Category: Monetization

Affiliate marketing is one of the hottest home business opportunities around.  With some basic training, you can easily set up an affiliate business and get started in a couple of weeks.

Affiliate programs are the best way for you to sell someone else’s products or service and get paid for it.  Selling through an affiliate program is a great way to sell on the Internet without getting knee-deep in product.

You market the product or service online (that includes websites, emails, forums, blogs as well as paid advertising). The company then is responsible for the product; they process the payments, ship the merchandise, and handle any complaints.  You provide the marketing and get the commission. Brilliant!

Say you own a website giving people information about Jazz Music. You could place links to products related to Jazz Music, CD’s, download sites, etc. on your website. When your visitors click on your links they will go to the website you are promoting. If they buy, you will be paid a commission. Not bad for providing information huh?

You can find affiliate programs just about everywhere these days.  A good way to find programs you’d like to join is by doing a search on your chosen topic.  See what your competition is doing for a place to start. The affiliate networks such as ClickBank and Commission Junction are great places to look as well.

Look everywhere you shop online. Check the web sites for the words affiliate or partners. You’ll soon see there are almost no merchants online today who don’t have some sort of affiliate program.  If you’re going to have a website or blog, you should definitely have affiliate links.

When you register for your chosen affiliate program you will receive your own personal ID number. When you place your link to the website you’re promoting on your website, you will use a link address which includes your unique ID. Anyone who makes a purchase via your personal link racks up commissions for you. These commissions are paid based on the pay schedule of that particular program.

There are a number of products which show you the ins and outs of starting your affiliate business. Check the resource box of this article to get the two best and most economical products on the market today. Each of these products is guaranteed by the product owner and each has its strong points. The most important one being, you get the information you need without spending a fortune.

Easy as pie?  Right? The truth is, you will probably need one of the resource products to get things set up; but I wouldn’t spend a lot of money on them. Check out the recommended products to get you started. Above all, get started. You won’t earn until you learn. Good luck!

Huge amounts of People are swarming to the Internet in hopes of creating an online net working business. Many have done just that and gone on to replace their day job. How exciting is that? The opportunities are there they just have to be found and then taken advantage of. Many times people either are afraid or don’t have the patience it takes to be successful. If you are one of these people you have to take chances in life to be successful. Most of the Top Affiliate Programs are very inexpensive, many times free to join and easily affordable so give yourself a chance at the American Dream.

I see so many searches for affiliate programs on the Internet. You see searches for phrases like affiliate program, top affiliate program,
best affiliate program, free affiliate program and best affiliate program.

Many people are looking to start what they believe to be a top affiliate program. There are a lot of programs out there to choose from and many of them are scams. What does a person do that want or better yet must sift through the masses of programs.

In most of my articles you will find that I always suggest that you either use a website like mine that has an Affiliate Program page where my top programs are highlighted. There are many good web sites available to help you, whether you use mine or someone else’s is up to you. Either way you need to use a good web site or be prepared to spend hours doing the research yourself. It can be done and you can be successful.

It is no wonder why many people have a burning desire to start working from home. I can tell you from my own experience it is very relaxing and quite enjoyable.

It is very important to understand that you can create a huge income, but it takes time. You will have to put forth some time and effort to be successful. Many times I find that visitors that frequent my site will join other data entry, online paid survey programs or which ever programs they like to create some additional income while they build their business. When you have some nice money coming in it helps keep your enthusiasm up.

You will need to do the following to get your exciting new work at home endeavor started:

1. Pick 1-3 programs that you feel will meet you long-term goals.
2. You will need a computer, access to the Internet and some extra time.
3. You should set up separate email address if possible.
4. Join the programs and get started.
5. Put forth the efforts required and have the necessary patience required to ensure your success.

In summary there are many good programs to choose from so do your research, choose from the best affiliate programs and take the next step. Do your research, choose the programs that you feel comfortable with, that meet your long-term financial goals, join and start creating income from the comfort of your home.

Please feel free to read more of this article by visiting my link in the resource box below. I always enjoy getting emails pertaining to my articles or my site. Your feedback is important to me.

Blogs seem to be everywhere now, even making it into the dictionary.  So what is a blog and what can it do for your home based business?  A blog is simply an online journal that, when used strategically, and boost your sales and allow to you network more effectively.

Blogs can be a simple method for advertising and showing off what you have to offer to the wide range of internet users.  More and more people are turning to blogs to gain information on specific topics or products, and you can use that blog-surfing to your advantage by tailoring your blog messages to that audience.  This method of boosting sales can save you a lot of money over other media outlets.

However, there is an art to blogging for business so that your blog does not read like one big catalog of press releases or sales pitches.  Learning effective ways to offer your consumers information while leading the reader into what you have to offer takes effort.  Blogging for business means that you keep your focus on what your consumers are looking for from your home based business.  This way you will keep your blogging for business fresh and interesting for your clientele.

So how do you get started blogging for business?  If you have no experience with blogs at all, you should check out various blogs on the internet.  They really are everywhere, and they span a range of topics including politics, fashion, music, business, technical information, and more.  If you have an interest, there is a blog out there for it.  See how other companies are blogging for business, and take note of the language used and the effective use of the blog to increase networking and sales.

As you take note of how others are blogging for business, you can begin practicing by creating a simple blog for yourself.  If you are unfamiliar with the technical aspect of blogging for business, you may want to start out by creating a personal blog using a simple blogging site like BlogSpot or Live Journal.  These sites allow you to start a blog for free, and you will get used to blogging on a regular basis.  Plus these sites allow you to blog without having to learn the technical language of html, which for most people can be rather complex.

Once you get your basics down pat, you can begin blogging for business.  Promoting your home based business with a website is important, but creating a blog can add a whole new dimension to your home based business website.  Not only can you voice your opinions on trends to watch in the industry and offer advice for your consumers, but blogs also allow your consumers to respond.  Blogging for business will allow you to see directly how your thoughts and practices are affecting your consumers.

Blogging for business is a new and inexpensive way for your to promote and network for your home based business.  If you are unfamiliar with blogs, then do your research and practice before you begin blogging for business.  If you don’t have a way with words, then you may want to work with a writer that can help you with your copy for your blog.  After all, when you are blogging for business, you want to make sure your blog represents your home based business while also generating a network of ideas and thinking.

Domain name – this is a word that seems to affect large number of people around the world. A word that becomes a mainstream name for everybody and a word that leads to the establishment of so many businesses today. Well, these are just common descriptions for domain names, and many people often react this way when they hear this thing.

Today, numerous studies have been conducted to show the situation of the domain name industry. And recently, there came a report about the domain name sales and usage that shows the domain name continues to rise.

Speaking of this report about the domain name sales and usage, it has actually been reported by the Network World ISP News Report Newsletter coming from the VeriSign that the domain name sales and usage continues to rise nowadays. It is considered that as a signal of the recovery of the internet industry, both of the domain name sales and usage gave certain idea about the solid growth of the domain name sales and usage during the first quarter of the year 2004.

In relation to such recent report about the domain name sales and usage, there comes a truth as the VeriSign’s Domain Name Industry Brief stated that the average number of domain name registrations reached an all time high of 64.5 million just during the second quarter of the year 2004. And according to numerous studies, such truth about the overall percentage domain name sales and usage is up to 2.4 percent over the first quarter of 2004 and is also up for 7 percent during the year-end for 2003.

Speaking of the domain name sales, there are still even more significant several statistics that shows how the domain name sales and usage soar. One of those statistics shows that the domain name sales and usage is much elevated today than it was at the zenith of the advent of the internet. In line with that, the report shows that on average, the VeriSign domain name company alone processes more than 14 billion for two top notch top level domain names, the .com and the .net queries each day. For these two top level domain names, the company processes for up to 8 billion last year and 2 billion in 2000.

Here came another support for that statistics which shows that 64 percent of all top level domain names such as .com and .net domain names are link to live web sites, which are up from 61 percent a year ago. Also considerable is the report showing the situation of the domain sales and usage which states that the percentage of parked web sites, which are said so because they are not actively being used but then are associated with a domain name, has in fact dwindled from 12 percent last year to 8 percent this year.

Finally, it is also explained in the report for the domain name sales and usage sake that the rates of renewal for top level domain names such as .com and .net have recoiled from a low of 45.7 percent in the first quarter of the year 2003 and then reach a new height of 72 percent in the second quarter of 2004.

From such reports alone, the domain name sales and usage really grow and will continue to grow for the next coming years.

After you create a blog that is interesting, now it is time to start making money.  The second step of getting visitors is the most important, if you plan on making money. The third step is choosing how you will make money from your blog.  You should try to keep your blog on the same topic on all your post, being that you can have an unlimited number of blogs, you can have a blog for any and every topic you choose.  Make sure to start a new blog if you are totally off the main subject of the blog that you are posting to.

Blogger and several other free blog companies make it very simple to have a brand new blog up and running in a matter of a few minutes. Try not to post an article about dogs on a blog about golf. Once you have an interesting blog on one particular topic, the best place to start making money is Google AdSense.  Blogger has made it very simple to add AdSense ads to your blog.
The ads that show up on your blog will be targeted towards the topic of your blog, which means if you have a blog about dogs, the ads that show up on your blog will deal with pets. It’s like Google is paying you to advertise on your blog.

Another way to make money with your blog is with affiliate programs.  Companies will pay you good money to  advertise their products, and all you have to do is put a link or banner on your blog leading to that companies web site. Once a sale is made the company gives you a commission. That is the reason you should pick one topic for your blog.  If you want to have a blog about your life, by all means do it, but have other blogs about specific topics if you want to make money.

Once you find a topic that interest you, look for affiliate programs for that particular topic.  With the dog blog example, there are several dog training products that you can have links and banners to on a dog blog that will make good money. ClickBank is the top company when it comes to affiliate products, they have over 10,000 products to choose from.  Browse their products to see which ones you would like to promote. Obviously you want to pick something that fits the topic of your blog, but don’t limit yourself to just one, you can change a product you are promoting with a few clicks.

The internet is the essence of marketing, by that I mean, every word in an ad matters, every color, where the ad is located on your blog, whether is is blinking or not, and the color of the text.  It might not seem like all of those things matter, but the fact is, everything that you decide matters.  The good thing is you can experiment with how your blog looks as much as you want.  There are several e-books written on how you should place and where you should place them, in the beginning, just go with the basic blog set-up until you get the hang of things.

You would rarely find these days a household or person who does not have access to a computer or the Internet. Thus, it is needless to say that if you are running a business it is important to make use of the advantage of the web. But marketing online has never been easier. There are steps you have to consider to successfully market your business online.

1. You need to obtain a good domain name. A domain name refers to the internet address that allows computer users to find your site. In choosing your domain name make sure that it is easy to spell and easy to remember. Likewise, make sure that it has not been trademarked by another person.
2. Create a professional looking site. People often look for websites that they feel they can trust. If your site radiates an aura of professionalism, visitors will be encouraged to stay for a while and even make a purchase. Bear in mind that the website is a reflection of your business so as much as possible make it radiate the professionalism in you.
3. Build a site that is easy to navigate. Nothing can discourage a visitor than a site that takes ages to load. If your site takes longer than twenty second to load, chances are visitors will click away from your site. Make sure that it is easy for your visitors to find what they need to know. Take a look at some of the great sites out there. Studying their site can help you plan how to design your website.
4. Build an email list. Email marketing is one of the best and cheapest ways to market online. It is ok to send email notices about your products or services to people who have shown interest in your company. This is one way of communicating with your customers and potential customers. You have to make sure though that you have set forth a Privacy Policy on how you will use any personal information. Likewise, remember that emails are still considered as personal forms of communication so make your letter conversational and friendly.
5. Buying banner ads can enhance the visibility of your site. Just make sure that the ad is visually appealing with link to a particular page on your site.
6. Provide great customer service. A satisfied customer will keep on coming back to your site. Thus, give great customer service support all the time.

These are just a few tips to consider in successfully marketing your business online. There are other ways to make you business shine in the virtual market. But consider adding these marketing options in your promotional arsenal.

Setting up an internet shop can be very confusing and bewildering, especially if you are someone with very limited technical knowledge. With hoards and hoards of solutions available, offered by thousands upon thousands of website design companies and software developers, it is easy to choose a system that may not necessarily suit your business. Many companies have spent a lot of money on their ecommerce website solution, only to find that it does not work for their business. Unfortunately for them, this usually means a trip back to the drawing board, arguments with their developer and inevitably the need to spend more money so that  the site will work in exactly the way they want to.

So what can be done to make sure that the shopping cart solution you choose is the right one for your business? First of all, you must have a clear idea of what you want to achieve from the site. Spend some time to make good notes and write down a clear and concise plan and method of operation for your site. If will help very much if you take a good look at your competitor’s websites, especially the successful ones.
Visit your competitors sites, browse through the various sections, making notes about the  structure of the pages ,the site navigation and anything else of interest. Ask yourself questions as you check through the site. Are you able to quickly find the items you are searching for? Is the checkout system simple to use? These are just some of the elements you should be looking at. Compile as much information as you can, take the best constituents and combine them with your own ideas to create a well defined and structured plan of what you need. Once you have put together a well thought out site plan with all the required features, it will make up good a brief that can be worked on by a website designer.

How you go about turning your site plan into an actual website will depend on the budget you have to spend. There are many options that can be explored, from shopping cart software that will enable you to build your online store yourself through ready built, off the shelf solutions right up to completely bespoke programmed websites built from the ground up by a competent web development company.
What ever route you take, you should spend time researching the various systems and improving your knowledge so that you can make the right decision before committing  yourself to spending lots of time or money on your project.

Although you can spend a small fortune getting your on line store up a running, you really don’t have to. There are simple to use systems which use tried and tested technology to get you up and running in a short period of time. Many of these systems don’t require you to have any technical knowledge either.

To take credit card payment for goods online you will have to make use of a web based payment gateway. There are many to choose from but all of the payment processing solutions make profits by charging you a percentage of the transaction fee, so you must make sure to take this into consideration when calculating you profit margins.  Look for an  ecommerce systems that is readily configured to use the payment gateway you choose. This way, once you have opened your merchant, account all you need do to start to take credit card payments through your website is enter your merchant account number into a web page form in your site admin.

All the products that you want to sell online are ready. You have already signed up with the Google Adsense program or with other affiliate marketing programs and you have already prepared the ad you want to post on your affiliate’s site. Your mind is now set to being the next most successful online businessman. But is there anything else that you might have forgotten to prepare? Maybe none. But how about your landing pages? Are they all set for your business?

Landing pages are simply web pages where visitors are directed to whenever they click a result in a web search or whenever they click a web ad. For affiliate marketing, landing pages would refer to the web page where you, as a merchant, would want your potential customer to be directed after clicking your ad on your affiliate’s website. Landing pages are, at most times, nothing really different from other web pages in a particular website, especially if the said website is an e-commerce site. Some online businessmen would even use the homepage of their websites as the landing page for their ads. Are these businessmen making a big mistake? Or should you follow their method in creating landing pages for their ads?

Well, you can always follow what most online retailers do, directing their potential customers to the homepages of their websites. But if you want to achieve something more from your online business, and if you want to earn a lot of profits, you better create a special landing page for your web ads. Why? Here are a few reasons why you need to use landing pages for your web ads. And take note, it would do you a lot better if you create a great landing page than a so-so one.

Reason no. 1: It is the only way you earn conversions in an affiliate marketing program.

There are a variety of affiliate marketing programs today, but most of these programs let the merchant pay the affiliate in a pay per click basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up with the program and submit your ad. The program owner would then distribute your ad to various affiliates who would then place your ad on their websites. Whenever your ad is clicked, a visitor would be directed to your landing page and you would have to pay the affiliate for his service.

As a merchant, you earn in an affiliate program through conversions that is whenever a visitor that is directed to your site actually buys a product on your site. Without these conversions, you actually earn nothing from the program. Also, the more visitors that your affiliates have directed to your site, the larger would your expense be. And the only way that you can recover from these expenses is through conversions.

Now, you sure won’t get any conversion if you have posted an ad on your affiliate’s site without an actual landing page for the potential customer to be redirected into. It’s just like advertising a product without actually having a store to sell your product. Your advertisement may be enticing enough to encourage people to purchase a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product

It is therefore important to have landing pages for your ads because it is the only way for you to earn something in an affiliate program. Without landing pages, all you do is spend money paying your affiliates without actually getting anything in return.

Reason no. 2: Other web pages may just not be enough.

Many people make the mistake of making their website’s homepage as the landing page for their ads. The same is true for those who make use of other pages like a “contact us” page or a product page. Homepages are often designed to serve multiple users and contains a lot of links to other pages or to other websites. The same is with the other two pages mentioned. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, we’re sure that you don’t want your landing page to cater to the needs of various people, most of which may not be really interested with your product.

When choosing a landing page, you must always have the customer directed into that page in mind. Therefore, your landing page must be relevant to the keywords and the contents you placed on your ad. It is also important that the landing page can induce your visitor to take action that is to purchase your product or at least provide leads for potential customers.

Final Word

You probably entered into an affiliate marketing program with these things in mind: to save on advertising expenses and to gain more profit. But if you get into an affiliate marketing program without actually having a landing page, you’ll end up paying too much without getting anything in return. So if you still don’t have a landing page for your ads, you better start creating one now. And don’t get us wrong; it isn’t enough for you to have just a landing page it should be a great landing page!