Affiliate Revenue Generation

Here's the 'Numero Uno' Rule!

Don't be cheap! Always go for quality! Hey, if you wouldn't buy it, why should anyone else?!

Take a good look at the product or service you're considering marketing and make sure it is top notch! Is is a good value for the price? If it's a ridiculous amount of money for something not worth a whole lot, then forget about it. How about the people that are recommending it? Have you done business with them in the past? Are they reliable? Can you talk to a few people who have bought the product? Are they happy with what they purchased?

You've really got to be certain you are recommending a good quality product, from a reputable company, which has great customer service.

This is definitely pretty darn important! As an affiliate, you're sticking your neck out there, every time you advertise or recommend the product or service you're linking to. You are in effect, endorsing them, so it's your reputation at risk! Be sure you're dealing with a company that deserves your trust and reflects well on you personally!

Be smart! Don't ever promote something that's going to harm your reputation!

The Second Most Important Rule

You better be earning a super dooper commission! If you're only being paid 5% or 10% per product sold...boy, are you ever getting the 'short end of the stick'! That's a low commission! You need to look for a company who's thinking about the life-time-value of a customer and is willing to give YOU a very high payout to keep you. You want to associate with a company who pays out around 60% of the net profit to their affiliates. You won't find an affiliate program like this on every website, you're going to have to really search for it! But that's allright. It'll be worth the effort!

With a good affiliate company, when someone joins under you, they get paid for every sale they make (just like you), and you get paid a percentage for every sale THEY make. Just think what would happen if you had a few really hot affiliates, who signed up underneath you and were making 10 sales a mont... you would be making a whole lot of money every month just on the work THEY did. As long as they keep selling, you keep getting paid!

Something else to think about...even if a company is paying out a high commission, if people don't buy from them, you're right back where you started! They've got to have a site which turns visitors into buyers; the site must have a good conversion rate! The site should have at least a 1% conversion ratio; meaning, that one out of every hundred customers you send to them, then turns into a sale.

Make sure you go with an affiliate program which has sales copy and website design that "makes you want to buy". After all, YOU are sending them the potential customers, but it's their job to turn those potential customers into buyers! More buyers, more money for you! Basically pretty simple.

Also, keep in mind your payout amount. If you are earning $50 a referral for one buying customer, you're doing okay.. but, if you are only earning a $10 referral fee for that one buying customer, you may want to rethink things.

Here Comes Rule Number Three, Short But Major Important!:

Match the product or service to the theme of your site. So if your site is about horses and horse products you don't want to be advertising music CD's or weight loss products (unless of course it is a weight loss product for horses!).

You need to target your clientele so that what you are selling or recommending, has something to do with what your visitors WANT. I can't stress this enough it's very important! Provide links, services and products, which are related to what YOUR visitors want!

I am continually astonished, that people build a site and then have products and affiliate programs that have nothing whatsoever to do with each other! DUH!!

The Number Four Rule:

You also need to be concerned with the tracking software the affiliate program is using. You want to see your statistics (stats) in real time and be able to check them at any time to see how you are doing.

Why?

So you can go and check to see how your promotional efforts are working Compare the difference in results between putting a button up and putting up a whole sales page. You need instant information on visitor and sales results. How many sales is your affiliate banner generating, same goes for a text link, or personal recommention....how many visitors are you sending to the affiliate site and then how many sales is it generating for you.

Does the software the company is using track ALL of your sales....some companies use "inferior" software which only tracks about 80% of the time (meaning YOU lose out on 20% of the commissions that are rightfully yours). Other companies will only pay you if the customer visits through your link and buys right then and there...if they come back and buy later, you may not get credit for that sale.

The Number Five Rule:

Don't allow affiliate programs to clutter up your main site. Don't go crazy and find 10 different programs and try to promote them all on your site at the same time!! It just clutters up your site and makes it worthless! Focus on one or two really good affiliate programs, that work for your business and client base. Only become involved with an affiliate program that has products or services that your target market wants.

"Wants" is the important word here. People buy things impulsively because they "want" them, not because they "need" them. When you come right down to it, there are not all that many products which people really "need".

More is not necessarily better! Put too many affiliate programs on your site and you just end up confusing your visitors. You won't make many sales with confused buyers! Stay targeted!

The Number Six Rule:

This is just common sense...deal with a reputable company. If you are ever unsure of a company, ask for references and do some checks on them. Are they professional? If you phone them, do they put you on hold FOREVER!? Be assured, they'll do the same to customers you recommend to them. They should respond promptly to your emails, within the same day if at all possible. If they don't respond to your emails at all....run in the other direction!

Customer response and service is EVERYTHING. If you ask questions about a company's affiliate program and get no answer (or a delayed answer)... whoa, watch out! If they can't be bothered to take care of you when you express an interest in becoming an associate, what's the odds they'll take care of you when you have a real problem!? It's a pretty good bet, that they won't take very good care of your customers either! So be very careful, the company you deal with should be very professional and willing to help you out when you're in need.

Take the bit about the importance of Customer Service to heart and make certain YOU respond swiftly to emails or phone messages you receive in your own business dealings. This IS CRITICAL.

Following are a few related odds and ends.

Affiliate Programs and bulk email do NOT go together.

There's this "myth" out there about affiliate programs, that you go join a few, put them all in an email message and then bulk email thousands of people who will eagerly respond making you tons of money! Oh, so WRONG! This is probably one of the worst things you can do online. It's called SPAM!

Most affiliate programs have a "bulk" email clause in their agreement that says... if you spam, you can get terminated from the program and not get paid for any commissions you've earned. Be aware that there's also a very good chance that you will lose your Internet connection, not to mention your reputation!

Sending unsolicited bulk email to millions of people who have NOT qualified themselves as being interested in your product is not very profitable (you won't get any response!) can end up costing you money and is just plain RUDE!

I even know of some companies who have billed the "spammer" for the time it's taken the company to deal with the complaints and administrative problems caused by the bulk emailing done using their affiliate program URL. You spam with an affiliate URL, and it looks like it was the company doing the spamming, since the recipient is being sent directly to the company website. Not good for the company's reputation! NOT going to make you a very popular affiliate member either!!

One last thing. Watch out for any "exclusivity clauses" in affiliate agreements. Some companies will state that "they can be the only retailer of a specific product on your site". If you signed up with a book selling program for example, with this clause in the contract, that would limit you to selling only their books on your site. This may not be a problem for you, maybe you only want to sell their books anyway! Just be careful not to restrict yourself unless you want to.

Affiliate marketing has been on the Internet for quite some time now and it is among the most popular money-maki ng methods used by many online entrepreneurs today. It is a great option for those who want to put up an online business quickly and cheaply. By the way, the term Affiliate Marketing is the on-line equivalent of the off-line 'commissioned salesman".

However, there is still a large number of the population who know little or even nothing about it. In fact, I believe that over 95% of beginners in the online arena have little or no experience in marketing of any kind. It's a skill that must be learned, and a very difficult one to succeed at.

Sadly, most of the people who have just discovered this business usually assume that they can easily make big bucks out of it with minimal effort. Well, they?re definitely wrong.

To be successful in affiliate marketing is not an easy task, and it will never happen overnight. It?s an ongoing project where you need to find and try various advertising strategies and tactics. This even requires you to sign-up with numerous affiliate programs just to determine which merchants perform well.

Another misconception that affiliate marketing wannabee's ha ve is that they expect to make more by placing about 20 affiliated banners on just one web page. Well it will not really work the way you think it because once your site is flooded with too many banners, it will look like a link farm and visitors won?t be interested. They won?t even bother clicking on any of those banners, and will leave your site with the speed of light.

So if you really want to promote several affiliate programs in your website, make sure that they jive with the theme and topic of the rest of the content on your niche. Bear in mind that one affiliate link per web page is enough, more than that will surely turn off your readers. In fact, many of my article pages have no affiliate links promoting any product. There are also some who think that if they add affiliate materials to their site, they can receive sales right away.

Maybe you just don?t know that affiliate marketing is all about advertising your site to get traffic. If there?s no traffic coming to your site, how can you expect to get any sales? Remember that the more you advertise your affiliate link or the site where the affiliate links are placed, the more clickthru?s these links are likely to receive.

If you want to be involved or you?ve already joined an affiliate program, but you have the above misconceptions regarding affiliate marketing, then you consider hiring a mentor to help you figure out where to start and what to do in order to succeed.

Yes, you can surely learn a lot from ebooks and content web sites loaded with information on affiliate marketing, but having a mentor makes a huge difference. Most online marketers work alone, and having someone to talk to about your plans, your desires and your progress helps you keep your resolve up.

In the dictionary, the word mentor is defined as a wise and trusted teacher or counselor. Usually, these persons are experts in theie fields. They can give expert advice and guidance as well as supervision to another person. So when we say affiliate marketing mentors, they are experienced counselors that have made affiliate marketing their specialty.

Affiliate marketing mentors can be those persons that have already been successful in affiliate marketing and are always willing to share their experienced-based knowledge from the viewpoint of both the affiliates and the web merchants.

Here then are some of the qualities that affiliate mentors should possess and follow, and why you would benefit from them as well.

Of course, it is good for an affiliate marketing mentor to know and apply some theories and generalities regarding your business, but there?s nothing more helpful and effective than telling the client what works today and what are the things that should probably work in the future.

As a mentor, you should be the main sources of knowledge for your client, and the one to teach them how to generate more affiliate income. You too, need to be knowledgable and equipped with the keys to success for affiliate marketers and their merchants. You should guide your clients as they try to do the things that can help boost their profit because once they do well in that business, it can be counted as one of your great achievements. This automatically makes you a successful mentor.

There are some articles on affiliate marketing that say that in order to be successful in affiliate marketing, you need to encompass and develop the traits of persistence, patience and thirst for knowledge. And as a mentor, it is your job to help your clients absorb these traits within themselves. Once they?ve already developed the above mentioned characteristics, it?ll be very easy for you to explain that attaining success in affiliate marketing requires sweat, dedication, and of course, a hefty time commitment. These traits will ultimately teach them not to give up.

Moreover, before you train your client to be proficient in search engine optimization, link exchanges, email marketing, newsletter marketing, reciprocal exchanges and advertising in forums, you must first become expert in these fields yourse lf.

Your clients will surely find it hard to learn these things alone and without supervision. But they will learn from the one who knows best. So make sure that you are knowledgeable in these areas before you accept any invitation to be a mentor.

Yes, being a mentor is way harder than succeeding in affiliate marketing but this task is very rewarding, especially when your client starts to succeed. The failure of your client is your failure too, so you must do your very best to enable your client with the tools, determination and desire to succeed.

It is not an easy task to help all your clients to succeed, but how many do will depend on your expertise and determination, and how well you can pass it on to your clients. After all, that?s what affiliate marketing mentors are for.

Here's a word from my marketing coach... Denise Ryder is a Marketing Coach writing from her home office in Northern Ontario (Canada). Hey...are you a do-it yourself marketer? Are you struggling a little? Need just a little help? Can you imagine how far your business could grow with a Marketing Coach in your pocket? Take a no cost Test Drive TODAY! http://www.profitspace.com/coach

by Fred Farah

To be honest, the three tools we're going to talk about aren't exclusive to affiliate marketing. Each and every successful online marketer not only knows the value and power provided by these tools, they wouldn't even consider operating without them.

So what ARE these powerful and essential tools?

- professional autoresponder system
- professional ad tracking capability
- professional web hosting

You'll notice that I deliberately associated the word professional with each of these three tools. That's because I want you to always remember this "rule"? regardless of what tool or system you choose, make certain it generates a professional image.

Just so you completely understand, choosing an autoresponder or web host that places ads on every message you send or every web page you create will automatically place you (and whatever business you conduct) in the NON-professional category.

So now that we've cleared that up, let's talk about the tools themselves.

Professional Autoresponder System

The Necessity:

No matter how well you promote a certain product, service, or program, there will always be those individuals who don't purchase right away. That's why you need to have the ability to follow-up with them, to send ongoing promotional messages that will ultimately result in a sale.

The Solution:

A professional autoresponder system will allow you to create one or more messages that will automatically email according to your specifications. For example, whenever someone signs up for your mailing list, they'll immediately receive a pre-written "welcome" message.

Needless to say, this type of ongoing follow-up procedure is invaluable to an affiliate, especially when it comes to encouraging a hesitant or "resistant" prospect to ultimately make a purchase.

Professional Ad Tracking

The Necessity:

One thing about being an affiliate ? you're constantly promoting and advertising your offers. The most important aspect of what type of endeavor is determining which ads or promotional campaigns are working and which ones aren't.

The Solution:

In order to maximize your advertising efforts, you need certain data with regard to viewer traffic. The most important feedback would be knowing how many sales (if any) each ad campaign is generating.

A professional and comprehensive ad tracking system will not only give you that precise data, it will allow you to separate and organize information regarding each of your campaigns. Having analyzed the data, you can then determine what promotion or advertising tasks need to be performed.

Another important consideration is the ad-tracking program itself. The more advanced it is, the more specific the information you'll receive. Of course, the more specific the information, the more powerful (and financially rewarding) each of your ad campaigns will be.

Professional Web Hosting

The Necessity:

In order to succeed as an affiliate, it's absolutely imperative that you beat out countless competitors who are also promoting that particular product, service, or program. The most effective means of doing that is to "pre-sell" your offer.

The Solution:

Rather than send viewer traffic to the product owner's sales page, you need to "channel" them through your own website. That gives you two distinct advantages:

1. You can include a personal product recommendation, create your own "killer" sales copy, include your own extra bonus offer, and so forth.

2. You can capture names and email addresses for your own mailing list, which in turn gives you the ability to initiate that all-important autoresponder follow-up system.

If you merely advertise your affiliate link and nothing more, you're definitely missing out on an extremely effective method of promotion. My Advice? If you don't already have your own professional ad-free website, create one as soon as possible.

Regardless of what products, services, or programs you promote, utilizing these three powerful and essential tools will allow you to conduct your affiliate marketing business on a highly effective level.

Even more importantly ? utilizing them will guarantee your ability to increase your affiliate sales, and that is definitely essential.

Join our affiliate-program and make your fortune overnight.

Sound familiar ?

How many times have you received email to say that by joining company X you will have instant success.

And how many websites suggest by using their system you can build an instant list of thousands.

It is possible for the major players on the Internet, but what they don't tell you is that most of the people these "players" signup in a new Internet company are already on their opt-in list.

Here are some well used concepts used in promoting new Internet Companies.

Believe it or not !

1. It will only take you 5 hours each week.

Correct if,

(a) you only want to earn a few $`s

(b) you already have a large optin list to promote to.

(c) you have M-oney to invest in advertising.

(d) you are totally organized, focused and a natural marketer.

What they don`t tell you.

With commitment and the proper training, yes it is possible.

2. Its easy, anyone can make M-oney online.

But only if you have some business background or the Company supplies you with quality training, support and any other tools you need to promote their product. You also need a supportive sponsor and up-line, who are willing to help when needed.

3. Its soooo easy that everyone is do-ing it.

"Slight Exaggeration" here as only about 20% of US families or adults are currently members of Internet companies. There are many other people who are promoting Amway and other Companies but not over the internet. It is estimated that 50% of Americans will have had, or will be operating some sort of business from the comfort of home by the end of next year.

Most experts suggest only about the top 5% of Internet Marketers are making a good income and another 10% are part time earners.

4. By working over the Internet you will be able to work your own hours.

Yes this statement is true, but you still have to "work"

Yes you have more flexibility on when you work, say early in the morning or in the evening if you are part time. You still need to put in the hours, so having a plan and a set of goals is an advantage. If you don`t reach your goals then you will need to re-access them, are they realistic or do you need to increase the hours you work to succeed or take a different approach.

5. Our system guarantees success.

What is success, my idea on success will differ from yours.

Many websites offer a number of tools and provide promotion material but not everyone knows how to best utilize them. This is where training and support is a must. Provide it to your downline and expect it from your up-line.

Ongoing quality training and support are the two most under estimated "tools" or requirements many companies "say" they provide but either not everyone has access or knows how to use them.

6. Its so easy you will make m-oney even while you sleep.

This is a fact, the Internet does not sleep, but you will only make m-oney from sales or signups if you put in the effort.

7. Its cool because I don`t have to talk with people face to face.

Sure you can sit at your computer and promote your website, send out emails to prospects, network on ICQ and Ryze etc...

But you will find the big players are always talking to prospects either on the phone or while at the shops and gas station.

I personally have my ICON Communicator open most of the day while I am online and most days I will have a person (guest) who I have never meet log in, so I have to know the product or services I am promoting to be able to share or answer any questions my may guest has.

The more practice you have at speaking to strangers the more comfortable and at ease you become. And this is coming from someone who doesn`t like public speaking.

Practice makes perfect.

8. F`R`E`E

One of the most powerful 4 letter words ever devised by man.

Can you promote on the internet for f`ree.

The hidden costs. You need a computer, power to run the computer, an Internet connection, office supplies....

Yes it is possible to promote your chosen company or service for minimum cost, but it will usually take longer to get those positive results. Time is m-oney. What is your time worth? Any business requires time and usually some investment to get off the ground.

9. Build yourself a website and watch the sales roll in.

I recommend every Internet Marketer should have their own website for a number of reasons. First is that you are able to create introduction pages to companies, products or services. You are then able to send out email using a URL or website link that won`t be filtered by ISP`s as they are known to filter or delete email that contains affiliated links.

Secondly there are very few search engines that you can list your affiliated website with. So by having your own Domain and website you are able to list it with search engines. But again by being listed does not necessarily guarantee you sales.

10. You "will" receive spillover.

Some companies and individuals promote to prospects that they will receive spillover.

I must be really missing something here as I can count on my fingers the number of people I have received in my downline as spillover in 3 years on the internet.

Yes spillover does happen for some, but don`t count on it.

Some suggestions.

When starting any business you need to have a plan of action and a maximum budget you can spend on products or services to advertise and promote your business.

Register a domain and create a website.

Only consider joining companies where you have full access to support, regular training, provide popular or unique, sort after products that offer a residual income with a positive compensation plan.

A company I can happily recommend to any first time marketers is ItsYourNet. They offer special trainings on building websites, publishing Ezines, using ICQ for networking along with marketing and even supply you f`ree of cost, top quality software to keep your computer safe.

The ItsYourNet "back office area" has an ever increasing list of promotional material and resources.

The product range is also being added to, in the next week we will see the release of the 3D Virtual web system and the 3D virtual mall will soon be opened for business too.

If you want to learn more about the ItsYourNet 0pportunity visit http://main-10534pg.ItsYourNet.com become a f`ree affiliated member and get access to the a truly amazing 0pportunity. One that is suitable for new and experienced online marketers alike.

One of the pluses is the website id ItsYourNet provides you to use in email. Each member receives a sub-domain for each page on your affiliated website. This is of real benefit when sending email to prospects. This allows your email get past most ISP filters.

PETER GREEN. Editor of ~ The INDEX ~ ezine Editor@Internet-Income-Index.com

VISUALIZE, STRATEGIZE, ENERGIZE, REALIZE reprogramming is the subject today.

Every single successful person in the cyber and real world practice these principals, this is what sets them apart from everyone else and this is what will set you apart from every other AFFILIATE.

A wise man once told me that there are three different kinds a people.

? Those who WISH things would happen

? Those who WATCH things happen

? And those who MAKE things happen

The successful Affiliate?s are always those who make things happen. And to start this end the Affiliate needs to first VISUALISE. At the risk of making this article sound like a lot of quotes ? there is another saying that goes ?If you can see it you can achieve it?.

The most successful people in this world take time to visualise what the goal looks like. What you would look like in that brand new car, what that new house looks like - right down to the door handles, what those bills look like with a huge red PAID stamp on them.

A great Affiliate will make this vision specific to their FINANCIAL success. Can you visualise yourself making $20, $50 even $100 a day (my recommendation is a minimum of $100 a day). Whatever your FINANCIAL target, you must input it into your thinking and allow it to settle. This process may take a day or more before you begin to believe it.

If you find that you have difficulty in VISUALISING this goal, you need to STOP, go back and visualise a goal you can achieve.

When you lose the VISION, you lose your confidence; you will then find it difficult to follow through on any decisions you will need to make to continually generate income in turn making success much more difficult.

IF you don?t believe you can achieve making a $100.00 a day, you really need to wait until you can BELIEVE IT.

In making the commitment to your choosen income level, you are making a decision that will change your life PERMANENTLY so chose wisely.

To Your Affiliate Success!

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

Thinking Outside the square is where we last left off. So to carry on from this topic let me introduce you to M.E. Software.

It?s a must have, for any Affiliate, promoting any program. Without this critical piece of software in your operations, your goal at making money online will fail.

OK, now that I have made that clear let me tell that the M.E. software is 100% free. No downloading is required but installation is VITAL.

You?re confused now aren?t you?

What type of software requires no downloading, but has to be installed and is 100% free?

Software needs to be downloaded onto a server or a personal computer, right? Not necessarily but, enough with the questions I?ll just get to the point.

M.E.. Software without the full stops = ME SOFTWARE.

That?s right ? it?s all about YOU.

By reprogramming some of your thought patterns and learn how to utilise your best asset ?YOU, brilliant things will start to happen.

At this point I want to remind you that I am not into GET-RICH-QUICK anything, in order to create sustainable income online and offline you need to cover what I call my 4 point process which I will cover Part Four to Six.

The 4-point process is:

o Visualise o Strategise o Energise o Realise

These points need to be programmed into your thought patterns. Without it, and without a doubt, you will not succeed.

Let?s take a proactive step forward and look at your FINANCIAL GOALS.

The very first thing you are going to have to do IS SET A GOAL. I anticipate the fact that you want to speed along because you have things you would like to pay for. I can assure you that THE FASTEST WAY is to follow every instruction. Choosing to race off as most people tend to do will only slow down your progress and hinder your results.

Make your financial goal reasonable and achievable (just so you know this is the reprogramming part). When you have done this it is time to set out a PLAN.

When you start to plan you have to be mindful of what is wishful thinking and what is achievable. Planning does not work effectively with WISHING ? these two things are totally incompatible.

If you can see that in the past your goals have been wishful thoughts. That in a way is a good thing because you have identified this. Now you need to reprogram those thoughts to make different decisions that will produce better results.

Today, you need to install the M.E. Software, and you will see that slight changes in making different decisions can produce amazing results.

To Your Online Success.

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

Did you know that you can make money on the internet without ever selling anything? There are very few home based business opportunities that are easier or cost less than affiliate marketing. There are businesses and people earning thousands of dollars each year doing affiliate marketing.

The business plan is simple. Your clients are already established online businesses selling a wide array of products and services. You get paid for bringing customers to your client which is the website you are an affiliate for. You then get paid either a set fee or a percentage of what the customer buys. Some affiliate programs also pay for every time someone clicks through.

The opportunities for affiliate marketing are numerous and growing every single day. Here is how it works. The affiliate places a banner or link advertisement on their website and every time a customer clicks through from the affiliate website to the merchant site and makes a purchase the affiliate earns a commission.

It is not that difficult to find affiliate programs because it has become so profitable and popular as an internet marketing tool that almost everyone seems to be doing it. This does not mean you should settle for just any affiliate program. It is important to choose a program that is at least somewhat relevant to your website or business. This way you have the best possible chance of your customers clicking through to the affiliate website. For example, if you sell cameras or photography equipment you might join an affiliate program with a company that sells photography books.

Be sure to read the affiliate contract carefully. While there are excellent legitimate affiliate programs out there it seems there is always somebody trying to rip you off while making a quick buck. You can avoid these scams if you review affiliate agreements carefully and go with your gut about whether a website or program is legitimate.

The great thing about an affiliate marketing home business is that you are not limited to doing only one affiliate program. You can sign on with as many programs as you want as long as you have room on your website to place their banner or link.

Here are some tips for finding a good affiliate program.

1. Will the product appeal to your customers?

2. How much does the merchant pay and for what do they pay? Click throughs? Purchases?

3. Do they pay only for the first purchase or do they give you a percentage of all future purchases by that customer?

4. How frequently are commissions paid? This information should be in the affiliate agreement.

5. Does the merchant provide access to view your account on a regular basis so you can see how the program is doing?

With some good research you can find the right affiliate programs for your home based business website and in no time you will be making money simply for referring customers from your website.

To your success!

Copyright � Paul Jesse

All rights reserved

Paul jesse is a a retired government employee and the author of several articles on home based business. Visit his site to subscribe to the free Marketing Tips newsletter. http://www.sheamarketing.com

Some tips for Affiliate Marketers

So Google has changed its policies regarding affiliate advertising. In case you don't know, their new policy will allow only one ad per search query for affiliates and the parent company with the same url.

So what does this mean for affiliates? It means that you are going to have to actually do a thing called work to get people to your affiliate page. Here are some suggestions of things that you can do to get people to your affiliate page and still meet Google's requirements.

-You must have your own website. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. You are just going to have to have your own url so that you can increase your chances of being listed on Google.

-Your site needs to have relevant content. It is important for you to have content on your site besides just whatever programs you are promoting. Your visitors might not buy your product right away, but if you give them some free useful content, they will remember you when they do have the opportunity to make a purchase. If you are looking for free content, a great place to start is ezinearticles.com.

-You should also keep a blog related to the topic of the product you are promoting. Blogs are basically an online diary. You can set up a blog for free at many websites. Personally I prefer blogger.com. When you use blogger.com, you get your own domain name and you can customize your template. Also it's owned by Google now so I don't think that this service is going anywhere. You can also post pictures and you can use blogger for audio blogging, so you could even create your own internet talk show. You can add your affiliate links on the sidebar and you can also include articles related to the product and link to it at the bottom of the article.

-You also need to have your own opt-in list. This can be in the form of an ezine or you can use an autoresponder. This is vitally important, because you need to have a group of people that value your opinion and will check out a product or service just becauseyou recommended it. For more information on listbuilding, send a blank email to ldctruth@freeautobot.com

-It's also important to write your own ads. Many times I have published the same affiliate ad 5 times in one issue. It is much more effective for you as an affiliate if your ad is different, because people will be much more likely to click on it just to find out what it is you are selling.

-Network, Network, Network. These changes make it even more important to network. One excellent place to network online is ryze.com. Ryze.com attracts the exact type of people who will support you. Don't just post your ads, however, really get in there and participate. Offer advice, answer the weekly questions that some of the networks post, post an interesting article. You are building relationships and that will go a long way for you in your business.

My last words on this topic are to keep tweaking your ads for performance and to never quit. It may take you a while to turn your business into a profitable venture, but when you do, yes I said when and not if, it will be well worth the effort.

****************************************************************

DeAnna Spencer is the editor for Prospecting and Presents. She also owns the hosting company, Delspin Hosting

To get your own website, visit http://www.delspinhosting.com

****************************************************************

1.Join an Affiliate Program: Join programs that interest you personally. There are affiliate programs for almost any product or service you can think of so do some research and find one that is right for you. If you have a passion for your product niche it will be a whole lot easier to stay motivated and be successful.

2.Build your own website to promote your product: You will need to build a website with your own domain name (ie. homeworksolutions.biz) and pay a monthly fee for hosting as opposed to going the free route and sharing a domain (ie. yourname.homeworksolutions.biz) If you don't know much about web design that's quite ok. You will find there are lots of companies out there who offer very affordable website design.

3.Start a reciprocal linking campaign: Start exchanging links with other websites in your niche. You will find lots of webmasters willing to add a link to your website as long as you return the favor. The more websites that link to you, the higher page rank you will have in the search engines, therefore leading to more traffic to your website.

4.Start your own newsletter: The newsletter can simply consist of articles related to your products and website. Always add a signature containing a link to your website at the bottom of each newsletter entry. That way when people read your articles they can continue on to your website. If you don't want to write your own articles, there are many webmasters who will let you use theirs for free. Submit your newsletter to as many websites as you can.

5.Build an Email List: Owning your own email list is one of the most important tools you can have as an affiliate marketer. The best way to build your list is to buy leads, that way you don't have to worry about getting in trouble for spamming. Lots of companies sell quality leads (email addresses) consisting of people who have requested information about your products. With every lead you buy you can in turn sign them up for your newsletter.

6.Get an Auto Responder: With an auto responder program you can make the process of buying leads and signing them up for your newsletter completely automated. You can save hours of time with this approach.

7.Write your own Articles: To be successful with affiliate marketing you will eventually have to write an article or two. This may sound a bit overwhelming in the beginning, but after you have been building your business for awhile you will get into it. Always include a signature at the bottom of the article containing your website link. Then post your article on as many websites as you can. A search for 'article directories' in any search engine will give you lots of places to start.

8.Add an Article page to your website: Post all of your articles on this page and any others you find related to your niche. Having an article page will add content to your website and will help with your page rank. Search engines like Google and Yahoo love websites with lots of relevant content.

9.Join an Online Forum: Becoming a member in a forum is a great way to stay current with the products in your niche. Talking with fellow entrepreneurs will keep you motivated and help generate new ideas as well as answer all your questions.

Find out how you can put these 9 steps to work immediately with your own Money Making Website designed to generate Substantial Residual Profits. Get Details at: http://www.homeworksolutions.biz or contact me at: support@homeworksolutions.biz

The ad tracker was originally developed to provide a record of all hits to a site resulting from ad placements. This article shows a host of different ways to utilise an ad tracker.

FOR AFFILIATES

#1. The Long Url Problem

Have you ever seen an ad where you are asked to click on an affiliate URL so long that it stretches over 2 lines, like this

http://www/anysite.com/cgi-bin/dir1/dir2/.cgi?code=123RT&type=102 35&subid=89715

Do you think your reader will bother to do the necessary cut and paste to put it in a browser?

Probably not.

And that's probably one lost sale.

And even a one line affiliate link may exceed the permissible length for some ad posting requirements.

The solution: use a short tracking URL.

#2. Losing Your Affiliate Code

As an affiliate you may have your affiliate code embedded in a link something like this:

http://www.abc.com/123

Some customers will bypass the affiliate code and just type in the home URL http://www.abc.com (possibly because they think that they will be paying extra for an agent's commission)

The solution: use a tracking URL - so that your affiliate code number is never seen.

#3. Make Your Ad Stand Out

You may have seen search engine results showing near identical listings for the same product, differing only in an affiliate code appended to the URL.

Your listing here will be just one of many unless you make it stand out. So bypass the standard affiliate URL and use a tracking URL.

#4. How Effective Are The Links

You can measure and compare the effectiveness of the different banners or text links the affiliate programs provide you by using a tracking URL.

#5. Changing Links

If an affiliate company change their links then your existing ads, wherever they are posted, become worthless. But if you use a tracking URL you simply revise the affiliate URL at the tracking control centre.

#6. Affiliate Program Discontinued

Similarly if an affiliate program is discontinued you just change your tracking URL to a new page where you explain the circumstances and point your visitor to your other promotions.

#7. Better Affiliate Stats

Not all affiliate programs provide you with stats about visitors. And if they do are they adequate ?

Compare a basic monthly figure say

- Jan: 39 hits

with a detailed analysis such as

- Jan 12: 10 hits

- Jan 13: 2 hits

- Jan 20: 21 hits

- Jan 21: 6 hits

where you can relate those dates to particular ad campaigns.

Tracking URLs will give you these improved figures.

#8. Checking Affiliate Stats

Even if you do receive good stats from your affiliate program it still makes sense to use tracking URLs so that you can compare your figures with theirs.

A large discrepancy could mean errors in their software or (hopefully not) fraudulent activity on their part.

An alternative reason is that their measurement takes place when their page is fully loaded rather than at the start, indicating that visitors are clicking away because it is taking too long to load.

FOR EZINE PUBLISHERS

#9. Win Advertisers With Tracking Reports

If you sell advertising space in your ezine you can offer to your advertisers to replace their URLs with your tracking URLs and Email them the results.

Tell your advertisers about these benefits in your advertising guidelines

- They will know the number of clickthroughs their ad has generated. They can then decide how to improve the ads for better performance

- If they use a tracker program with your own domain name in the tracking URL your ezine subscribers will be more inclined to click

- They can use your ezine as a test centre, modifying their ads until they are happy, before launching with other publishers

#10. Use Tracking Report Results

The tracking reports above will provide you with information on your subscribers' interests, influencing your editorial content and helping you select which potential advertisers to approach

Also, once your advertisers have seen for themselves the benefits of an ad tracking program they will be inclined to purchase one. So set yourself up as an affiliate for a program and promote it to them.

#11. Measure Your Readership

You may know how many subscribers you have but how many actually open and read your ezine and which parts of it attract most attention ?

Here's how to find out if you distribute your ezine in HTML Format: include an image on your page, e.g a banner or logo or a single pixel GIF. Then reference this image with a tracking URL.

For an ezine distributed as plain text it is not possible to see if it is actually opened or read. But what you can do is insert tracking URLs at the appropriate points, such as product offers or special articles, and get comparative figures for which items are being read.

AT YOUR WEB SITE

#12. The Problem Of Permanent URLs

Web sites are continually evolving and changing.

You may want to rename a page to make it more consistent and logical but there's a huge problem. You have given out the URL in an ebook, or a directory submission, or an article or wherever. There's no way you can undo this.

The solution ?

Never provide the actual URL, just a tracking URL. You can then just edit the link at the tracking centre whenever a page is moved or renamed.

The external links, in your ebook for example, stay the same but they will redirect to your new page.

#13. What Are Your Visitors Doing ?

You have text links all over your site, links to your other pages and links to recommended sites.

Where are your visitors clicking ?

Where are they leaving your site, why, how can you stop them ?

Which graphic do they click on the most ?

Do they click on the text link more than the graphic link?

Your log files may tell you at best which are the most popular pages at your site but it is vital to know how your visitors move through your site and what is tempting them.

Use tracking URLs to replace actual links wherever you need to monitor click activity.

#14. Sell Website Advertising Space

You can offer tracking reports to your advertisers in the same way as for ezine publishers (above).

#15. Stop Piracy

If you have invested man-months of time setting up a vital resource site involving a directory of links it's very easy for a pirate to simply copy your page and provide useful content for his own site.

If you use tracking URLs for those directory links you can detect this copy - because the ad tracking program will record the referring URL.

At the same time of course you can measure the popularity of the directory links.

USING PAY PER CLICK SEARCH ENGINES

#16. Better Click Activity Reporting

Pay per click search engines will report to you click activity on your URL. Engines vary in the frequency and format of the reporting so you can use tracking URLs instead to obtain better information.

#17. Prevent Fraudulent Activity

You can compare your figures with the engine's and should query any large discrepancy.

If click activity is unusually high you may have a competitor clicking on just to incur costs against you. You may be able to detect this by comparing the figures for unique hits and actual hits (several hits per visitor).

OFFLINE MARKETING

#18. Check How Successful

If you have ever wondered whether it was worth advertising off line because of the supposed impossibility of measuring the response then ad tracking URLs will answer that problem. Just include them in your ads in

- newspapers

- magazines

- flyers

- billboards

- press releases

- shop notice boards

- and so on

#19. Use The Time Reports

The date and time when clicks are made will allow you to check the progress of your ads, for example

- has your newspaper ad been submitted yet ?

- has your billboard notice been removed ?

- how long does a magazine ad stay around ?

For a long running ad you can study the response and switch the link midstream if necessary to an improved web page.

EBOOKS

#20. Do Free Books Work ?

The main purpose of a free ebook is to get the reader back to your site. But how successful is it proving ?

Put tracking URLs in the book and you will find out.

#21. Maintain Control After Download

Once your ebook is downloaded it would appear that you no longer have any control over it. Not so. You can redirect the reader to other pages of your site by changing the tracking Url links.

OTHER WAYS

#22. Become An Ad Tracking Affiliate

Since ad tracking programs are high demand marketing tools you can profit by joining their affiliate program (if they have one).

Owning the product that you promote always gives that extra advantage e.g you can give an example of how you use it or a personal testimonial as to how it has benefited you.

#23. Privacy

You may want to post an URL somewhere and - for reasons of your own - not let it reveal your website. You can do this with an ad tracking program where the supplier domain name is used in the tracking URL.

For more details about the above tips and yet more ways to use an ad tracker see Harvey's free ebook Ad Tracking SuperTips

http://www.ad-tracking.com/adbook.html

Publishers can reproduce this article and change the URL to point to their own rebranded version.

Articles are the perfect promotional tool for your affiliates - they bring in more sales than banners, book covers, and ezine ads. Your affiliates can post them on their website, use them in their newsletter, or turn them into a free eBook.

One the easiest ways to build your affiliate program is to offer your articles as a zip file and allow people to replace the link in the resource box with their affiliate link.

Here is how to do it:

1. Copy all your articles as text files, formatted to 60 characters-per-line, to a single folder on your hard disk.

2. Create another text file in the same folder called 'index of articles' which lists each article by title and file name.

3. In the 'index of articles' write a brief message explaining how to join your affiliate program and how to customize the affiliate link in the resource box.

You can see an example of this at: http://www.ezine-writer.com/michael-southon-articles.zip" http://www.ezine-writer.com/michael-southon-articles.zip

Then just zip your 'articles' folder using WinZip. WinZip is free and can be downloaded from: www.winzip.com/download.htm" www.winzip.com/download.htm

To create a zip file using WinZip, just follow these steps:

1. Open WinZip and click on 'File' and 'New Archive'.

2. In the 'New Archive' box, choose a folder where you want to save your zip file

3. Choose a name for your zip file and press OK

4. In the 'Add' window, browse until you find your 'articles' folder and double-click

5. Click on 'Add with wildcards'

That's it! Your articles zip file has been created.

Offer your articles zip file for free download in as many places as possible:

• on the index page of your website

• on your affiliates tool kit page

• in the welcome message for your newsletter

• in your email mini course

• as a bonus gift to your customers

• in your sig file

This technique will not only increase sales of your existing affiliates - it will quickly bring you dozens of new affiliates.

Good luck with your articles!

------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
------------------------------------------------------------

While it can be quite easy to start an online business, not all people make a success. How then successful business man/woman could make it? Every successful business has its own story, however, there are some common factors that make a business hard to fell down.

Here is ten checklist that help you to be successful.

1. Set a goal

Without a goal, a success is driven just by chance and it's very low. Your ultimate goal is generating substantial income from your site. But how much? If you're an affiliate business starter, don't set too much: otherwise you'll be depressed. For each site I built and going to build, my firs goal is to earn about $500 a month. For some people, this may sound too small or may not. But in reality to reach $500 within 2 month is a success.

Build more than one content site. This is what most of affiliates do. Let's say you build 10 niche web sites. This will make you $5,000 a month.

2. Make a plan

A plan makes your work be organized. Building an affiliate site within two month is a descent plan. Within the first month, do a research to find profitable keywords, affiliate programs, and some resources to which you can refer when you write content pages. And within the second month write one article every day. At the end of second month you will have keyword rich contents armored with affiliate program. And publish it by obtaining domain name and web hosting company.

3. Set a budget

While you can start an affiliate business even without investing any penny, it is recommended to make a descent investment. We all know that something for nothing mentality eventually doesn't work.
Inevitable investment is for the domain name and web hosting.

If you are a starter, purchase Ken Evoy's "Site Build It!" package. It includes everything you need so that it will shorten your learning time and help you earn income through online. The more details can you find at www.mikino.com

If you have a choice other than the "Site Build It!", it is ok but consider that you still need invest at least $300 for registering domain name, contract with hosting company, etc.. If you want to earn money, you have got to use your money first.

4. Check your lifeblood

What is lifeblood for affiliate, by the way? Many affiliates agree on the following things.

• profitable keyword,
• good affiliate programs and
• informative contents

Your web page should be focused on keywords, which bring you traffic. And then you want convert it to the affiliate program link or to sale your own products. What the good informative contents is doing is to keep the traffic flowing to your site (even to increase it) and to make the conversion rate high.

--------------------------------------------------
Side note: If you are not familiar with the words, profitable keyword and contents, and don't know how to choose a good affiliate program, please download Affiliate Masters Course" (Free Ebook) and read it through.

5. Prepare what to say befor you write content page

If you don't know what you're going to tell, how about your reader? You know the content should be informative because people look for information. But what kind of information are you providing? Eventually, all the information boils down to ask an action, to buy your product or to go to your merchant site, right? So, organize your information to conclude the action. Here again the keyword and affiliate program comes into significant role. Determine what keyword you're going to use and what affiliate program you're going to suggest and then start writing.

6. Don't forget PREselling

One of most frequent mistakes is to write a content to sell something. This is so to speak 'Buy me!' slogan. But what you have to do is to use 'Love me!' slogan. People tend to skeptical when they see 'Buy me!' slogan. Give them the information what they were looking for, and guide them by providing suggestions and recommendations to the affiliated product. This so called PREselling strategy and it will make your visitors love your site, maybe you as well. : )

7. Build targeted traffic

After 2 months hard working, finally you published an affiliate site. Do the people know about your site? Afraid not! Though you made a step to the online world, you actually are in isolated island. Let your potential visitors come to your site by promoting your site.

You can promote your site either paying money or without paying any dime. I prefer and suggest not to pay any penny for this matter except buying an ebook to learn how to increase targeted traffic. The foremetioned free ebook "Affiliate Masters Course" can be a good starting point for you.

8. Make yourself determined

Let's say, for 2 months you had built an affiliate site and submitted to the open directory and major search engines. You hoped a substantial traffic. But sadly, just tens of visitors a day. What are you going to do? Announce a failure and depress yourself? You know successful people won't do that.

Most of affiliates say it takes at least 4 months to build a substantial targeted traffic. So be patient. And instead being frustrated, check your site whether something can be improved.

9. Time management

As an affiliate, you're a web master, content writer, copywriter, and top manager. Moreover, you'll own several sites. Thus you're a web master of several sites, etc.. Sounds good? There is a problem, though.

How can you manage your time?

It would be nice for you to set aside tedious job and to focus on managing your sites. One way to do that is hiring your assistant. The other way is to purchase Ken Evoy's "Site Build It!" It helps you spend your precious time efficiently.

10. Stay yourself up to date

The most important aspect of online marketing is that it is ever changing. Search engine listing policy is changing, new affiliate program is emerging, etc....

To make yourself up to date:

• Subscribe to some of newsletter to obtain news, tips, strategy and ideas.
• Read search engine optimization news. I recommend Search Engine Watch site.
• Participate affiliate forum. Read thread, ask questions and publish your opinion.
  This helps you not only be up to date but be listed in search engine.
• Buy some e-books and read them whenever you have time.

--------------------------------------
To publishers,
In the section, 3.set a budget and 9.time management, "SBI" is introduced, feel free to add your affiliate link if you have one, as long as the other content and resource box are intact. You can omit this part when you use this artile. --------------------------------------------------


Ryen Kim is an MBA, specialized in marketing research and analysis. His current focus is the Internet affiliate marketing as a work-at-home scheme. For that matter he's runninng Home Based Affiliate Business and Internet Marketing Blog.

Affiliate Program have exploded on the internet. Thousand of people join them every day. Amazon.com is probably the best example of such phenomenal success.If the affiliate program is so popular and so widely available and booming like mushroom...Why do most affiliate have a hard time making $100 per month ? And some never see have receive a check ? It's probably because they are not effective in their marketing campaign or doing noting at all.

But some affiliates are making big bucks. They are the one with an income of ($100,000 and over per year). There is also a big majority who still make a good income (around $10 000 to $75 000 a year). Of course the vast majority of affiliate will never make that much money. They fail miserably.

So what is wrong with them ?

THEY DON'T SET GOALS

Most people fail at anything because most people don't have a clear vision of where they are heading. They don't take the time to learn and experiment. They give up too easily.

Yes, it feels "unproductive" to prepare and set up a system... But it's how the successful succeed.

The solution? Planning and learning.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT AFFILIATE PROGRAM

Choosing the best companies is an art in itself. Choose affiliate program that are already successful and well established like SFI. Choose the one that offer good training and good marketing aids.

Successful affiliates select the best companies. They use new ideas and creativity to attract customers. They never give up.

DEVELOP A GOOD WEBSITE

Lot's of people don't know how to design a website. Or don't have the money to hire a webmaster. Even the ones who can design a website. They design poor content or poor design. Produce low value gateway pages. They use free web hosting. They don't master the search engine.

The solution? Take what you know, what you love, and turn it into a Theme-Based Content Site. Attract highly targeted, interested customers, provide solid value through content, then refer them to your affiliated merchants.

DRIVING TRAFFIC

Having lot's of traffic to your website is a big challenge. But it is essential to be successful. Or at least to make a reasonable amount of money.

You have to make your site "search engine friendly". You need content for the search engine to spider your website.

You need to know how your webpage is index and how well it is ranked on the SE to better perform.

Use every marketing method to drive traffic.

PPC Campaign

Linking Strategy

Writing Articles

Ezine Publishing

Newsletter

Banner Advertising

Viral Marketing (EBooks, Freeware etc.)

Offline as well. (Business Cards, Flyers, Radio Spots etc.)

CONCLUSION

Affiliate Program are great. You can really make a substantial income at almost no cost. This is the simplest way to start a business. You can really succeed if you keep learning and experimenting.

You can TEST-DRIVE our Affiliate Program at no cost. http://ezinfocenter.com/297607.7/FREE

Copyright � Michel Richer

PERMISSIONS TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in its entirety free of charge, electronically or in print, provided it appears with the included copyright and author?s resource box with live website link. http://hombyz.com

About The Author

Michel Richer is the Business Manager and Webmaster of http://Hombyz.com. He is dedicated to helping you succeed on the Internet. With over 10 years experience in internet business and a solid reputation in the industry. You can take a look at his website at: http://hombyz.com for Your Home Business Success !!!

Let me ask you a simple question. "Now that you have your own online business and you joined some affiliate programs, do you have any idea how to earn more commissions then ever?"

Here are 11 Awesome Ways To increase Your Affiliate Commissions!

1. Write and create a free ebook with the advertisement and links of your affiliate web site. The subject of the free ebook should draw your target audience to down-load it. You can also submit it to e-book directories, and pay other people to email your e-book to their email opt-in list.

2. Offer free online services or utilities from your web site. They could be search engine submission, language translation, virus protection etc. Make sure that the service or utility that you are offering them is helpful and is of an interest to them. There, make sure to add as many of your affiliate links as possible so that people can see them and click on them.

3. Start your own affiliate program directory. Join a large number of affiliate programs and list them all in a directory format on your web site. Then just advertise your free affiliate program directory.

4. Write your own affiliate program ads and create your own banners if possible. If all the other affiliates are using the same ads and banners that you use, this does not give you an edge over your competition. Use some other ads that put you out of the crowd.

5. Use a personal testimonial ad. You should only use this if you've actually bought the product or service. Tell people what kind of results and benefits you've received using the product. This can be VERY powerful.

6. Advertise your link in your signature file. Use an attention-grabbing headline for them to visit your affiliate site. Make sure your signature file doesn't go over 5 lines. Also make sure that your link looks like this http://www.talfighel.com/sfi.htm and not like this http://www.quickinfo247.com/7735742.456/free. That way, the person cannot change the number. If they do, you can lose a lot of sales.

7. Trade links with other webmasters who are promoting what you are promoting. It should attract the same type of people that would be interested in buying the product you're reselling. This can mean more traffic for you and the other webmasters. To more people you trade with, the better.

8. Participate in web discussion boards and online forums. Post your own comments. Ask your own questions. Answer other people's questions. Make sure to include your affiliate text link under each message you post so that people can click on it if they chose to.

9.Create an electronic magazine (e-zine). Use your e-zine to advertise the affiliate programs you've joined. Submit your ezine to online ezine directories and promote it on your web site.

10.Use email to your advantage. Every time you receive an email from a website visitor, a former customer, or just a buddy, make sure to include your signature in the bottom of the email so that they get a chance to click on the link and review it. You never know, they might buy that product or service.

11. Writing articles and submitting them to websites that do accept them is another great way to drive more traffic and increase your affiliate commissions. The MOST important thing to do is to add a ?resource box? in the bottom of every article that you write. This has been used and proven to work by all top marketing gurus online.

Copyright 2004 Tal Fighel

About The Author

Tal Fighel, Toronto, Canada, is the Editor and Publisher of Home Business Tips newsletter.

http://www.talfighel.com

Here is the Website your boss doesn't want you to know about! http://www.talfighel.com/sfi.htm

Affiliate marketing is an extremely tricky subject and so is website advertising.

The reason is simple. Most of those who have mastered these subjects are keeping their mouths tightly shut. Some are releasing their valuable affiliate marketing secrets it in bits and pieces to try and make some quick cash before the methods become completely obsolete. The rest are busy trying to guess the secrets behind the successful affiliate marketing that easily brings in five figure incomes on a monthly basis for scores of people all over the world.

Today is your lucky day because you are about to move a step closer to successful affiliate marketing for whatever affiliate program you are involved with. You are about to read a previously closely guarded secret of affiliate marketing.

I clearly remember the day I discovered this secret rather casually from an article I read online just like you are doing currently. Later I went on to discover other key elements that were critical for the success of the whole program. I have packed all those secrets in this single series of two articles.

Here is the main secret that will multiply the effectiveness of your articles and ultimately your affiliate marketing.

It is possible to multiply the effectiveness of your articles in promoting your affiliate program by making a single step. And that is creating a blog and posting all your articles there.

Do not worry about getting traffic to your blog, it is the easiest thing to do and I will deal with that in part II of this article available at my blog http://big-online-story.blogspot.com

There are 4 very important advantages you will gain by starting a blog and posting your articles there.

1) Blogs always boost search engine visibility tremendously thus making all your articles much more visible and easier to find and therefore much more effective.

Whatever your opinion about them, blogs are rapidly changing the internet. Their popularity is rising by the day and most important search engines love them. Not surprising when you consider that they are constantly being updated even if not by the owner of the blog, by his visitors. Blogs have literally swept web sites aside. Smart online marketers and many involved in affiliate marketing are using them very effectively for website advertising to drive traffic to their websites.

2) You will be able to track and monitor which articles are the most effective in promoting your affiliate program.

Any advertising campaign that is able to measure results, dramatically multiplies its effectiveness. This is simply because you are able to tell which articles posted at which websites are most effective in your affiliate marketing.

Usually your affiliate marketing web site will not tell you exactly where your traffic is coming from. Armed with this information from your blog, you will be able to concentrate your efforts on the web sites where your articles are bringing in the most traffic and you will also focus on the types of articles that are bringing in the best results.

3) You can earn extra income from your articles by carrying google adsense ads at your articles blog.

Many people are convinced that carrying google adsense advertisements at your blog is better than any affiliate program on the net. Better in terms of the earning potential.

My opinion? It is easier to start earning cash much quicker with google ads than any other affiliate program I know of on the net. You see with affiliate marketing where you are looking to earn serious money, you will need to be patient. With google, you simply get the traffic and you start earning almost immediately.

You will need to apply to google adsense who will check out your blog and make a decision whether or not to accept your blog. The decision usually takes about 48 hours. Put some reasonable amount of content on your blog before you apply with google.

What I love about carrying google ads in my blogs is that I am busy building traffic to my affiliate marketing programs and at the same time I am getting paid for my affiliate marketing efforts. I love the net.

4) Having a blog will give you an extra marketing tool that can be very effective.

As mentioned earlier blogs are very popular. Which makes them very effective affiliate marketing tools. You will have heard of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds which get content right on the desktop of your subscribers? computers bypassing the troublesome ISP email filters.

Currently I do not know of a more effective online marketing tool other than blogs.

It really is very simple just launch your blog, post your articles and learn as you go along, how to maximize on blogs as marketing tools that will bring a huge difference to your affiliate marketing.

Christopher Kyalo is a writer/marketing expert who has made money online by using articles as his only marketing. Read the second and final part of this article at his blog, http://big-online-story.blogspot.com

How do you choose the products you buy? Do you simply accept as gospel truth all the good things a merchant says about their own product? Or, do you ask your friends' opinions and look for independent product reviews before opening your wallet?

If you're a savvy consumer (which of course you are), then you put more stock in your friends' opinions and independent product reviews.

As affiliate marketers, we become much more successful when we approach our site visitors as friends and take the attitude that they too are savvy consumers.

From that standpoint, an affiliate's real work is to pre-sell our merchant partners' products by writing fair and balanced reviews, also known as endorsement letters.

Sure, writing a review for each product takes a little time and effort, but it's an activity that sets the super affiliates apart from their less-super counterparts in terms of rewards... read 'income'.

Product reviews can be either stand-alone or comparative. The first type focuses on a single product, while the second is an evaluation of similar items that allows readers to choose which product best suits them.

Before you begin to write a product review, you'll need to evaluate the product. (Nothing like stating the obvious, eh?)

I prefer to endorse products that I've actually used. However, buying a product isn't always feasible. If that's the case, affiliate managers will often grant 'proven' super-affiliates access to products for their review. That's especially true of information products and services that are delivered online, such as internet dating services.

But what if you're not yet a super affiliate, and can't fathom a basement full of treadmills to review for your exercise site?

Well, do what your customer would do if product reviews didn't exist on the Internet - go to the store and test those treadmills out!

And how do you review acne medications for your skin care site if you don't have acne? Surely, you have some friends with (previously) pimply-faced teenagers... ask them to tell you what worked for them.

If you can't find out that way, search Google for "consumer reviews" + "acne medications". Read as many as you can to come up with three to five effective products (that have affiliate programs).

Once you've collected information about the product, it's time to start writing that product review.

The structure for a product review is simple, containing an introduction, overview and summary.

The introduction consists of a few sentences outlining the problem and introduces a possible solution for the reader, without going into detail. The overview describes the product's promise, a description of how the product is used, as well as its effectiveness and value. The summary is almost a repeat of the introduction, and contains a strong recommendation for purchase based on your conclusions.

To simplify the review-writing process, I ask myself the following questions when writing product reviews for my own affiliate sites.

1. Who is my reader and what is their problem?

2. What does the product promise?

3. How well does the product solve the problem? What does it do? How does it work?

4. Does the product offer good value? (Would I buy this product?)

Let's look at each question in turn.

The first question asks, "Who is my reader and what is their problem?"

If acne is your reader's problem and your site visitors are adults, you probably want to avoid terminology like 'Zap those zits!' and use more age-appropriate language.

Remember too, that 'zits' aren't really the problem. The real problem is how your reader feels about having pimples all over their face and how that affects their life.

If you've experienced the problem yourself, say so. Describe your experience, and show understanding and compassion for the reader's plight. Speaking from real experience earns your readers' trust which always improves sales rates.

If you have trouble figuring out how your reader might be affected by his problem, then you can research that online too.

For example, I searched Google for "hate acne" and came across Acne.org, where one young woman lamented, "My sh%tty skin is seriously ruining my social life and my relationships with men. I'm avoiding it all just cuz I don't want to show my face. Its really sad. I also spend a lot of money on make up. I'm not even asking for the most perfect skin (even though it would be nice) but even if I was limited to just a couple zits....and then it would take me under 30 mins to get ready....I would never be home, and I would go back to living the life that I ohh so miss."

That gives you a pretty clear picture of how she feels, right?

Now address those concerns using emotive terms and you'll improve your conversion rates.

Here's an example.

Rather than say, "Product A will cure your acne", start with a question that appeals to your reader's emotion, such as "Is acne ruining your social life? Scared to leave the house - or even show your face? There IS a solution to your plight."

That introduction brings us to the next question which is, 'What does the product promise?'

Does the product cure the problem? Does it work faster, or with less hassle and expense?

You found answers to that question during your product research. In this section you simply summarize your findings.

Next, answer the third set of questions, "How well does the product solve the problem?", "what does it do?" and "how does it work?" based on your product research.

Results are the most important information, so it's not necessary to provide nitty gritty details about how you use the product or what it's made of or how it is packaged, etc. unless the merchant does not supply that information on their site, and you consider the information of importance to your reader.

Too, we're all aware that no product is perfect, so don't go overboard and write a completely glowing, one-sided review. To make the product review balanced and fair, detail what you do and don't like about the product. If you want to avoid negative statements when outlining your dislikes, try phrasing the sentence like "although I'd prefer a slightly less greasy formula..." or "although the bottle lacks a pump dispenser..." and finish on a positive note.

Lastly, make a value statement. For example, "While Product A and B both eliminate most acne problems in 30 days, Product A wins our 'best value' award priced at $20 less per bottle. Or, if you're writing a single product review, you could say something like, "Acme's Acne Product would be great value even at twice the price, but at this price it can't be beat!"

For even better conversions, be sure to include a product graphic on your product review webpage, and a testimonial or two from users that you solicit through your site or use with permission from your merchant partner's site.

In summary, tell your visitors what you would say to a friend if you were telling them about a product that you found and liked. That approach will make writing reviews easier and your friendly attitude will push your conversion rates through the roof!

Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online". To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing, go to: http://NetProfitsToday.com

I think it truly goes without saying that there are some niche markets that do incredibly well, some that do ?ok? and others that just totally flop.

So what?s a safe way of choosing a niche market to promote?

The first place I would be looking is to see ?how many people are actually searching those types of keywords?. If it?s getting searched a lot then you can expect to generally do very well promoting a product in that industry.

To find out how many keywords are being searched you can use this tool from overture for free here: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Just type in the keyword or phrase that would most likely be searched in the search engines and the number that comes up beside it will be how many times it was searched in the month before at Overture. To know how many times its been searched through Google you can generally multiply that number by 8 and you will get a rough figure of how many times it was searched over there.

These are probably some of the highest one?s that I know of:

Diet Making Money Dating Cooking/Sewing/Crafts Computers Cars Golf

If you have a little bit of knowledge in the niche you are looking to promote then this will definitely be an advantage to you to help you promote the product or service.

If you don?t know anything in a particular niche but really want to promote in that market then just simply do a little research. The internet is certainly your oyster to an endless supply of information.

� Joanne King - http://www.joesy.com

Get your Free book on ?Affiliate Marketing ? Quick Start Guide? by visiting http://www.joesy.com.

You are welcome to reprint this article on your website or send to your mailing list however it may not be edited and the link in this bio must stay active. Cheers =)

Don?t get offended, I was not speaking directly to you. I was speaking to the horrible companies who are stealing not only my affiliate commissions, but yours too!

These companies are called ?spyware.? They specialize in invading a consumer?s computer through unethical means and then literally replacing YOUR affiliate ID with their own! It is almost as if you never even existed!

Not only that, they even steal your future affiliate commissions by making sure that all future IDs are automatically replaced with their own. Even more, they can make it so that if the consumer goes to a website, a pop-up for a competing website (with their own affiliate ID) pops up and makes it impossible for you to get a sale.

As you likely agree, this is a major problem and it gets bigger and bigger every day. The more we fight back, the slicker these companies get.

How much are they really stealing?

Would you believe that studies have shown that these companies could be stealing more than 50% of your affiliate commissions! Some studies have shown that it may even be higher, but 50% has been a repeated number in more than a few studies.

That means, as an affiliate marketer, you could potentially be making twice the money you are making now.

How does Spyware work?

Spyware is basically a program that consumers will download onto their computer. They usually get it ?along? with another program that they download for free. Spyware companies develop freebies for consumers to download so they can invade their computers.

Then, the software pretty much takes over the consumer?s computer. The software can replace affiliate IDs, create new cookies, make pop-ups appear and even steal passwords or other private information.

In other words, spyware companies are also the masters of viral marketing ? they spread their disease via freebie information and programs that unsuspecting consumers download.

Who pays the price? You and I.

What is being done to stop it?

In all honesty, not much. It is not because no one cares, but more because the more we try to stop it, the more technical these companies get. As always, human eyes are being required to track down and stop these companies.

Affiliate managers and companies are becoming far more active in monitoring their affiliates to catch spyware. Affiliates are also becoming a bit more vigilant in reporting these companies (although not near enough).

There has been a moving trend towards software products that block these spyware agents. Consumers are slowly becoming more aggressive in trying to stop their computers from being invaded (they are tired of pop-ups).

How you can help in the fight against spyware?

The biggest area we need to work on is by applying pressure to affiliate networks like LinkShare and Commission Junction to be far more active. Although these companies have strictly stated that they will immediately shut down spyware companies, more and more cases always seem to slip through.

You cannot really blame them, since the more affiliate sales, the more money they make. But, if enough genuine affiliates apply pressure, these companies will be forced to be even stricter.

Do not get me wrong, they ARE starting to become a lot more active.

In all honesty, the next thing you can do, short of designing a break-through program to stop this problem, is to be more careful and report more actively. Any time you see an uninvited pop-up on your computer that has an affiliate ID in the link ? you can be 98% sure that it is spyware.

Take the time to report it!

Other than that, for now, being educated about spyware is enough ? spread the word and make sure more affiliates know.

Copyright 2005 Kurma Group

This article has been authored by Anik Singal, an extremely successful and young internet entrepreneur and affiliate marketing consultant. If you like to receive his coaching for FREE, visit the following link: http://www.AffiliateClassroom.com/free-course.html

When people decide to join an affiliate program to make extra money, or to have a full time job, they often do so with illusions and no idea of how the affiliate program actually works. Read the following top 5 mistakes people make when it comes to choosing an affiliate program and avoid these mistakes at all costs. Then, you will be able to be more effective and make more money for your time, so it is definitely worthwhile to read these warnings and avoid them.

#1 Don?t Compete, Support

Too many affiliate programs compete against their competitors which wastes money and puts affiliates out of business. However, if you are part of an affiliate program the more affiliates the better for getting more information and more money. One of the worst things to do is choose an affiliate program that believes in competing against other affiliates. Instead, choose an affiliate program that agrees with supporting and growing other affiliates to have a larger network and access to more affiliates.

#2 Little Reward

Another mistake people frequently make when choosing affiliate programs is choosing a program that offers little reward for the individual?s hard work. Too many affiliate programs pay too little and as a result affiliates find it difficult to make the money they should be making. Look for an affiliate program that has a good pay rate for your work.

#3 Old Statistics, if Any

You want an affiliate program that offers good, solid, real time statistics, not old statistics or ones that are no longer valid. There are not many affiliate programs out there that provide the kind of statistics an affiliate manager needs, but do your best to find an affiliate program that offers the most.

#4 No Support

Too often affiliates find themselves waiting days for an answer to an e-mail and an important question for their business. You want an affiliate program that guarantees you support round the clock if possible or at least within 24 hours. If not, keep looking for an affiliate program that wants to help you help yourself.

#5 Fresh Ideas, Creatives

Many affiliate programs provide few ideas or creatives to their affiliates and so thousands of web pages end up with the same advertising. However, affiliate programs would have a better success rate if many different ads were made available so affiliates could alternate ads and place different ads on different sites, depending on the products sold.

Commit these five mistakes to memory so you know exactly what you are looking for in an affiliate program, as well as what to avoid. You will be much more successful and happier as well if you do not get caught in these traps!

Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

If you truly want to generate sales, one great way to do so is to create separate web pages for each of your affiliate products and include reviews of each product. Pictures, of course, speak a thousand words, and a picture of each product is very important to closing the sale.

Why does this process work so well? It's simple; people want to see and know all about a product before the pull out their credit card! Here are some points to be sure to include in your affiliate product review pages:

* Always have an uncluttered web page with blocks of text that are easy to read and understand. If you crowd a great deal of information, few people will read all of it. It has been scientifically proven that most people read only about one-third of the information contained in any sales page or review. So, make your web page product review easy to scan and grab specific points from without reading every single word.

* Use highlights to call out specific important points. Again, this goes back to the fact that few people will read all the words. If a specific area is highlighted in yellow or another bright color, their eyes will be drawn to that specific region and that may be all that they read. If you can convince the reader with you highlighted section that they simply MUST know all about this product, then they will probably read more. If you do not grab their attention with compelling information, they will probably continue to another web page.

* Specific benefits to the reader must be described in very few words. Tell the reader exactly what the product will do for them and call them to action!

* Please graphic help attract a person to spend a moment looking at your page. A boring page, in terms of graphics, will probably not hold the reader's attention long enough to even get them to read the highlights, much less the sales information.

* Focus on compelling, eye-catching headlines for each page. If your review begins with a bang, then people will read more of the text. A headline such as "How Product XYZ Saved My Life - And Can Save Yours, Too" will generate more readers than a headline such as "Product XYZ Works Great".

* Never produce web page affiliate product reviews that are totally essay-style. Remember; make the page so that the reader who simply scans will pick up enough information to compel them to read more.

* Make the reader have to take an action to get more information. The more a person becomes involved with a product review page, the more likely they will follow all the way through to the payment process and complete the sale. A short poll, a signup for a free report, anything that makes the person provide input can get them involved enough to follow through. Think about Publisher's Clearing House; they always make you participate to fill out an entry form. Use the same concept but apply it to your affiliate product review pages.

* Keep the page short! 500-600 words are enough to convey almost any concept you wish to send. No one wants to read on and on and on without gaining truly new information. Shorter is often better than longer. The European style seems to be, of late, a long, long web page, but many Americans just won't stand for scrolling down over and over to get to the prize!

* Be sure you are providing good information that the product you are promoting will actually provide. There is no need to tell "fish tales" to make a sale. A good product, where only the facts are provided in the review, will sell itself!

These few points can make your affiliate product review pages stand out among the crowd. And there is a crowd, so you have to work hard to really stand out. It is worth the time and effort in sales you will generate!

This article was authored by Jason Gazaway. This 22 year old, 'regular' college kid was able to quit his 7-4 "job" because of his affiliate marketing business. He now wants to help others and show you how he did it!

Affiliate marketing involves the promotion of a website by a person known as the affiliate. He is the one who acts as the middleman between the merchant and the customer. The nature of an affiliate?s job is to advertise and promote a merchant?s website through his own.

As this particular website is visited by surfers and browsers, they get to see the links that are listed or displayed there. Customers who click on these links end up doing transactions with the merchant. The merchant then pays the affiliate a commission for leading the customer to his very own site and, ultimately, his merchandise.

The whole process involved in affiliate marketing may look really elementary, but like any other true-blue business venture, it abides by certain rules. One who wishes to get involved in the business should harbor an interest to learn all the tricks of the trade. However, the success affiliate marketers are bound to have in this type of business is ultimately up to them to work on.

What does it take for an affiliate marketer to succeed in a business such as this? Catapulting one?s career in affiliate marketing is not an easy task considering all the competition involved in the business. In an industry where many are called but few are chosen, it pays to use strategies that work to project one?s business forward. This task, in addition to a lot of diligence and perseverance, is the key to an affiliate marketing career that will surely run a mile.

The first way involved in catapulting an affiliate marketing career forward is for an affiliate to join affiliate programs that prove interesting to him. This is an important factor in being able to stick to a business long enough to be able to make a living out of it.

The second is by making sure that one is hands on in creating a unique and interesting website where one?s business would take place. Using one?s own domain name is also a good idea as the site would be provided every bit of originality. Having a unique site will prove beneficial to the affiliate marketer as it will attract enough attention and, consequently, enough patrons to promote one?s products to.

The third is by starting a linking campaign that would encourage other website owners to supply links to an affiliate marketer?s website provided that the owner return the favor. This way, one is able to furnish more links into his website ? links that will ultimately provide him more chances of generating traffic, and consequently, sales.

The fourth is by starting a newsletter and submitting it to as many websites as possible. This would encourage recipients to go to the website the affiliate marketer owns because writing one?s own article for the newsletter is one way of inviting people to come and visit the website. This is an ultimately rewarding task that would prove to be advantageous to the affiliate marketer concerned.

The fifth is by maintaining an e-mail list of people who have requested information about one?s products. The e-mail list can be acquired by an affiliate marketer through buying e-mail addresses from companies that sell quality leads for such people to use.

The sixth is by employing an auto responder program that would help an affiliate marketer save a huge chunk of time in buying leads for his site. The use of this program means automatically saving leads in newsletters whenever they are bought.

The seventh is by making sure that one writes his own articles for a personal touch. There is no better way to convince people to view a site than by convincing them personally, and an article that comes from an affiliate marketer?s heart is the best way to do it.

The eighth is by adding these articles to an affiliate marketer?s own webpage. This task will help him in his page ranks, and relevant content is always appreciated by those who like to see information on a particular website rather than banners which tell them nothing at all.

The last is by joining an online forum so that the affiliate marketer is always knowledgeable about current products and marketing trends. Talking to people about the business is a great way to build relationships, and the exchange of ideas involved in such forums is a great way to keep one well-informed about the industry in particular.

There is no real secret to success in a business such as affiliate marketing. All affiliate marketers have to remember is that by taking time to know and understand everything about the business at hand, one is bound to develop strategies of his own that will serve him well in years to come.

This article was authored by Jason Gazaway. This 22 year old, 'regular' college kid was able to quit his 7-4 "job" because of his affiliate program business. He now wants to help others and show you how he did it!

For more FREE information, please go to: Affiliate Students

It seems that everybody is into making money online these days. By far, the largest market place in the world is right there in front of you within the cyber world of the internet. But what is the simplest and easiest way to make money online? Well, affiliate marketing nowadays is the very common and the most popular method of earning money online.

In addition, affiliate marketing allows you to make money online by earning commissions off sub-affiliates, people you have brought on to be affiliates of the parent company. These two-tiered affiliates may seem like a pyramid scheme, but the point is, it generates a tremendous amount of traffic to your site as well as to your partners' sites, which helps everyone make money online.

So, what is the first thing you will need? It is to build your own website and decide how much you are willing to spend on your site. Nevertheless, to online your business is buried among millions of websites. As a start-up internet business, you have several options and several things to consider. Anything from setting up a free account on one of the countless blog sites, to paying thousands of dollars to professionals for the design and hosting.

Keep in mind that people can?t just falter upon it accidentally. It?s like spinning your wheels yet you are getting nowhere, or you are talking, but no one?s listening. You have you establish your presence and make your own site. You need to advertise and promote constantly. Most importantly, make a lasting impression so next time a customer is in the market for your type of product, they will never forget your site over someone else with similar products. Remember that everyone from industrial giants to corner flower shops now wants to stake a profitable claim in cyberspace. Building affiliate website is just a much better in promoting products as an affiliate.

However, if you have an affiliate website, you can list other people's websites on yours and become an affiliate, making money online through sales commissions every time someone goes to their site through yours and makes a purchase. You can make anywhere from 5% to 30% just by advertising their link.

But if you have none, better yet build your own affiliate website. A website is not like putting a convenient store on a corner and every person will see it as they pass by, and stop. If you do not advertise your site in some form, no one will know you?re on the web. The old saying ?if you build it, they will come? just isn?t true when it comes to opening a website.

Building and promoting affiliate websites is not an easy task. With the web these days growing at a substantial rate, juts about everywhere you turn on the web, you will see offers to own your own business. A lot of these offers are justifiable businesses with real products and items waiting for you to open on of their affiliate sites and start selling. They can sound very good and get you excited, tell you that you can make tons of money. But then, be very careful, you have to consider a lot of things before you can keep on.

Remember that there are also downfalls to having an affiliate website; bear in mind that you probably won?t have much control over it, the bad thing is sometimes, none at all. First, you may not have the power to control over the ad banners that appears on your site, you won?t have control over the content, links or text links and on some of them, you may not be able to control the keywords or optimize the site for the search engines, or maybe even see your daily traffic or check your status, like how many visitors have you gotten and how many items you have sold.

On the other hand, building affiliate sites can also be a good thing if you are looking for a low maintenance way to have a business on the web. Affiliate websites can also give you a reasonably good income once you become established and if you know where you can pick up some local traffic just through your friends of neighbors.

Getting some heavy duty traffic will become your main goal when you are about to open an affiliate website. However, building and advertising a website can be flat out expensive, even scary. So once you have your website, handle it wisely.

About The Author:

Discover how you can create a turnkey internet marketing system that builds massive downline for you, attracts hungry prospects automatically, and generates income non-stop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

Find out more here:
Visit How To Become Successful today!

How would you like to make money with a Home Business without ever having to sell anything? There are lots of people earning thousands of dollars doing just that. There are very few home businesses that are easier or cost less than affiliate marketing. The plan is very simple. How would you like to make money with a Home Business without ever having to sell anything? There are lots of people earning thousands of dollars doing just that. There are very few home businesses that are easier or cost less than affiliate marketing. The plan is very simple. clients are already established online businesses selling a lot of different products and services. These people will pay you for bringing customers to them which is the website you are an affiliate for. They will pay you either a set fee or a percentage of what the customer purchases.

Here is how the affiliate business works. The affiliate places a banner or link advertisement on their website and the goal is to get the customer to click through from the affiliate website to the merchant site. When a purchase is made you earn a commission. The opportunities that this creates for the home marketer are enormous.

There are so many affiliate programs on the internet that it is not difficult to find one that will work for you. Don't settle for just any program. Spend some time and do your research before you choose your programs. It is important that you choose a program that you feel comfortable with. If you have another business, choose an affiliate program that will compliment your existing program and this will give you the best chance of your customers clicking through to the affiliate site.

One of the great things about affiliate home marketing is that you are not limited to just one program. You can sign up for as many programs as you would like as long as you have a place on your website to place their link or banner.

A word of wisdom: Read the affiliate contract carefully. Most of the businesses are legitimate but there are a few out there that are trying to rip your off while making a quick buck. Just be careful and review your affiliate agreement carefully. If you don't feel comfortable about a program don't join.

Here are some ways to look for a good affiliate program.

1. Do they pay only for the first purchase or do you get a

percentage of the future purchases by that customer.

2. How much do they pay and for how do they pay? Purchases?

Click throughs?

3. Will the program interest my customers?

4. Can you view your account on a regular basis to see how the

program is doing?

5. At what intervals are the commissions paid? Make sure this

is in the agreement.

There a lots of good affiliate programs out there for your home based business and if you will spend some time in research you can find the right programs for you. Soon you will be making good money in an affiliate marketing business.

I wish you the very best.

Donnie De Loney is editor and publisher of HomBzTips a simple Step-by-Step plan for earning a great monthly income. He created DY Marketing to assist those wishing to start a home internet business.