Saturday, February 10, 2007

Excellent article on Affiliate Marketing

I stumbled across this article by Steven Gerber. It is EXCELLENT in explaining Affiliate Marketing.

Get Your Website to Profit With the Best Affiliate Programs Available by: Steven Gerber

The Internet is one of the most frequently used tools for communication today. There are over millions of people who log on to the Internet every single day. Besides, with the benefits that the Internet gives, who would not want to be a part of this information superhighway. With the Internet, you can communicate with your family and friends through emails and instant messengers, you can purchase goods and services without leaving your own home, and the Internet is one of the most promising income generating tools that everyone can use today.

In the past, you needed products or services in order to make money through the Internet. Today however, you can make money through the Internet by using affiliate programs. This program will allow you to make a substantial amount of money out of your website and is a very good home business that you would want to get in to. First of all, you need to know what an affiliate program is and how it works in order to fully understand how you can make some money out of it.

Affiliate programs is like a joint venture where you or your website becomes a partner with another website that have already developed a product or service that they are already selling in the Internet. As a partner, your job is to direct the visitors of your website to your partner website and hope that they will purchase the products or services being offered. Your website will be like the company's marketing arm, among several. The company you plan on being affiliated to will be providing all the necessary tools that you need in order to start the affiliate program. They will be providing the links, and some companies will provide free e-books on how you can effectively earn from affiliate programs. The best way to profit from your website through affiliate programs is by promoting your website in the Internet.

The key to success in affiliate programs is targeted traffic. This is why you should think of a product or service that you would want to promote and also a product or service that you are knowledgeable about. Think about your hobby. For example, if you like fixing cars, you want an affiliate program that promotes cars, or car parts. In your website, you will then discuss about your hobby. Make some articles and post it in article publishing websites and also in your own site. Since your affiliate program is selling cars or car parts or even car accessories, the traffic you generate in your website will have a greater chance of clicking the link or banner of your affiliate website and buy from that website. You will then earn a commission out of the sold product.

As you can see, it is very simple to earn money from affiliate programs. However, when you are just starting out in the business of affiliate programs, you have to work hard to establish your reputation as an expert in the product or service you are promoting. The best way to do this is publish your articles about a particular product frequently. This will build your reputation in the Internet and soon, you will get that targeted traffic you have been always wanting. It is also a good idea to update your website once in a while (once a week) with tips and tricks on a particular product.

The best thing about affiliate programs is that you do not have to be in front of your computer 24 hours a day 7 days a week. All you need is a few minutes of checking up in your website and also check out your earnings in your affiliate programs. Always remember to update your website frequently in order to keep your readers and keep them buying from your affiliate website.

About The Author
Steven Gerber is a professional copywriter & marketing consultant. He is a protégé of Dan Lok, the World’s #1 Website Conversion Expert, & in Steven’s totally biased opinion simply THE BEST. You will find the latest internet marketing techniques & tricks at: http://www.websiteconversionexpert.com.

Article used with permission.
Go here to read this article .

Webmaster forums

You will be amazed with all of the resources out there to help you become successful. Many of these resources are FREE! It's always good to check them out in your free time because you never know what information will be new on the horizon.

There are a variety of webmaster forums on the internet. Here are some that have been found to be among the most informative.

Google Ad Sense Forum

Webmaster-talk.com

Webmasterworld.com

Webmaster-forums.net

The V7 Network

Geek Village

AKA Marketing

Website standards for diplaying Google Ad Sense ads

While Google offers broad access to a variety of content in the search index, publishers in the AdSense program may only place Google ads on sites that adhere to our content guidelines, and ads must not be displayed on any page with content primarily in an unsupported language. View a list of supported languages.

Sites displaying Google ads may not include:
Violent content, racial intolerance, or advocacy against any individual, group, or organization
Pornography, adult, or mature content
Hacking/cracking content
Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
Excessive profanity
Gambling or casino-related content
Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking on ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites, or reading emails
Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages
Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank
Sales or promotion of weapons or ammunition (e.g., firearms, fighting knives, stun guns)
Sales or promotion of beer or hard alcohol
Sales or promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products
Sales or promotion of prescription drugs
Sales or promotion of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods
Sales or distribution of term papers or student essays
Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others

For more information go here .

Google Ad Sense Program Policies

Publishers participating in the AdSense program are required to adhere to the following policies.

We ask that you read these policies carefully and refer to this document often. If you fail to comply with these policies, we may disable ad serving to your site and/or disable your AdSense account. While in many cases we prefer to work with publishers to achieve policy compliance, we reserve the right to disable any account at any time. If your account is disabled, you will not be eligible for further participation in the AdSense program.

Please note that we may change our policies at any time, and pursuant to our Terms and Conditions, it is your responsibility to keep up to date with and adhere to the policies posted here.

Go here to read more Google Ad Sense Program Policies.

Google Ad Sense and Web Publishing

Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant, unobtrusive Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your users are looking for on your site, you'll finally have a way to both monetize and enhance your content pages. Learn more about AdSense for content.

It's also a way for web site publishers to provide Google search to their site users, and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages. Find out more about AdSense for search.

The program is free, and combines pay-per-click and pay-per-impression advertising - meaning you get paid for valid clicks on the ads on your site or search results pages as well as impressions on your content pages. So go ahead and try this program. If you comply with our program policies, just complete our online application and select either or both of AdSense for content pages and AdSense for search. One application gets you approved for both AdSense and AdSense for search - you can decide to use any combination of these products on your pages.
We'll review your application and follow up with an email within 2-3 days. If you are accepted into the program, you can log in to your new account and get the HTML code to insert into your web pages.

Keep in mind that participation in AdSense requires you to have a website. If you don't have one, you can sign up for a free blog at http://www.blogger.com/ or create and publish useful, attractive web pages using Google Page Creator, at pages.google.com.

For more information go here .

Affiliate Promtion

Now we are ready to make some money! There are many, many affiliate programs available on the web that allow you to join simply by filling out an application. The key is to find products and services your visitors want to buy.

A good place to start is (http://www.linkshare.com/) LinkShare, a sort of affiliate consolidator for many major companies. Browse their affiliate partners and be selective- only choose the ones that will appeal to your audience.

Many companies only offer their affiliate program through their site so don't overlook those programs you glanced at while looking for link partners. Knowledge goods (reports and e-books) are a great product to sell when they relate to your topic. Authors often have an affiliate program available to resellers. Make sure you DO want to recommend the product before offering it for sale.

If there aren't any knowledge goods in your chosen field, why not write your own e-book? Don't repeat general knowledge- have a reason for writing it. A helpful e-book can not only make money, but it can help establish your reputation as an expert.

If you have a newsletter or blog on your site, you can mention the affiliate products you sell for an even bigger boost in sales. Don't lower your credibility by promoting junk! Only promote those things you really believe in.

This article was used with permission. For more information on this article please visit:Right Click Web Services- Usability and SEO

Website Promotion

Site Promotion

You've built your site and it rocks- the people who visit leave you great feedback and send you e-mails about how helpful it is. You are adding to your content regularly and keeping it updated and interesting- now you need to turn up the volume on the traffic.
Search out similar and complimentary sites to your topic and let them know about your site. Send an e-mail letting them know what the value to their visitors is and ask them to include a link to your site. There may be commercial, hobby, or other resource sites that would be happy to include a link to your useful resource.
Find any forums or other venues that are complimentary to your topic and join them-- often you are allowed a signature link in your posts that will help people find your resource. Consider starting your own forum if none exist.
Send out a press release to local media and online (try www.prweb.com/ PRWeb) detailing the newsworthy aspects of your site. Write articles on your topic for redistribution on other sites (provided they include a link to the original article).

This article was used with permission. For more information on this article please visit:Right Click Web Services- Usability and SEO

Making money online

Many people these days are looking for ways to "make money on the Internet". These are not people looking to take their bricks-and-mortar business online to expand, or sell things they have manufactured, but instead people who are looking to create revenue from having a website.

It's not an impossible goal, but it's not as easy as the spam e-mail you receive would have you believe. It takes real work, just like any other business, and the rewards can be somewhat shaky if you are depending on free traffic from the search engines to build your business. But done correctly, there are some tried and true ways to make your website turn a profit.

The very first thing you must do is make your site a resource. You've heard it before most likely but do you know what it means?

It means making your site useful to a specific audience.

The best thing to do is turn something you love into a resource site- you may be devoted to the conservation of a river in your area or have great ideas for keeping kids occupied during the summer, build a site around your unique knowledge and ideas.

This article was used with permission. For more information on this article please visit: Right Click Web Services- Usability and SEO