Search Engine Optimization – Page 14

A Newbie Entry Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Business via the Internet space

With aid of the Internet (or the Web as it is often referred to) we can have almost everything right at our fingertips; and with just a few clicks we can get access to thousands, or even millions of pieces of data and relevant information on virtually any field of interest. And over the past two decades the Internet has – and continues to – effect torrential changes in many facets of human endeavors, including commerce, education, health and finance, among others.

Experts say that the information space, commonly known as the “World Wide Web,” grows by over a million pages everyday as more and more people utilize the Web for information, education, entertainment, business and other personal reasons. Moreover, it really doesn’t take a business-oriented individual to realize that this phenomenon can bring about substantial financial gains. That having been said, the unprecedented rapidity of growth in Internet use over the same two decade time span presents business opportunities that any entrepreneurial minded individual would jump at.

In view of the above, if you think that only business persons can make a lot of money from the Web, you might have to do some rethinking of this viewpoint, because you too – if you turn your attention to it – can earn big bucks through effective use of the Internet, even if you don’t have a product/service (‘product’) to sell, or a high-profile and established company. And if you are wondering, how? The answer is through affiliate marketing, which is a very popular Web-based business type you might have come across while surfing.

A win-win for merchant and affiliate

Affiliate Marketing is a revenue sharing system based on contracts and various “terms of use” guidelines agreed to between product owners (‘merchants’) and promoters/marketers (‘affiliates’) who get paid for referring customers to merchants’ sites, and/or promoting the merchants’ products and services on their own websites. It is one of the burgeoning Web-based industries because it is proven to be a cost-effective, efficient and quantifiable means of attaining significant earnings – most of which can be considered profit due to the very low to non-existent overhead – both for the merchant and the affiliate, as well as other players in the affiliate program (affiliate networks and affiliate solution providers).

Affiliate Marketing works effectively for the merchant and the affiliate; the former because s/he utilizes this method to advertise products to a larger market, which in turn increases the chances to earn more; and the latter because of the opportunity to market and sell products and get paid a commission without having to incur the expense of creating those products. The more affiliate websites or hard-working affiliates the merchant gets, the more sales s/he can expect; and by getting affiliates to market his/her products, s/he is saving time, effort and money it would take to look for possible markets and customers.

When a client clicks on a link in the affiliate website, purchases the product, recommends it to others who might be looking for the same item or buys it again, a merchant multiplies the chances of substantial earnings. On the other hand, an affiliate marketer benefits from each customer who clicks on the link in his website and who actually purchases the product or avails him/herself of the service provided by the merchant, because that affiliate gets paid a commission (percentage or fixed amount) for each sale made as a result of such clicks.

For the new affiliate

Consider for a moment that you wanted to be an affiliate marketer and, according to what you’ve learned, make your own small fortune from the Web. You would begin by following the three most basic and easiest steps to your own affiliate marketing business. First you would identify a particular item you are interested in, or passionate about, so you won’t be bored and forced to develop your affiliate website later on. Focusing on a specific area you know very well will help you bring out your best without much risks and effort.

Affiliate Marketing: How to make money and create an income

You can add a personal touch to your site and give your visitors, who are potential buyers, an impression that you are an expert in your field. This way you can gain their trust and eventually encourage them to buy the products you endorse. Next is to look for good paying merchants and products or services related to your interest and create now a website; but make sure, while choosing your affiliate products, that you must consider their conversion rate (the number of visitors-turned-buyers).

Keep in mind also that there are various affiliate networks and affiliate solution providers that can provide you with information on the most popular, in-demand and profitable products along with the best paying merchants; so the key here is to be wise enough to choose the right one(s). Now that you have decided where to concentrate, have chosen the products to endorse and the merchant(s) you are supporting and have created your own website with a top level domain name and reliable hosting, you are ready to promote.

Start promoting

Promoting is a crucial task, since it is through this activity that you would be able to drive traffic to your business website, increase sales and of course, make a profit. In affiliate marketing, it is entirely possible to earn large sums of money in a short period of time, especially when you’re endorsing high-priced items. Expensive products are hard to sell; but with the right marketing strategies and sales techniques, you can attract visitors to your site, redirect them to the merchant’s site and entice them to buy products.

Techniques, strategies and methods of how to best promote the products would, however, need a separate article and discussion; so in the meantime, just continue to educate yourself by reading affiliate marketing guides, books (ebooks) or other online articles about the best advertising techniques. Remember that there is really no facility for a quick path to success; because while affiliate marketing may seem very tempting due to the numerous encouraging testimonies of merchants and affiliate marketers alike who have benefited from it, it still entails a great deal of hard work and persistence.

Likewise, you need to be creative, flexible and willing to embrace new ideas to market your partners’ products until you find the perfect strategy that works for a specific market which you are targeting. Neither signing up for an affiliate program nor copying ads and leading others towards the merchants’ site guarantees success; and many affiliate marketers fail to understand this, leading them to quit when they don’t make sales and start looking for other programs with which they invariably repeat the same mistake.

Persisting through failure

This type of failure due to inconsistency, impatience and misinterpretation of what the affiliate marketing business is all about and how it should be conducted often lead the unsuccessful “would-be” affiliate to conclude that affiliate marketing is just one of those scams in the Web. The truth is that even as you’re asleep, you can work your way to great financial success if you employ the right strategies in affiliate marketing. So be smart, be creative and be persistent in your affiliate marketing business and surely, you’ll achieve success in affiliate marketing.

As a token of our appreciation the free ebook titled, Storytelling Marketing can be yours if you have any interest in the art of storytelling. All you have to do is download it here, enjoy the reading and learn how storytelling can be a powerful ally in any business or marketing pursuit!

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About Affiliate Systems and Search Engines

Affiliate system for business

Considered by many Web-based businesses to be the catalyst that drives website visitors and converts them from simple referrals into paying customers, affiliate systems will often enable a business to generate a lot of traffic, thereby boosting sales through promotion by third party entities via their websites. Affiliate marketing is also a cost effective method by which a company can advertise its products and services, as they pay for only those efforts that result in actual sales.

That having been said, if you own a business – Web-based or otherwise – and you’re considering setting up your own affiliate system, you should understand that such a project will require a few hours of good planning and diligent research; because it can either be relatively easy or stressfully overwhelming, depending on how many affiliates you want to recruit. However, despite how much planning and research you do, there is still a more important aspect of an affiliate program: your payment policy and the type of product you will be offering.

As for the actual affiliate systems, there are basically two options that might be suitable for your business – outsourcing the entire system or run your own affiliate system through your web hosting account. Each one boasts unique advantages as well as disadvantages. If you decide on a small number of affiliates you can run your own affiliate software; but if you plan to recruit a large number of affiliates, then you will probably need to outsource, because dealing with a large number of sign ups, track payments and monitoring clicks could be overwhelming.

Types of affiliates

There are numerous types of affiliates out there to choose from; but pay per sale may be the most advantageous, since the affiliate is paid only if a sale is generated from his/her link. Of course it’s the least attractive method to affiliates, unless the product is in high demand and the most profitable for their business.

Another affiliate type is the pay per lead, where you – merchant or product page owner – pay only for traffic. With this type, the affiliate is paid only if a visitor is generated from his/her site; and this method is attractive to affiliates although more costly to merchants or product page owners due to the possibility of non sale visits.

Considerations

When setting up an affiliate program, something to take into consideration is whether or not you will approve affiliates manually or automatically. It’s normally recommended to start affiliate programs with your established customer sites then progress to new ones, because existing customers are known quantities who have already shown their loyalty, possess firsthand knowledge of your product(s) and are trustworthy. Any new affiliate applicants can be approved manually until you feel comfortable with, and can afford the expected fallout from, automatic approval.

Also, if you are dealing with a pay per click system, you may have to control the affiliates since the quality of visitors will be a huge factor when it comes to the generation of sales; and by manually reviewing this category of affiliates, you’ll also be able to evaluate the website of each individual affiliate to see if it’s in the best interest of your company.

If you decide to use your own affiliate system, one of your biggest challenges will be how to pay affiliates a percentage of what you end up receiving from customers. To do this, you can rely on software such as Affiliate shop to help you track and manage commissions.

Keep in mind that there are other concerns of affiliate programs and the overall affiliate marketing business that must also be taken into consideration when embarking on an affiliate program/system installation. One such concern is how your affiliates’ actions/activities reflect on your business in terms of spam, fraud, plagiarism and the search engines; and while we will not delve into all those areas at this time, it is important to touch on one of these topics.

Marketing through search engines

The landscape of search engines have gone through some drastic changes over the years; not only with technology, but also with various partnerships among the many different search companies as well; and having a workable knowledge of these changes will have a significant impact on your affiliate program; because knowing where your traffic is originated from will be instrumental in reducing fraud, spam and theft.

In other words your potential customers, as well as your affiliates, could be running their search engine queries on a particular search engine, although the company which is actually generating the results could be a totally different entity altogether. So we’ve put together a list of popular search engines which are credible and trusted by most so you will be able to recognize certain traits as they relate to each one:

Google, Yahoo and Bing

Google provides the primary search engine results to Google AOL Search as well as Netscape. Google also supplies paid listings to Lycos, Ask, Netscape, AOL Search, and HotBot; while supplying secondary results to HotBot and receiving it’s directory data from DMOZ.

Yahoo provides the primary search results for Yahoo search, Alta Vista, and AllTheWeb, and receives paid listings from Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly known as Overture).

Bing is the most recent of the big three search engines and was introduced to the Web by Microsoft. It was previously known as Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search; but in July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search, whereby all of Yahoo! Search global customers and partners would be transitioned to the new entity. Transition was completed in 2012.

Secondary search engines

Lycos, Hotbot and Ask – Receives the directory search results from DMOZ, primary results from Ask, and paid listings from Google AdWords.

HotBot – Receives directory search results from DMOZ, primary search results from Ask, and paid/secondary results from Google AdWords.

Ask – Provides primary results to Ask, HotBot, and Lycos. It receives secondary search results from Teoma and the directory results from DMOZ, with paid listings from Google AdWords.

In relations to marketing in general, and affiliate marketing in particular, search engines can provide anything you want to know; and if someone is looking for something they normally refer to the search engines. When they type it in, the highest sites on the engines will show – which is normally where the visitor will go (hopefully your product page will be one of the destinations).

By keeping good position on the search engines, you’ll be one of the first sites for visitors who are looking for a certain product that you offer. You can make a lot of money with search engines as well, if you know what you are doing; but you can also coordinate search engine traffic with your top and most trusted affiliates in a way that will award the affiliates while keeping those referrals in the fold for nurturing and eventually converting into paying customers.