How not to fail in affiliate marketing 01.05.08

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More and More people are lured into affiliate marketing and you might be one of them. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the most effective means of generating a full-time income through the Internet. It’s a fair deal between the merchandiser and his affiliates as both benefit from each sale realised. Like in other kinds of business, a great deal of the profits in affiliate marketing depend on the affiliate’s advertising, promoting and selling strategies. Everyday, as the affiliate marketing industry expands, competition heightens as well so an affiliate marketer must be creative enough to employ unique and effective ways to convince potential buyers to purchase the products and services he is offering.

Compared to traditional advertising practices, affiliate programs are more effective, risk-free and cost-efficient. But why do many people still fail in affiliate marketing? There are a lot of reasons and a lot of areas in the program to look into. The most critical aspect in the affiliate program is advertising. Many affiliate marketers fail in this aspect because they don’t work hard enough. Although it pays to be lucky, you cannot merely rely on it. Affiliate marketing isn’t as simple as directing customers to the business site. If you want to earn big, of course, you have to invest time and a lot of hard work in promoting the products. As mentioned earlier, the competition is very high and customers nowadays are very wise, too. After all, who doesn’t want to get the best purchase—that is, to pay less and get more in terms of quantity and quality.

Lack of preparation is also a reason why one fails in affiliate marketing, whether he is a merchandiser or an affiliate. Part of the preparation is research. On the part of the merchant, he has to be highly selective in choosing the right affiliate websites for his affiliate program. In order to be sure he has the best choices, he must have exhausted his means in looking for highly interested affiliates whose sites are a sure fit to his products and services. The affiliates site visitors must match his targeted customers. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer must likewise research on the good-paying merchandisers before he signs up for an affiliate program. He must ensure that the merchants products and services match his interests so he can give his full attention and dedication to the program. He can get valuable information by joining affiliate forums, comparing different affiliate programs and reading articles on affiliate marketing where he can get tips from experienced affiliate marketers on how to choose the best merchants and products with high conversion rate.

The website is a very important tool in the whole affiliate program. As an affiliate marketer, you should plan how your site is going to be, from domain name to the design, the lay-out, the content, and ads. Some users are particular about what they see at first glance and thus if they find your site ugly, they won’t read through the content even if your site has great content. On the other hand, there are those who want information more than anything else. Affiliate marketers with “rich-content” web sites are usually the ones who prosper in this business because the content improves traffic to the site. Websites with high quality content with relevant keywords and more importantly, right information about the product and not empty hyped-up advertisements—allow you to earn big in affiliate marketing even when you’re asleep. If you can’t sustain the interest of your site visitors, you won’t be able to lead them to the merchant’s site. No click-through means no sale and thus, no income on your part.

Selecting a top level domain name is also crucial to the success of the affiliate program. Lots of affiliate sites don’t appear in the search engine results because they are deemed by affiliate managers as personal sites. Major search engines and directories would think of your site as transient ones and thus, they won’t list it in the directory. Before you decide on the domain name, know first what you are going to promote. Many fail because their sites are not appropriately named, so even when they feature the exact products the customer is looking for, the customer might think the site is not relevant and thus, won’t enter the site.

Above all, an affiliate marketer must be willing to learn more. Certainly, there are still a lot of things to learn and so an affiliate marketer must continue to educate himself so he can improve his marketing strategies. Many fail because they don’t grow in the business and they are merely concerned about earning big quickly. If you want long-term and highly satisfactory results, take time to learn the ins and outs of the business. Continue to improve your knowledge especially with the basics in affiliate marketing ranging from advertising to programming, web page development, and search engine optimization techniques. Likewise, study the needs and wants of your site users and how different merchandisers compete with each other.

Keep on trying; don’t get disappointed if your first attempts don’t pay off. Thousands are attracted by the possibility of generating skyrocketing incomes through affiliate marketing and so they sign up in any affiliate program without carefully understanding every aspect of the business. When they don’t get instant results, they quit and sign up for another program and repeat the process of just copying links and referring them to others. When you sign up for an affiliate program, don’t expect to get rich in an instant. Work on your advertising strategies and be patient. You’ll never know how much you can get if you don’t persevere.

Popularity: 9% [?]

I want a $3000 laptop 28.03.08

One of my favorite tech sites TheTechDon is hosting a great contest. They are offering 3 laptops, each worth around $3000. And that Toshiba Portege is just amazing - 1.7 pounds. It like weights nothing. The contest is point based and you get point for doing the usual commenting, linking, subscribing. Damn, I could really use that Portege. Wish me luck.

Popularity: 33% [?]

ContestBeat, Can You Feel It ? 04.03.08

A contest blog. You see them everywhere. Why? Because getting content is so easy. You don’t have to find topics or even write it yourself. People will submit the content. You just have to sit back and relax. So having a contest blog is really easy.

Having a successful contest blog is not an easy thing to do. ContestBeat achieved this goal and it’s now in the TOP 10 of the contest niche.

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But why contests? Are they any good? Yes they are. Case study: Domprofesor.com. Contests are great promotion methods. They increase traffic, links, rss readers and all stats in general. Before I started the contest I had 100 incoming links and 50+ RSS subscribers. After the contest I now have 250+ links and 300+ rss subscribers. So contests create awareness and build buzz. And in the long run it’s the best option.

Now you know what contests are all about, let me tell you more about ContestBeat. I chose CB because they had no fee for submitting a contest to them. Other contest sites that have CB’s coverage and viewers ask for a $10-$50 fee to post about your contest, while CB does it for free. Also what attracted me was the site’s design. Clean, crisp, big fonts, everything you need to make a site user friendly. And most of all, if you don’t know nothing about how to create a contest they have the greatest advice page, telling you all the right things and no bull.

So if you want more traffic, more buzz, more links and more subscribers, better start a contest instead of paying for any kind of advertising. And if you want to start a contest, better use ContestBeat.Com.

Popularity: 67% [?]

The Big Contest… Who Won 02.03.08

Some weeks ago I was starting a contest. 39 people entered but only 3. So here they are:

3) Third place: winning a 6 month link to my blogroll is Betshopboy with this entry.

2) Second place: winning a site review is Contestbeat with this entry.

1) First place: winning an Archos 504 40GB Media Player or $200 is Rfidonline with this entry.

Blogroll link and review will appear on the site in about 2 days. First place winner will be contacted to choose his prize.

And to all those who entered but didn’t win, don’t worry guys, there’s a new contest coming up in a 2 weeks.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Will Blog For Food Or Die Starving 28.02.08

will_blog_for_food.jpgMore and more people these days think they can make money blogging. This is a common misconception. Blogging is not something you can make money from (comparing it to other things). To make money blogging you must have visitors and readers. To get visitors and readers you must have promotion. To have promotion you must have money to pay for it. So this is where it all ends up. Blogging, just like any other business need money to start up. You can’t make money without spending money. If you invest $0 in a business you will get $0. With blogging this is a bit, but just a bit different - if you invest $0 you will probably get $100 after a year. You can’t live a whole year with $100.

This perception about bloggers that make loads of money is not completely true. Look at people like John Chow and Shoemoney. Because of people like them most people think that you can make a living from blogging. But the truth is JC and Shoe had some other sites before they started blogging. And most of their income is not from their blogging, it’s from the other sites. So if you see John Chow making $20,000 per month by blogging, you think that you can do it too. But the question is do you have $1,500 to pay for 3-4 paid reviews that will get your name out there? Do ya? And if you do, are yo willing to spend them on that? Do you have $80 to pay each month for private hosting (presuming that your blog will be famous and will have a large number of visitors)? People make money blogging by becoming a billboard, an interactive one. You create an image for yourself and for your blog, you make a statement, you become popular and only then advertisers will pile up to have their ads shown on your site and to promote their products. But becoming popular requires 2 things: 1) Lots of money or 2) A great idea - something that the world has never seen - and little money. However you try to do this you will still need money.

From my personal point of view. Blogging is the last thing to do if you wanna make money online. I own a real life shop, some affiliate marketing sites and this blog. Affiliate marketing earned me in 5 days what this blog earned me in a month (although the affilaite marketing sites needed advertising, while on the blog I didn’t spend anything).

So knowing this, If you had $5,000 would you invest it in a blog or in a real life business?

Popularity: 64% [?]