10 Sizzling Tips For Affiliates

1. Create an infopacked mini site. Build your mini site for a specific niche audience and then choose affiliate programs specifically for that niche audience.

2. Test and track your ads and promotions for your affiliate programs.

Tracking and testing your ads will show you exactly which ads, promotions and affiliate programs pay off the most for you and are excellent choices for you to continue to promote.

3. Publish an ezine.

Your ezine will give you a powerful way to promote your affiliate programs to your subscribers.

Choose affiliate programs that relate to the content of your ezine and that make it worth your while to promote them.

4. Promote your affiliate programs by recommending their products.

You could recommend your affiliate programs to your ezine subscribers in your publisher's note or you could create a recommended resources section where you promote your affiliate programs in every issue.

You could also recommend your affiliate programs to your visitors by creating a recommended affiliate programs section where you list your favorite affiliate programs along with descriptions of their products or services.

In addition, you could create a best affiliate programs section that helps you build up your second tier by listing the affiliate programs that have paid off the most for you.

5. Write product reviews where you detail the benefits you like about your affiliate program's product.

Make your product reviews honest and hype f~ree and post them on your site along with your other articles.

6. Write your own ads for your affiliate program.

A good way to create your ads is to look at the ad copy on the site of the business you want to promote and also ads they provide for their affiliates to use, and use their unique selling proposition or USP to write your ads.

Their unique selling proposition is a unique benefit that they promote in their ad copy that their competitors don't stress or offer to their visitors.

It could be that their product saves lots of time, is easy to understand, that their product is a complete answer to a problem, or it could involve their price.

Some businesses develop more than one USP so you'll be able to choose the one that you think works best in getting more targeted visitors to their site.

7. Try out the support of the companies you want to promote by asking questions.

This will help you to find out how long it takes them to respond to emails (if they respond to emails) and how professional they are.

8. Create freebies that promote your affiliate programs.

You could offer your visitors a f~ree email course, an ebook filled with your tips or articles or an ebook that provides your visitors with places to promote their businesses.

When creating freebies for an affiliate program that is 2 tier, increase your profits by letting your affiliates in your second tier use your freebies as a promotional item.

9. Create a directory.

Your directory could be an article, ezine, ebook or affiliate program directory.

List your own resources within your directory to increase your commissions. For example, you could add your own affiliate programs to your affiliate programs directory or your ebooks to your ebook directory.

Add a what's new section to your directory to garner more repeat traffic from your visitors.

You could also provide a tutorial on the subject of your directory, or add things to your directory that your visitors can use on a regular basis to get more repeat traffic.

10. Run ezine ads for your affiliate programs.

You could purchase sponsor, feature, classified or solo ads for your affiliate program.

Choose ezines with subscribers targeted to be interested in the products of the business you want to promote.

Run your ads for multiple issues in a row when possible to maximize the profit you get from your ads.

You can also run f~ree ads in ezines as many ezines offer
f~ree advertising on a weekly, monthly or per issue basis to
get more new subscriptions.

Running f~ree ads can help you find out which ads work best,
and which ezines are most responsive before you purchase
ezine advertising.

Article by writer, Ken Hill. Get more marketing tips by
joining Ken's Top Notch Marketing Ezine at:
http://www.netpromarketer.com/

Affiliate Programs - The Best Ones to Start

by: John Farina

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS - GOOD STARTERS



Affiliate programs are possibly the easiest type of online business to start running. Why?

Well, in order to start any online business you need a product or service to sell. First, you need to create the product. Then, you will have to create a website, write advertisements and set up a marketing plan. If it's a physical product you are selling then you're going to be limited by the amount of time it takes to make or buy the item, package it and ship it. Then, there's the issue of accepting payments and filling orders. We haven't even started talking about refunds and returns!

This is a daunting task especially if you've never run an internet business.

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS ARE THE ANSWER

So, what ARE affiliate programs?

Affiliate programs allow you to be the "sales force" for someone else's product or service and earn commissions for each sale. You may be pretty internet savvy without ever noticing that many companies offer you the ability to become an affiliate. Check for the "affiliate program" links which are placed in a discreet manner on many sites. One big advantage is that you do not need to build a website (though you can) or handle the transaction or fill the order. Your job is to drive traffic (customers) to your affiliate link. When a sale is made, the affiliate will send you a commission!

Signing up to become an affiliate is usually a pretty simple task. It usually involves filling out a web page providing some basic information about yourself. In turn, the company will give you an affiliate link. This is a special URL code that will identify that a customer came to the company's site from your advertising. It is usually the website address with a code attached to the end.

What Commissions Does the Program Pay?

It is very important that you know how much you can expect to earn from a sale. There is no point in spending time and money promoting a product that pays very small commissions. You could end up spending more on marketing than you make on sales. It is probably best to stick with marketing products with a high commission value, unless you have found a niche market where you can sell vast quantities of product, and make substantial commissions on your volume of sales.

Click Here for Great Deals on VOIP Internet Phone, Free Cell Phones, and Satellite TV!

How Much Traffic is their Website Getting?

Try to discover the amount of traffic the affiliate owner's website is already receiving. Alexa.com is a very useful tool for doing this research. If the website is ranked in the top 100,000, the merchant is getting a good volume of traffic, so it's possible that there may already be too many affiliates. If it is ranked below 500,000 it may be no good, or it could be a golden opportunity to make some real money by becoming one of the first affiliates!

Always research a merchant's product if their website has a low traffic ranking. It may be a good idea to buy the product yourself if you can afford it. Otherwise you could do a search to find out if there are any negative reviews about it on the internet. Be careful who you listen to though because many people are in the habit of bashing affiliate programs with nothing to really support their comments. If you find a large amount of negative reviews with little positive ones then it would probably be a good idea to stay away from that affiliate program.

How Often Are Affiliate Commissions Paid?

Some affiliate programs pay commissions every week; some once a month, others only pay every quarter. It is important that you know how often you can expect a pay check if you are going to have financial control over your business. Do you have the financial resources to continue to market a product if you have to wait a long time before you get paid? It would also be wise to find out the minimum commission that you have to earn before you get paid.

Does The Affiliate Program Use Tracking Cookies?

Many customers do not buy on their first visit to a merchant's website. It is important therefore that the merchant uses cookies for their affiliate program, so that you get credit if the customer returns and buys at a later date. Check out how long the cookies last. The longer the cookies lasts; the better the chances of you getting paid!

Does the Affiliate Program Pay on Subsequent Sales?

Some programs will only pay commission on sales that come through customers visiting their site via a direct link from your site. They pay you nothing for any subsequent purchases that the customer makes if they visit the merchants site directly. It is important that you get paid no matter what route the customer returns by if you are to build a sustainable affiliate business.

What Marketing Resources Does the Affiliate Program Offer?

Look at the type and quality of the marketing resources that they provide. Do they provide articles, advertisements, or other content that you can use to put on your site? Do they provide free guides, special offers, free viral e-books, or product samples that you can send to your list? If the marketing material they provide is good then it is likely that the business will provide good support for their affiliates.

Finding the right affiliate program for you can be tough to do. The best advice is to do your own research, follow the advice above, and listen to your instincts. Use the above questions as an aid to finding an affiliate program that enables you to reach your financial goals. You never know... You might just strike affiliate marketing gold!

Is their website professional?

Your reputation is on the line every time you promote a product or service. If you're sending your traffic to a website that is on free hosting or just looks unprofessional, then you're going to lose the confidence of your subscribers. Now, many sales letters aren't 'pretty' but they are grammatically correct, and everything is functional, with pictures and testimonials. So, although the website doesn't have to be beautiful, it does need to look 'live'.

Is their website easy to navigate?

If shoppers can't figure out how to purchase, then there's no point in sending your traffic there.

What are the numbers?

If you have two programs you like equally well, you can choose between them or write reviews for each and compare and contrast their benefits. Or, if that doesn't fit into your site, then test both to see which gives you the best results.

Free trial?

Any product that offers samples or service that offers a free trial deserves a look. If you can offer your website visitors a sample of any sort to get them hooked, you'll have much higher results than trying to convince them that the product is good.

Are there any tools to help you? Try out these free programs if you like

The best affiliate programs go above and beyond in their tools and resources section. Not only do they provide the standard text links and buttons and banners, but you also have solo mailings, articles, and even product feeds. These are the affiliate programs that 'get it'.

Once you find an affiliate program that you love, it's still smart to continue to test the results. Just because you think it's great doesn't mean you visitors will. Continually look at the statistics to see how much traffic you're sending and if any of it is converting. If you're not getting results and you're sending a lot of traffic, then you might want to look at a new program.

----------------------------------------------

About The Author

John J Farina is a successful affiliate marketer. He provides expert reviews on which affiliate programs to join and which ones to avoid like the plague. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at: http://www.johnnysreviewsite.com