Affiliate Dreams

Millions of people all over the world are making some sort of income with affiliate programs/associates. I would like to see if it really works, how it works, and what it takes to make it work. I will post what I learn.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Joined another affiliate that I like

I used diamond supreme hosting a few months ago and liked it. So I decided to become an affiliate with them. People create webpages everyday so it's a good money maker. However it is a field that is littered with a lot of competition, but I will try it out for a few months and see how it goes.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Five Ways to Increase Your Affiliate Sales

By: John Purdy

Most home business owners are involved with affiliate marketing. As an affiliate marketer, a combination of techniques can be used to promote your affiliate website and/or link. Here are five things you can do to help with your promotional efforts resulting in increased affiliate sales.

1. Become an “expert” on the product

The most successful affiliate marketers are “experts” on the products they promote. To become an expert, it’s highly recommended that you purchase the product yourself to gain first-hand experience using it. If you cannot purchase the product, you must thoroughly research it until you become familiar and knowledgeable enough to promote it.

2. Participate in chat rooms related to the product

You can start your own chat or join an existing one. Do not try to selling initially, but during your chat, mention the product you’re promoting and describe its benefits. If there is interest in your product, you can then refer them to the product through your affiliate link. The same concept holds true for forums and discussion boards.

3. Write your own affiliate program ads

Most merchants will provide pre-written ads for their affiliates to use. If you write your own ad, or make significant changes to the one that’s pre-written, your ad will stand out from the others. Done properly, this will give you a great advantage over those affiliates that are using the same ad as everyone else.

4. Create a free newsletter or ezine

Submit your newsletter to the ezine directories and promote it on your website. Keep in mind that most subscribers are interested in receiving “information” that can help them. If you use your mailing list solely for selling, you will never gain credibility and will end up with a high unsubscribe rate. After you’ve developed a relationship and the trust of your subscribers, you can then recommend the products you are promoting

5. Create a free ebook

As part of your ebook, include an advertisement and a link to your affiliate website. The ebook can be given away free or used as an incentive to sign up for your newsletter. Submit your ebook to the ebook directories and offer it to other webmasters for inclusion on their website. The more exposure your ebook receives, the more sales you can make.

By using the techniques outlined above and always striving to become an “expert” on the products you promote, you are sure to see an increase in your affiliate sales resulting in higher commission payments.

John Purdy is an affiliate marketer and operates his own internet home business. For access to free affiliate programs, work at home opportunities and other resources on the home business industry, visit his website at: www.home-business-concepts.com

Vital Things To Check At Any Affiliate Program

By: Ispas Marin

Affiliate programs are now one of the most popular ways for webmasters with lot of traffic to their sites to earn good money.

There are many factors which influence the amount of money earned by an affiliate. The most important is the quality of the affiliate program. So if you want to make lots of money, you must know how to choose an affiliate program.

First of all you should look for a web site that has been on the net for some time. That's how you know that you can trust them and you will receive the money you make. There are many untrustworthy programs that fooled a lot of webmasters with promises but they never sent the money.

Next step is to check the quality of the products the site is promoting. Don't advertise a product if you wouldn't use it for your self. You shouldn't be blinded by the high commissions an affiliate program is offering. If you join a program with bad products you will damage your image and you won't be able to advertise other products ever because people won't value your opinion.

Try to find an affiliate program with a good commission rate because you don't want to waste your time if you can make much more money elsewhere. A good commission would be a 20% to 25% of the product price.

We have discussed about the web site, the products and the commissions but none of this matter if the program doesn't have a great tracking system. You should look for programs that track visitors to their site using both CGI and cookies so you'll get your money for the sales you make.

It's also good if you can check your stats in real time. Before you sign up in a affiliate program you should first check how long do they track visitors for. There are affiliate programs that track a visitor only once and if they come back another day and buy the product you won't earn ay money. So best for you is to find programs that track visitors for 30 days or more.

Then you should be interested on how often the site sends your payment and if you have to earn a fix amount of money before they send them to you.

So these are some tips in choosing an affiliate program that will bring you a high income. If a program has most of the things mentioned above then it's worth trying.


About the Author: Check http://www.30daysinjuly.com if you are interested in having a 'coach' that will guide you to Internet Success and will show you how to create a profitable online business.

Monday, December 05, 2005

5 Simple Ways To Promote Your Affiliate Programs - Without Spending A Fortune On Advertising!

By: Kris Bickell

So, you want to make money online, but you’re having trouble getting visitors to your website? If so, you’re not alone. Many people think that running an online busy is easy – just build a website, and in no time you’ll be making money.

Well, running an online business is no different than running any business – you need to find ways to reach people who want and need (and are willing to pay for) your product or service.

Affiliate marketing (selling other people’s products) is a great way to make money online.

Yet, it is still a business, and the same rules apply to affiliate marketing – you need to find people who need what you are selling.

The best way to be a successful affiliate is to create your own website, provide information to get people ready to buy, and then encourage them visit the programs you are representing.

How do you do this, without spending a fortune on advertising?

1) Learn how to get free traffic from search engines

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means getting the search engines (like Google and Yahoo) to place your website at the top of the rankings. Getting “free advertising” from the search engines is great. However, it is not easy, and it does take some time. The key is make your site the best possible site for your theme – tricks and scams may provide you with an instant “boost” but this rarely lasts (and sometimes even gets you banned permanently!) Over the past few years, I’ve made lots of money by having high rankings – and I’ve lost money when my rankings have fallen. It’s part of the process, so you shouldn’t count only on free traffic from the search engines.

2) Create your own newsletter

By creating your own newsletter, you can contact each person who signs up more than once, increasing your chance for a sale. Don’t have any ideas for a newsletter? How about a free course. Or monthly tips about the topic of your website. Sign up for a few newsletters in your industry to get an idea of how other websites maintain this important relationship with their current – and future – customers!

3) Write articles

Writing articles provides you with several benefits at the same time – by writing an article you are positioning yourself as an expert; when your article is published, you get a link back to your site (which helps SEO; you can promote your newsletter so you can contact readers more than once. You don’t need to have your article published in USA Today to get these benefits. In fact, getting your articles listed in an article directory (such as EzineArticles.com), can help you get listed in more specialized websites, newsletters, and magazines, helping you reach the right people!

4) Place newsletter, magazine, & newspaper ads

When spending money on ads, especially for the first time, start out small. It’s very easy to spend a ton of money, without getting any responses (a tough lesson many advertisers learn the hard way!) Email newsletters or ezines are a great way to start (start with the ones in your industry that you subscribed to in order to get ideas for your newsletter above). Make sure you offer something valuable – like your newsletter – to get as many people to respond as possible.

5) Watch out for scams!

Buying 10,000 visitors for only $29.95. Submitting your website to 150 search engines for $19.99. Getting your site listed #1 on all the search engines for just $50. Most of these sound very tempting, especially when you are just starting out. Unfortunately, most of these are great ways to drain your bank account very quickly – and make other people rich.

So learn from the real experts how to build your online business: sign up for newsletters (HighRankings.com is a great resource), read the forums (IHelpYouServices.com and WebmasterWorld.com), read articles (EzineArticles.com).

Yes, you can make money online. So, get started, keep learning and trying, and don’t ever give up!

Kris Bickell is the owner of Hi-Speed-Internet.com, a helpful affiliate site for consumers comparing high speed internet services. For information on high speed DSL, Cable, and Wireless Internet, visit: www.Hi-Speed-Internet.com, and sign up for the free email course “5 Simple Ways To Improve Your Computer Speed”. © 2005 Hi-Speed-Internet.com

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Why Do Many People Fail In Affiliate Marketing!

By: Jonathan White

Affiliate marketing has been around on the Web for quite sometime now, but there are still a lot of people who doesn't know much or even nothing about it. Most of the people that don't know about affiliate marketing and has just discovered it normally thinks that they can make a quick buck or two. Well that's not the case.

To do well in affiliate marketing is not just a one-day task. Affiliate marketing is like an on going assignment where you have to try different things out like different advertising techniques, different ways of adding affiliate banners and text links to your site, etc. You may even have to join a number of affiliate programs just to see which ones performs the best with the other content that you already have on your site.

Another thing is that many affiliates expect to do well from just having a list of about 20 affiliated banners on one page of their site. Well that's not exactly true as people will see your web page and won't even bother clicking on any of the banners to go to your affiliated sites as your web page just looks like a link farm. How people think they can make money this way, I really don't know as affiliate marketing takes time and effort before any results can be seen.

If you are adding affiliate banners or text links to your site, then the best thing to do is for you to add affiliate links or banners to your site that is on the same topic as the other information on your web page. By doing this, you will not want to add too many affiliated banners or text links as it will just look like a page of links and will only turn your visitors away, about three affiliated links should be enough depending on how large the web page is.

Another important aspect in affiliate marketing is advertising. You can't expect to add affiliate material to your site and expect to receive sales straight away. If you have no traffic coming to your site, then you will not get any sales. Infact, directly advertising the affiliate links or adding the affiliate links to your website and advertising that is probably one of the most important things that you will need to do to have any chance of succeeding. This is because the more you promote your affiliate link or site that contains the affiliate links, then the more clickthru's your affiliate links are likely to receive, which is then most likely to result in more sales.


About the Author: Jonathan White has been doing affiliate marketing, advertising and promotion on the Web for over three years now and is the Webmaster of http://www.affiliateseeking.com - a categorized affiliate programs directory that lists over 1000 programs and is still growing.