Working With Affiliate Programs

Everywhere you look you see affiliate program offers for
every product or service that you can think of. Some have
fully automated systems that sell high volumes of hard
products all over the world. In case you don't know, "hard"
products are those that you can touch...unlike an ebook or
downloadable web template. Many affiliate programs have
several thousand affiliates and one or two of the bigger
companies have over one million affiliates.

What are the advantages of joining an affiliate program?

They provide a ready-made business. This is a very big plus
for those people who want to earn some kind of living off
the Internet but lack the knowledge or inclination to set up
a business by themselves.

Commissions and rewards are generally good, and the more
established programs offer a real chance of advancement to
higher and better-paid levels.

Other affiliates are usually on hand to offer practical
support.

What are the limitations?

You are restricted in your promotional activities due to the
fact that you do not actually own the affiliate site they
give you. You won't be able to put such things as banners,
images, links, meta tags, etc. onto your page.
The URL of your affiliate page is often either too long or
contains such awkward things as question marks, which many
Search Engines will not index.

Any promotional ads or articles have probably already been
used by thousands of other people and consequently may have
lost its impact, making it more difficult to achieve sales
or referrals.

If the program you have joined has not yet established
itself (or in some cases even if it has), then you may
encounter problems with payments owed to you not being
honored. You also run the risk of low quality products or
sub-standard statistics that do not accurately record how
many referrals or sales you have made.

You may be required to purchase a minimum quantity of the
product on a regular basis before you start to qualify for
commissions or even before you can become an affiliate.
You may not get the technical or affiliate support you might
expect from the company. This may be due to inadequate
staffing, or the company's negligence.

Other people in your downline do nothing to promote the
program.

At least four of the above limitations can be overcome with
a little time and effort. You could, for example, come up
with fresher ads to promote the program (provided this is
allowed).

If the company supplies the email addresses of people in
your downline, then you could offer to help the less active
members. Very often these people are passive not because
they are lazy or apathetic but merely because they don't
know HOW to promote effectively! your guidance could mean
the difference between no sales or referrals and healthy
downlines and residual incomes.

As regards promoting your actual page, here are a couple of
little tricks that should overcome a number of
restrictions:

Cloak your Affiliate URL to stop hijackers Affiliate Masker
While this will not help you to get listed on the major
Search Engines, it will make your web page easier for
prospects to remember and type into their browser's address
bar.

Go to your affiliate page. Place your mouse pointer anywhere
on the page and right click once. In the drop-down box
choose "View Source". This will display the HTML for the
page. Save this to your hard drive as a HTML document using
the "Save As" function. Upload the page to your  web site.
If you don't have a web site then get some free web space
from one of these:

http://www.tripod.com/
http://www.fortunecity.com/
http://www.hypermart.net/index.gsp
http://www.coolchat.com/
http://www.crosswinds.net/
http://www.htmlpublishing.com/
http://www.freehomepages.com/
http://www.pageproducer.com/

Submit your 'new' page to the Search Engines. You are also
now able to place banner codes, links, images, testimonials,
in fact anything you want onto these pages, because you are
in control of the HTML. A word of caution, though. Don't
change the actual HTML of your original affiliate page. Just
put the other stuff, like banners etc, around it.

Making this "mirror page" of your affiliate page will
dramatically improve your advertising options.

---------------------------------
Jude Wright has been an Internet Marketer for three
years. She has just created a product that will help
other Internet Marketers keep all their marketing
information in one database. Check it out at:
http://i-marketingorganizer.com/organizer.htm

Affiliate Blogger - Affiliate Program Marketing Tips And Help

Good Advice for New Affiliates
from the Affiliate Blogger and the Affiliate Guild

25 Affiliate Tips To Success With Affiliate Marketing

1. Too much time building websites will bog you down. Make easy to maintain sites.

2. SEO does matter if you want targeted traffic.

3. Get a newsletter email opt-in on every page of every website you own.

4. Either get a forum or get a blog going. (Need one built?)

5. Write about your affiliate programs (article-repository.com). Tell everyone!

6. Focus on conversion not payout. Commissions are important though.

7. Get really, really niche.

8. Find affiliate programs that will be around awhile.

9. Find a search engine friendly cloaking script for your links.

10. There is more to affiliate life than Google! Diversify!

11. Learn about your affiliate programs and speak intellegently about them.

12. If you don't see what you want to represent, go get it. Consider your own affiliate network.

13. Make friends with Affiliate Managers ... and if you have a lot of traffic ask for a bigger percentage on payout.

14. Work with reputable leadership (affiliate guild)

15. Buy from the affiliate program if you want to know how they work. We do it.

16. Monetize your websites.

17. If you have enough traffic sell ad space. If you have good SEO ranking, charge more for ads.

18. Ask for the sale. Most affiliate program banners don't close sales, you must do it.

19. You must work 8-10+ hours daily to be a successful super affiliate.

20. Keep it really simple ... accomplish your goals with focused resources.

21. Find affiliate programs that offer a wide variety of advertising opportunities from banners to datafeeds.

22. Find affiliate programs that require strong marketing ethics and follow them, WIN-WIN.

23. Find affiliate programs that payout on schedule everytime. You're in control here!

24. Look for affiliate programs with affiliate tracking for phone sales you generate.

25. Look for affiliate programs with solid servers and software that works 100% of the time. Other affiliates write about the bad ones, so be aware and read the affiliate forums and blogs.

About the Author:
Bobbie Grennier is an SEO copywriter and SEO web site writer at www.SEO-Writing.com. She publishes several blogs, but you’re most likely to be interested in her blogs at www.affiliateblogger.com, webmaster.typepad.com and www.affiliate-marketers.net. Visit her web site www.wildwolf.ws for more SEO information or FREE reprint articles.

Keeping Super Affiliates Super

by Bobbie Grennier

What do all “super affiliates” want more than anything else? Let’s say it together, they want to get paid and get paid handsomely.

So, what does it take to keep super affiliates on their game and advertising for your business? Well, you could say money again and while that wouldn’t be wrong, the answer has a lot more to do with the assurance of potential for income.

You see some merchants are floundering with the concept of “the cookie” and how long a cookie should be set for. They think that if they shorten the lifespan of the cookie that they won’t keep paying for the affiliate to acquire the same lead several times. So, what you might see in various affiliate programs are merchants who short the affiliate by only giving them a 48-hour window to deliver a lead from the customer’s initial click-through.

Statistics show that most customers will visit a site an average of five times before completing the lead or sales process. I’m thinking that the merchant’s 48-hour window might be a wee bit narrow for the affiliates to get what they want from the transaction and a little short-sighted for the merchant since “super affiliates” aren’t likely to want to help them as a result.

That’s short-sighted thinking. Studies show 98% of sales come within the first 48 hours after a person clicks through to a site. If that’s the case, why wouldn’t you extend that cookie for the maximum time allowed, because it makes the affiliate happier. In fact, some affiliate networks are equipped to track sales as long as 180 days after initial click-through.

If it’s not glaringly obvious, let me say it simply for you. Super affiliates like merchants who set cookies for extended periods of time. The potential for income from their advertising efforts to your potential customers is much greater and for them, that translates to more income return for their efforts to market you.

Super affiliates are “basically, commissioned sales people with the whole world to work for, who can walk away at the drop of a hat. Super affiliates are in the driver’s seat in their relationships with marketers, not the marketers. So you should treat that affiliate as you would anyone in the power situation. They are top producing digital sales people, pay them well and make sure they’re happy.

So, what do all “super affiliates” want? To be paid well and to be ensured happiness throughout the process.

About the Author:
Bobbie Grennier is an SEO copywriter and SEO web site writer at www.SEO-Writing.com. She publishes several blogs, but you’re most likely to be interested in her Webmaster Blog at www.affiliateblogger.com, webmaster.typepad.com and www.affiliate-marketers.net. Visit her web sites www.wild-wolf.com or www.wildwolf.ws for more SEO information or FREE reprint articles.