Affiliate Programs
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Search Engine Optimization for Small Businesses
Internet Marketing for Small Businesses
Affiliate Programs
An Ideal Way to Achieve Income in the Internet Age
An increasingly popular way of promoting your online business is through affiliate programs. These are where other relevant websites put a link to your site (if you are a merchant selling a product or service), and you share the profits of any resulting sales. Alternatively, if you are an advertiser with a website, you may contact a merchant with a product or service appropriate to your site. Again, you share the profits. No additional money is spent on advertising or other overhead, and no money is exchanged unless a sale is made. A win-win situation, whichever way you look at it. Find out much more by getting the full information on affiliate marketing here.
Affiliate Programs - You as Merchant Client
Take the scenario of a business that has just built its first website. It's all very flashy, uses lots of gimmicks, has lots of animated graphics files, and sells the sizzle along with the sausage. Then after about a month the website owner realises there still aren't any sales. What's the problem?
The problem is that the website is overburdened with those gimmicks which take a long time to load and which cannot be read by the search engines (the engines can't read graphics, only text). Most importantly, potential visitors are all typing in words to the search engines that relate to the sausage, and not the sizzle. The result is that the site is buried on page 27 of the search engines instead of where it should be on page one. That's why nobody sees it. That's why there are no sales.
The hypothetical solution? Build a website that is highly optimised for the search terms that potential customers are typing into the search engines' search boxes. The result is that this website is now on page one of the major search engines. But the client hates it! Why? Because he is still in love with the flashy website that was his original dream. He insists on keeping his original website (after all, he probably paid thousands for it.)
The real solution: Find someone to set up a special highly optimised website, featuring a number of web pages each based around a number of keyphrase search terms that potential customers would type into the search boxes. Or find an existing website which has high web traffic relevant to your niche or market sector.
Set up a link from the site to your own site and in doing so drive web traffic to that site. Put in place a third party tracking system which monitors all traffic and sales. Enjoy the profits from the extra traffic to your site, and in return pay a percentage of sales to the website owner where all the extra traffic came from in the first place.
This is what affiliate programs consist of. Because payment is by performance and on a percentage of sales, and because there are no additional fees, it is a win-win situation for everyone and for this reason affiliate programs are increasingly very popular.
Find out much more by getting the full information on affiliate marketing here.
Affiliate Programs - You as Publisher/Advertiser
In this scenario you already have a website. Your traffic is good. You decide to seek extra revenue from this traffic by putting a link to another website which sells related (but not competing) products or services. As the owner of the website you are the publisher, and your affiliate client is the merchant. Every time one of your site visitors clicks on the link that goes to the merchant's site and makes a purchase you get a percentage of sales resulting from that. Again, everyone is happy because affiliate programs are a win-win situation. You are getting revenue that you would not have had before, and so is your merchant client. Find out much more by getting the full information on affiliate programs here.
Find out which affiliate programs to avoid by learning more about affiliate marketing here.
Affiliate Programs - How to Set Them Up
Firstly you must decide whether you are an affiliate merchant client (you have a product or service to sell) or are you a publisher, advertiser or webmaster (you have an existing website with plenty of traffic - upwards of 3,000 unique visitors (UVs) per month would be a realistic minimum figure).
If you are a merchant then you should sign up with a third party tracking service, to monitor visitors to your website and also to monitor sales from other affiliate sites where those sales originate via similar affiliate programs. It is important that this system is fair and transparent. It is particularly important that you gain the trust of your affiliates through the practice of honest reward. After all, if your affiliate has done the work of generating all that traffic for you then he or she should be rewarded with a decent percentage of sales. If your affiliates think that they are being deceived out of earnings they will simply drop your links and change them (easily done in a matter of minutes) in favour of another supplier, and here is your problem: the affiliate's website is optimised very tightly and specifically to what you produce, in terms of the keyword phrases and the descriptions used. So the only links that can be reasonably applied would be to a supplier of the same product or service - yes, to your competitor! So keep your affiliates onside.
Find out how to avoid the pitfalls by learning about affiliate marketing here.
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Affiliate Program network providers are suppliers who serve both the merchant and the affiliate. If you're an affiliate then go to their site and select the affiliate programs that are relevant to your website. If you're a merchant then just sign up with them and have your product or service listed there. Most will offer publicity to likely potential affiliate partners as part of their service, including email newsletters to their existing subscribers.
ClickBank. A well known supplier of digital or "virtual" products for purchase by your customers. If you sell things like e-books or informational material or anything that can be downloaded as a file, then this would be the obvious first choice. There is a one-off $49.95 activation fee per account, plus a charge of $1 plus 7.5% of each sale. You can sell up to 50 products through the same account. Click here for more information.
For a list of many more affiliate marketing providers click here.
Warning: If you plan to set up as an affiliate you should avoid certain affiliate programs. First and foremost, steer clear of any affiliate program that actually charges you to join it. There is absolutely no reason why any merchant or third party should charge a joining fee unless the product or service cannot sell itself - and that is the whole point of the exercise after all. Learn more about this by clicking here.
See also the section on Merchant Accounts, and alternatives to them (there's a plan to suit all budgets), on this website before returning to the Affiliate Programs page.
We will constantly try and update this page as new events occur of interest both to affiliates and merchants. Why not bookmark this page for future reference!
We are recommended by the Affiliate Programs Directory
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