted them about the special sale or event that increased showroom traffic.
These customers typically buy their new car from the car salesman that contacted them and more often than not they paid more profit and in the end more commission to their salesperson. The customer felt comfortable last time and that is making them easier to work with this time. The end result they bought a car and you made a commission.
For you new car sales people that are trying to build a list of past customers you should know that I have seen sales people follow up with orphan customers (customers that bought from sales people that are no longer working at the dealership) and produce the same results. The customer remembered the dealer, but didn’t always remember the car salesman. If you can get your hands on some orphan customers some of your time might be better spent doing follow ups which can create more car showroom traffic for you.

Pay Per View

What is PPV (Pay Per View)?

PPV (Pay Per View) or CPV (Cost Per View) is a traffic source created by Adware Traffic.
Adware traffic is often confused by Spyware traffic. Even though they might sound similar, Adware Traffic is 100% legal and used by millions of people around the world.
PPV (Pay Per View) means you will be charged every time your landing page is viewed by a visitor who has the Adware installed on his/her computer. Visitors see your landing page as a pop up, pop under, or a full page bridge. Since PPV pop up isn’t treated as a regular pop-up, it doesn’t get blocked by most pop up blockers.
When a user who has the adware installed on his/her computer takes a specific action within their browser, such as visiting a URL or visiting Google and typing a word to search, a new browser opens up with your landing page in it. Whether this user browses your page, stays on it, clicks on a link, or simply closes it, you get charged for each view when your landing page is loaded and viewed by the users.
If you are direct linking an offer, your cookie is dropped to the user’s computer.
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What Are the Most Popular PPV Advertising Networks?

• Trafficvance
This is the first network I’ve started testing little over year ago. Traffic quality is pretty good, never had a complain about the quality.

• MediaTraffic
I’ve tested some offers with MediaTraffic. I’ve met Basil from MT during the affiliate summit in NYC. He was a great guy and I’m planning to spend some serious cash on MT during 2010.

• Adon Network
I have an account with Adon, but didn’t start testing anything yet.

These three PPV Networks are usually most recommended. But there are many other networks you can test PPV with. You can check PPV Playbook‘s 10 PPV Network Post to find more about other available networks.
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Which Affiliate Networks Can I Use with PPV Traffic

Whether it is PPV traffic, or any other type of traffic, you have to check with your affiliate managers you work with. PPV traffic is getting accepted by most affiliate networks right now.
Some affiliate networks such as Neverblue have special links (downloadable software link) to use for PPV Campaigns, and for some networks, you need to use the contextual link. Again, check with your affiliate manager for the correct link.
My all time 2 favorite affiliate networks are Azoogle and Neverblue. They both have great affiliate managers who are ready to help you get started.
As far as I know, CJ and Clickbank are some of the networks which don’t like direct linking from PPV traffic. Again, you have to check with your network and make sure they accept PPV traffic (if you are direct linking).
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Affiliate Market Secrets

Source Affiliate marketing is different things to different people, but essentially, affiliate marketing is the act of marketing someone else’s products or services for a portion, or commission, of each sale that you make. Some people do affiliate marketing as their full time jobs. That’s it. That’s all they do – they market other people’s products or services, collect their commissions, and live their lives as they wish. They do not have to deal with customer service, shipping orders, or anything else. All they do is promote other people’s products or services, everyday. Other people use affiliate programs in conjunction with their own products or services, using affiliate programs as front end products, upsells, and back end products. For example, if you had an information product about weight loss, you might want to market exercise equipment, exercise clothing, vitamins, or other items or services that are related to weight loss along with your weight loss information product – to increase your revenue. Obviously you would not want to create these items, so you would find these related products or services, and sign up for the affiliate programs, allowing you to promote them. Some people even low cost information products, such as ebooks, in order to sell high ticket affiliate products or services. Alternately, some people just use inexpensive affiliate products to enhance their own high ticket products or continuity programs, such as membership sites.

Some people are confused about what affiliate marketing actually is. For instance, many people who have products and offer affiliate programs for those products might say that they sell their product through affiliate marketing. What they mean is that they have affiliates who sell the product for them, but they are actually merchants or affiliate managers, in affiliate marketing terms.
But basically, affiliate marketing is selling someone else’s products or services through various means, for various reasons – either to earn an income, to enhance a product, or even to sell an additional product. In fact, many people use low end affiliate products as lead ins, or entry level products, for higher end affiliate products – never actually creating or promoting a product or service of their own.
Is money being made? You better believe there is! If you include all products and services that are sold through affiliates, affiliate marketing is essentially a billion dollar industry, even though it isn’t technically considered an industry in its own right. Many people don’t even consider it a career, but they are mistaken.
Right now, at this very moment, there are thousands of affiliate marketers that you have never even heard of quietly promoting affiliate products and collecting huge commission checks every month. Why haven’t you heard of them? You haven’t heard of them because they are not in the Internet Marketing products market. They are in other ‘consumer’ niches, such as weight loss, healthcare, sports, gambling, education, financial products, etc.
Now, if you have an active interest in those things, or any other conceivable thing, you have probably searched for information or products related to your interest on the Internet. If this is the case, you have most likely come into contact with an affiliate marketer, without even being aware of it. You may have even purchased a product through an affiliate marketer without ever knowing it.
Even Google has an affiliate program. That’s what Google AdSense is all about. It’s an affiliate program, but it isn’t technically called that. EBay has an affiliate program, as does Microsoft. There is an affiliate program available for just about any product that you can imagine, but not all ‘brands’ have affiliate programs – which of course is their mistake.
Affiliate marketing presents a win-win-win situation. The owner or maker of the product being sold is making money. The affiliate marketer is making money, and the customer is getting what they want or need. Everybody wins. Affiliate marketing has been around longer than you think it has as well.
Many people think that affiliate marketing started sometime after the Internet came into existence. This is wrong. Amway, Avon, Mary Kay – all of these are essentially affiliate programs, but the people who were actually doing the affiliate marketing were called distributors or representatives – and they are still called distributors or representatives to this day.
Affiliate marketing can even entail network marketing. Affiliate marketing is the act of selling a product for a commission. Network marketing also involves selling a product for a commission, but also focuses on bringing other resellers (or affiliate marketers, distributors or representatives) into the program as well. Sometimes, however, affiliate marketing also allows and encourages you to bring other affiliate marketers into the program.
Again, affiliate marketing is different things to different people, but the goal is the same – to make money. Affiliate marketing offers you the opportunity and ability to make money without creating a product of your own.

What Is PPC Direct Linking?

One common question that almost always arises when you start with paid traffic is whether you should create a landing page of your own or directly link to the affiliate site.
When you create a Google ad, you need a destination URL as well as a display URL. The display URL is shown on the ad and the destination URL points to the link that is followed by the click.
Under PPC direct linking, the URL on your Google ad directs you to the affiliate site itself. The display URL has to be set to the domain belonging to the affiliate and thereby visitors are directly linked to the affiliate site.
One of the major benefits of affiliate marketing using PPC direct linking strategy is that you do not need to build a landing page of your own.
Neither do you need to invest time and money in creating your own page. For many people it is easier to just create ads that point directly to the affiliate site.

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Earning A Nice Income Using Affiliate Marketing And Advertising On The Internet

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Finding a way to get ahead inside the affiliate marketing sector isn’t as challenging as some people may believe. According to the ambitions or perhaps the purpose right behind somebody joining the particular affiliate marketing programs, you will find ways that just about anyone can generate anywhere between a minor additional salary to a major revenue. Private website owners everywhere have already been able to host advertising in exchange for a couple of dollars here and there, when sizable corporations are already able to generate large amounts simply by advertising various other sites through their particular sites. It’s an marketing method that has got virtually no obstructions and no boundaries. Individuals with vast Internet expertise along with enormous financial budgets are just as accepted as individuals who know nothing in relation to home computers and also a incredibly constrained financial backing. Companies may choose to be represented by those who are more likely to bring in enormous numbers of clients, however in reality virtually any promotion they can get hold of, they’re going to take, especially when it is totally free. If you are a man or woman, who is new to the field, one thing that must be carried out is actually selecting a provider, or maybe a variety of firms to work with, for your Internet site to advertise. There are actually hundreds of websites that offer affiliate marketers the option to sign up straight through them, as well as a number of affiliate marketing program websites which represent many clientèle, in most cases from the same industry. Bigger companies along with the particular potential for extra improvement or perhaps a large return of business are perhaps the most likely to blossom for any new affiliate. The Internet gaming industry is just one of several which have been receiving huge gains, earning billions of dollars on an annual basis. Along with world wide draw and an ever increasing clientèle the actual sports betting industry is among the biggest of them covered under the wider banner associated with Internet gaming. Sports wagering is and always has been a favorite activity for men and women around the globe, therefore its attraction is not limited by particular areas or even regions. This helps to make this the ideal marketplace through which to start your own personal affiliate marketing small business. Similar to most of the gaming sectors affiliate marketing programs, sports wagering offers their own affiliates a percentage of the players money which has been generated for the website. Cash is earned basically once they lose any bet, consequently each time the player doesn’t win, the actual affiliate will win. With affiliates earning up to 35% of the player’s money which has joined by way of their site, it’s not hard to see how the cash could effortlessly begin pouring in once you get a couple of clients. Contrary to nearly all sectors the particular affiliates are not quite as cut throat in their competition for new clients, with that in mind it’s certainly not very difficult for newcomers to build up their very own marketplace. Nevertheless in order to turn into a flourishing affiliate you must first lure a continuous flow of targeted visitors to your own site. if you don’t have human traffic you can never expect to obtain the essential clicks on your current affiliate links and having the ability to begin generating the real bucks. Therefore just like all websites it may be in ones best interests to boost your own presence, through advertising.

What Are Your Readers Looking For?

You need to consider your audience that visits your site. Why are they there? What are they looking for? Are they shopping for specific items?
Understanding your audience and why they are viewing your site, can enable you to promote affiliate products that are relevant. There is no point in promoting weight loss supplements if your website promotes car accessories!

Promote Quality Products

You should only be promoting quality products! Everybody is the same, we all like to make sure that we are getting good value for money. Promoting products that are rubbish, just because they offer a better commission for you, won’t work. Respect your readers and promote quality products, with good reputations, that they will find useful.

Your Own Recommendations Work Best!

There are countless products and services available online for you to choose from, to promote on your site. However, generating money from them isn’t as simple as merely adding a link. You need to actively promote and recommend the product itself to your readers.
On a daily basis, people keep returning to your blog because they trust what you are writing about. You need to maintain this trust by being open and honest about any product that you promote. The easiest way to loose visitors is to promote affiliate products that you clearly don’t use/isn’t relevant to them.
The best results that I have had from affiliate programs is when I give an open and honest review of it. One of the most successful programs I have been involved at on OnlineIncomeTeacher.com is with the email auto-responder, AWeber. I refer to it a lot in many posts when relevant, because not only is it a tool that I use to distribute my FREE eCourse, but it is a tool that I recommend to other bloggers and website owners to build their own email list with.

Link Positioning

There are many places on your site pages to place Affiliate Links, but some work better than others. Think about where your reader will be looking on screen when they are viewing your website.
Blog posts are a particularly good place to include text-link ads, but also above and below each post is a good position to include advertisement banners.
Your website header is a prime location for adverts, as this is clearly visible to everyone that visits any of your pages. In comparison, adverts placed lower down on your pages towards the footer area, won’t have the same impact.

Contextual Advertising Works Best

The best thing about contextual adverts like Google Adsense, is that when someone is reading a particular post on your blog and they see an advert for that same product, they are much more likely to click on it, than if they had seen an advert for something else.
Affiliate programs work best, when they are used in this same way! A link or banner ad to a general homepage (e.g. Amazon), wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective as multiple links placed throughout your blog article that advertises products that are relevant for your readers.
So, for example, a blog post about hand-held gaming consoles might include a review of the new Nintendo 3Ds product. The most effective affiliate program that you could link to within that post would be one that links to a page selling that Nintendo 3Ds model.
The Amazon affiliate program is great for setting these links up, and I use it myself to promote products on my sites. It can be a little more work, but I find that it is well worth the effort.

Don’t Put All Your Affiliate Eggs Into One Basket!

Treat your website/blog as a business! Diversify your income streams, so that you are not relying on one affiliate program. There are plenty of products out there to promote, so there is no need to just concentrate on one.
Think about all of the different things that your website focuses on. Try to find numerous products that are relevant to each of those and promote when relevant.

Build Other Revenue Streams

There are many ways to earn money online, you don’t solely have to rely on affiliate programs. I find it fun to build up my business and find new ways of monetizing my websites. Affiliate advertising is one of the best methods for generating income, but it is not the only one. Try to incorporate different methods and experiment with what works and what doesn’t.
Check out our post on ‘30 Ways Your Website Can Earn You Money!‘ for some methods that you may not have originally thought of.

Don’t Fool Your Readers

Don’t try to trick your readers into clicking on links that will make you money. The only thing that you will achieve by doing this, is that you will loose readers!

Tracking Your Affiliate Link Results

The majority of affiliate programs include some type of tracking or analytic statistics package, which will allow you to see which links are working. These tracking tools are very useful and will allow you plan future affiliate strategies.

Traffic = Money!!!

You can have the best links, promoting the best products, located in the prime positions on your pages, but if there is no one visiting your site then you won’t make any money!
Traffic is key to making money online. The more visitors that see your affiliate links, the more likely it is that one of them will make a purchase. Constantly work to attract more traffic to your website.

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Being A Forex Affiliate Marketer

Forex is one of the most lucrative industries that heavily rely on affiliate marketing, resulting in good deals, clean operation and most importantly – more money in the bank.

How does affiliation work in the forex industry? There are many affiliation deals out there, but they all follow the same guidelines – CPA (cost per acquisition), CPL (cost per lead) and revenue share obviously take up the bulk of things, but unlike other industries, CPL and CPA are much more prominent than their rev-share brethren.

The reasons for this lie in the way forex brokers operate. Forex brokers usually prefer CPA deals due to the high value of each acquired trader and the fact that this is an ongoing service that does not end with one purchase. Compared to other products such as gaming, traders mostly cover their cost to the broker as soon as they make their first deposit, making revenue share deals much more expensive for the broker. Furthermore, forex brokers are generally lead harvesters, meaning that they acquire a large number of leads through their various media-buying efforts and then process them via their sales department, which is usually made up of a multi-national team of guns-for-hire - sales people in the forex industry tend to hop from one broker to another quite frequently. It is not necessarily bad, but definitely of interest. Therefore, leads are definitely interesting to forex brokers; especially if they are of good quality.

Key Terms To Understanding Affiliate Marketing:

To get started with finding a good affiliate program, we suggest you start with the Affiliate Reviews on Ecommerce-Guide (you'll find them listed in the Related Links section below).

Key Terms To Understanding Affiliate Marketing:advertiser The advertiser is the Web site owner or merchant who pays affiliates for sending traffic to their site to make purchases or generate leads. Also called merchant. affiliate The Webmaster or site owner who earns revenue, usually commission-based, for conversion of leads, clicks or sales on the advertiser's site. affiliate program An automated marketing program where a Web advertiser recruits Webmasters to place the merchant's banner ads or buttons on their own Web site. Webmasters will receive a referral fee or commission from sales when the customer has clicked the affiliate link to get to the merchant's Web site to make the purchase.

Choosing an Affiliate Program

Because there are such a large number of affiliate programs to choose from and many are structured differently, here are some tips to keep in mind while looking for a good match.First, you need to be sure you are comfortable with the product you're promoting or selling and you have confidence in the advertiser you are linking to.

Check the pages on the advertiser's Web site. If it's something you yourself would never consider purchasing, or it possibly looks a bit unreliable, then chances are your visitors won't be interested in it either. If you're running a content-based site, you don't want to sell anything that might offend visitors or lower their opinion of your site.

The best rule of thumb is to pick affiliate programs that offer something that's relevant to your site. For example, if your Web site is about registering domain names, look for affiliate programs that are related to the topic such as Web site hosting, Webmaster tools and software, Web site templates and so on. There is nothing worse than advertisements that stand out like a sore thumb on your pages (e.g., online casino ads placed on a Web site about elementary school math tutorials). Even niche sites can find affiliate programs that are a good match.

What is the Advertiser really offering affiliates? Make sure you understand the affiliate agreement and that you can comply with it. Take the time to check out the advertiser before joining to ensure they really do pay out to affiliates and that their program is not a scam.
Have a look at what the advertiser is offering in terms of tracking and reporting tools for affiliates. Good programs will provide you with a way to access real-time automated statistics to view conversions, sales and commissions. Be sure you have ad and product display options to integrate the advertising into your Web site. Can you change the colors, themes and choose from a selection of different sized banners and buttons? With this type of service it means a little less work for you, the affiliate, and it also means your affiliate program meshes with your site. Some higher-pay programs may look attractive, but may offer a higher commission because they might not provide support and tools to their affiliates. If this is the case, make sure you determine if this program will be too high-maintenance for you before joining.

Generally speaking pay-per-click programs offer the lowest dollar value for conversions, and you'll need a higher click through rate to earn money. Pay-per-lead and pay-per-sale programs will usually offer a higher commission, but you'll have less visitors clicking through to complete the transactions, so you need to have a lot of unique visitors. Use your own traffic and reporting tools to determine which type of program will have a better chance of success on your own site.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Knowing what ads to place and what revenue your Web site generates isn't magic. Once you join an affiliate program you then are able to choose the products or banners you want to include on your Web site, and then receive the code you will need to insert on specific Web page or throughout your Web site. This changes, however, when you select an ad revenue partnership, such as Google AdSense, for example where you have little or no control over the advertisement displayed. In joining the affiliate program, you will agree to their terms of service, called an affiliate agreement, which will tell you what requirements you must meet and how the click-through, lead generation or sales are tracked.Here is an example of one affiliate program, how it works and the requirements of the affiliate:

WorldWinner is a "Pay to Play" online game Web site that offers a revenue-sharing affiliate program. From the WorldWinner Web site (the advertiser in this case), you would first fill out an application to become an affiliate by providing basic information about yourself and your Web site through a Web-based sign up form. If you're accepted as an affiliate, WorldWinner will provide you with an affiliate ID as well as the address to a Web page where you can generate the code to place different links advertising WorldWinner on your own site. They offer rotating or static text links, banners or buttons, and co-brand Web sites are also allowed. When you generate the code to place on your own Web site, it will contain your unique affiliate ID. Any user who clicks a link to WorldWinner that contains your ID is tracked by WorldWinner via cookies. If they become a paying player and deposit money to their account and play games for cash, you then earn money yourself; it will be a percentage of that user's deposits for as long as you remain an affiliate (this particular affiliate program offers a 25 percent share in Net Applicable Revenue). WorldWinner also hosts and provides you with all the statistics and information you need to determine how many users your are sending to their Web site, if they are depositing funds, and also provide you with your revenue and payout information.

For the most part, affiliate programs work by using a combination of a unique user ID and cookies to track your leads and subsequent revenues. Most will offer a private affiliate section on their Web site where you can get your HTML code and also check your affiliate account status and information. Through the use of browser cookies, any person who uses your link to make the desired action within a set amount of time contributes to your affiliate revenue.
For example if a user follows your link and looks through an online software store they are tracked as "your referral" by the browser cookie. If the person makes the purchase before the cookie expires, you get the referral commission. So even if a user sits with items in their shopping cart but doesn't go back and make the purchase for two weeks, you can still get the commission, provided the cookie is still active.
For the Webmaster, one of the the hardest things about using an affiliate program to earn money is finding a good one that will actually produce results for you. To better your chances of earning revenue from affiliate marketing here are some tips to get you started;

• Always read the fine print. Make sure you understand how the payouts are structured, if you need to earn a minimum dollar amount before a payout, and, of course, compare commissions between similar affiliate programs.
• Once you have narrowed down your options to a handful of possibilities, take a look at the merchant or marketers' Web site rankings and traffic. If, for example, you have your choice narrowed down to three computer software e-tailers, you can use Google and Alexa rankings to help you determine which may have a better volume of traffic. While their Web site traffic won't directly help you promote their products, this may tell you which company has a larger customer-base (more traffic). A well-known name that your Web site visitors may be familiar with might encourage them to click the advertising links on your own site.
• Choose affiliate programs that complement your Web site content. If your site is all about sports, then chances are you'll want to skip on setting up a co-branded Web store for cartoon themed car accessories, for example. Also, if affiliate programs offer customizable banners, buttons or splash pages that can be edited to reflect elements of your own site design, be sure to take advantage of those options.
• Don't be afraid to play the field and try a couple affiliate programs, or opt out of one and choose another if you're not seeing any results after time. Results are going to be based on how much traffic your own Web site gets. If your site serves only a couple visitors a day, you can't expect high click-through numbers.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a WIN-WIN situation for both the affiliate and the merchant. Because of its flexible nature, there are numerous benefits that you as the merchant will get by making use of this type of marketing strategy:

1. Low Upfront Costs – Starting your own affiliate program does not require you to have a large marketing budget upfront. Most types of promotional marketing such as billboards, email ads, or even pay-per-click advertising require you to have a certain amount allocated beforehand in order to get started. With affiliate marketing, all you need is your website and the software to run your affiliate program, such as JAM.
2. No Sales Associates Needed – With affiliate marketing, there is no need to have dedicated sales people on your staff. That’s because the affiliates in your program are your sales associates! These affiliates collectively help to promote your products and/or services for you, without having to have an upfront salary.
3. Pay-for-Performance – This is pretty much the best thing about affiliate marketing. You only pay when you get a sale or lead. No need to pay for underachieving employees. Affiliate marketing helps to reduce your overall marketing costs because you only pay for quality performance.
4. Free Website Traffic - Your affiliates will use their links as well as any marketing tools such as banners, text links, or text ads to promote your website and services. This results in free inbound traffic on your site.
5. Better Search Engine Rankings - Many search engines gauge their keyword rankings based on inbound links to your website. With affiliate marketing, your affiliates will have already placed their affiliate links on their web pages that point into your site, ultimately making your site more popular on the search engines.
6. Flexibility – Affiliate marketing allows you to be very flexible in how you pay your affiliates. You can pay them for certain actions undertaken, such as when they refer a customer that buys from you, or fills out a lead form, or downloads one of your products. It can be used however you want so as to generate the most revenue for your business.
7. Automation – Because affiliate marketing is normally setup via computers and the Internet, many of your affiliate management tasks can be quickly automated, helping to free up time for you to focus on other aspects of your business. Tasks such as commission management, affiliate tracking and reporting, are all automated when you use JAM as your affiliate marketing software.

Why You Should Start Your Own Affiliate Program

If you own or want to start your own Internet Business, affiliate marketing is a must for your marketing strategy. It is an easy, cost-effective solution to promoting your products and services effectively online. Additionally, you end up building a sense of community among your affiliate members when you utilize it correctly.
Think of it this way: Having a good number of affiliates promoting your products all over the Internet is similar to having thousands of sales agents going door to door selling your products all over the country. The great thing about having an affiliate program is you don’t have to put any of your affiliates on salary to get started!

Top 5 Search Engine Ranking Factors

As someone who makes a living improving search engine rankings, I can tell you that there is a lot of bad information out there about SEO. What if I were to tell you that the road map for achieving top rankings was within your grasp? The holy grail of rankings is not imaginary. As is true with any major success, it leaves clues.

By working with literally hundreds of small and medium sized websites, I have found that top ranked sites have a number of factors in common. What are they? I’m about to share these factors with you and explain what separates those in the top Google positions and those that are never found on page one of search results.

The first search engine ranking factor has to do with the anchor text of all inbound links to your website. Google and other search engines use the anchor text from other sites linking in to determine what your site is about and what it should rank well for. If websites link in only using a URL, and not your keywords in the anchor text, email them and ask them to update your link. The link should always appear with your most important keywords.
The second most important ranking factor is using keywords in your title tag and other meta tags. Meta tags still have an impact on your search rankings. Although the weight of meta tags may be minimal, they are effective in categorizing your page and identifying what search engines should expect to find when they spider web site pages. Make sure your tags are constructed properly and include you keywords.
The third ranking factor to consider for your web site is link popularity. This phrase has been talked about in search engine circles for a while but can be equated with Page Rank. The concept of Page rank or link popularity for that matter take a number of factors into consideration to identify the quality of web pages from an external perspective. The largest factor that influences search engine rankings is the number and quality of links that are pointing to a web site or web page.

The fourth ranking factor is the diversity of domains that link to your web site. For many search engines, it’s not only what links you have to your site but making sure they are from different domains. This represents more popularity associated with you web site and therefore is judged to be a better search result. When link building, try to focus on generating inbound links from different websites.

The final ranking factor is keyword use in root domain. Although it's possible to use subdomain or dedicated pages to get your keywords in a URL, nothing beats having them in your root domain.
All of these factors are important for top search rankings. Don’t overlook any of them if trying to improve your search rankings for particular keywords or keyword phrases. Also, be sure to continually read up on the subject or consider any one of a number of SEO training programs that can show you how to have more impact with your optimization efforts.

Ringtone Partner, Online Mobile Affiliate Network

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Ringtonepartner offers a wide selection of international mobile offers arranged by type (Music, Wallpapers, Games, Video, Trivia Games, Prizes, IQ / Crush), country, and local mobile carrier.
With our geo - targeting features and specific country redirections, we can maximize our affiliate's revenue by capturing the global market.

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Related Affiliate Marketing

Another form of affiliate marketing is what I like to call related affiliate marketing. This is where you have some sort of presence online, whether it’s through a blog, a podcast, videos, or whatever – and you have affiliate links to products related to your niche, but they’re for products you don’t actually use.

Back when text link ads were a big deal, I remember seeing every single “make money online” website with a 125 x 125 pixel advertisement for text link ads. Most of these sites did not actually use the text link ad service on their own sites. On many personal finance blogs, you’ll see a lot of different affiliate advertisements for things like ING, Everbank, LendingClub, and numerous other financial institutions. I doubt that every person who places one of those links on their blog actually uses each of those products and services.

And that’s ok.

Placing affiliate links on your site that are related to your niche is a great strategy to earn an extra income. Whether it’s in the sidebar in banner form, or in a text link at the bottom of your blog post, because you have a website and some authority, people will trust you and your decision to place the ad on your site.

I do have a few of these kinds of links scattered throughout this site. In the sidebar, you’ll see (at the moment) an ad for a “How to Make an iPhone App” product. Many of you know I do have a few iPhone apps that generate an income for me each month, but I did not use this product. I do, however, personally know the owner, which is why I trust him and decided to place that ad there.

Related affiliate marketing is great, but I can tell you that 95% of my affiliate marketing comes from the last type of affiliate marketing I’d like to talk about…

Unattached Affiliate Marketing

These are your basic pay-per-click affiliate marketing campaigns where you have no presenceand no authority in the niche of the product you’re promoting. There’s no connection between you and the end consumer, and all you’re doing is showing an affiliate link in front of someone’s face via Google Adwords, Facebook ads or whatever, in hopes that they’ll click on your link, buy the product, and you’ll earn a commission.

The reason why this type of affiliate marketing is so attractive to many is because no presence or authority in a niche is needed! It takes time to build up a reputation and trust with certain groups of people online, and many people are just too scared to commit to working on a blog or website, or just don’t have the time. For many, this is their only option.

Personally, I don’t like this business model because to me, this is not a business model. It’s an income generating model – yes, but a business model where I can build relationships with the end user – no. With PPC affiliate marketing, you become a behind the scenes middle man.

Not for me.

If you dabble in PPC affiliate marketing and are in the positive, I applaud you and I wish you continued success. Trust me, it’s a lot more difficult than it sounds, so props to those of you finding success with it.

The mobile shift is already here!

The mobile trends are baffling. On one hand, we can all see the trends happening right in front of us. The shift in how we connect with the world has changed dramatically in recent years.

If we look at the mobile trend curves, mobile looks to exceed the desktop in 2013, only one year from today. Facebook and Twitter already have more than 50% of their traffic coming from mobile.

At the same time we have the connected trends, the time-shifting trends, the social trends and the mode-free trends. They all strengthen the mobile trends, increasing the importance of being anywhere, anytime. Mobile, of course, is not about a phone. The mobile trend is not a thing; it's us. We have become mobile.

We used to divide our time into modes. We would be in lean-forward mode at work and in front of our desktop computers at home. We would then be lean-back mode in front of the TV and with a magazine. Today, we have lean-whatever mode. We watch TV while working on our phones and tablets. We cook dinner in the kitchen, while the iPad streams our favorite TV show, while checking Facebook on our phones.

We don't put ourself into modes anymore. We, as people, have become mobile ...even when we are sitting down.

But there is a problem with all this mobile bonanza and the 'shift in 2013' prediction - especially if your are a brand with a web shop or if you are a publisher. When we go into our analytics, most brands do not see the mobile trend. They see an insignificant amount of mobile traffic, and the trend curve don't point to any real change in 2013 - or even in 2018.

Here, for instance, is the mobile graph for this site. There is a long way to 50%.

How can this be? We can all see the mobile trends. We see it for ourself with how we are now connecting with the world. So why don't we see it in our web shops or in our online publications?

Back in 2011, I had a theory about this. My theory was that the reason brands and publishers didn't see mobile taking off was simply because they weren't doing it right. People have already shifted; the brands and publisher's haven't.

Most brands have adopted a 'wait-and-see' approach, apparently waiting for mobile to grow before making a mobile web shop. Publishers try to do it with apps, neglecting the trend that it isn't the phone that is mobile, it's us. An app still requires people to go into a 'mode'. It isn't mobile, it just happens to be on a mobile phone.

I was making the same mistake. While I had launched a mobile site in 2008 (and a mobile app in 2010), it was a separate site and, as such, it broke the connection. It forced people into modes and disrupted the flow sharing. It looked great, but it wasn't really mobile.

In October 2011, I decided to do something about it. So how do you create a site that is truly mobile? One that doesn't require people to go into modes? One that can be used anywhere, at any time, and on any device - including on your laptop at work. One that encourages time shifting? Embraces that anything can be share from any device, and anyone can then follow that link back on whatever device or platform they use? ...and still 'just work'?

Creating an app was a hopeless solution. It still forces people into modes. You have to convince people to download it before they can read anything. And while you can share from an app, you cannot share to an app. Not to mention that it would be problematic to support every device and every platform out there. The cost would be phenomenal.

A separate mobile site wouldn't do either. While you could detect what device people use and redirect them to the right destination accordingly, it breaks up social tracking. You end up with several links for the same content. Not to mention that you have to maintain and operate two separate sites.

And again, a mobile site is something you create if you think mobile is a phone and not a behavior. That was not the right solution.

The only other option I had was to recreate my site using 'responsive' design. With it, I would have one site that worked anywhere, on any device, and on any platform. Sharing would work the same, links would work no matter what people use, and what the people they share it with saw it on.

So in November 2011 I relaunched the site using a responsive design. The format and layout was exactly the same. I only made very minor changes to the look. But the site could now be used on any device.

It has now been six months, and it is time evaluate the result. Was creating a responsive design the key to embracing the mobile trends? Remember that mobile traffic is expected to exceed desktop traffic in 2013. A prospect that seemed unlikely in 2011.

Well, here is the result:

As you can see, in only 6 months, the mobile traffic rate literally exploded. And 'the shift' started happening in November 2011, the same month where I relaunched the site using a responsive design. Nothing else changed.

I expected to see a change, but not as drastic as this. If I look at the mobile traffic trend today, on my site, I have no doubt that mobile will dominate my traffic by 2013, and probably sooner.

It confirms my theory that the mobile trends that are happening all around us are very real. The reason why so many brands and publishers don't see it, is simply because they don't embrace what it really means to be mobile. It's not a thing; it's us!

You are not going to get any mobile traffic until you start embracing what it means to be mobile.

I know that this is just a small test, from only one site. And, I know that my audience is more technically advanced than most. But look at the graph. Before responsive design, I was hovering around 5%. Now, it's closer to 40% (44% mobile traffic in March).

This is not a technology problem. This is a human behavior problem.

If I was working for a brand, I would prioritize embracing mobile as fast as I possible could.

I'm not saying that just by redesigning your site, you are going to get the same result as I did.Mobile is more than pixels, the product you make also has to be relevant in a mobile setting. You need to consider how something is going to be used, as well as how to design your site. It's the same for publishers.

Case in point, if I only look at my Plus content, this is the result:

My Plus subscribers had a fairly high mobile rate at around 14% in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, this was much higher than most other sites, as most of my subscribers are digital disrupters and change agents.

When I relaunched using responsive design, mobile adoption rate didn't change as much, but still mobile usage increase by 8 percentage points - to 22%. And again, we can see a direct correlation (and causation).

Keep in mind that the user behavior of a subscriber vs a new visitor is very different. A subscriber is more willing to do things that optimize their reading experience over time (like adding the Plus stream to an app) than a new visitor who just uses whatever he happened to see it on. Subscribers, for instance, use apps like e.g Flipboard, Instapaper or ReadLater far more than other visitors.

Also, since my Plus reports are generally 15-25 pages long, they are best read in a more lean-back setting.

But the point is. The mobile shift is very real. If you don't see it in your analytics yet it's because you are not embracing it. You are keeping your customers in the past.

Embrace mobile now. It's out there, waiting for you to act. But if you don't act soon, it will move on without you.

Mobile Affiliate Marketing

For some time the main ways to monetise mobile traffic have been confined to standard display advertising or user payments.  App developers and mobile site publishers have the option of running ads on their site on a CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per thousand) basis.  

The alternative is to offer a premium service, typically via a charging for an app download.  However, recent trends are making these business models less effective.  Firstly the growth in mobile ad inventory means that fill rates and eCPMs (earnings per thousand page views) are falling as supply outstrips demand.  Secondly, the paid-for app market is suffering from a general downward trend of pricing towards free.  

Whereas the iphone platform has been successful in terms of paid downloads, Android users have proved far less willing to pay for apps.

These trends mean that there is a need for new types of monetisation.  Enter mobile affiliate marketing.  Mobile affiliate marketing offers developers and publishers the ability to generate revenues on a CPA (cost per action) basis which means that an unlimited level of inventory can be effectively monetised.  To date, unlike the online world, where affiliate marketing is well established, these types of offers have been few and far between on mobile. However, this is now changing with a number of recent developments showing that mobile affiliate marketing is starting to reach take off point:

All of this activity is bring more offers, more merchants and more money onto mobile on a CPA basis.  There are huge opportunities for publishers, app developers and mobile marketers who are quick to learn how to make mobile affiliate marketing pay.  We’ll be discussing some of the techniques and opportunities here on blognotions in the coming months.