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 The easiest business to start on the
internet is an affiliate business. You don't need a
product because you have thousands of products available
to you. All you need is a website idea.
There are no products to stock, you don't have to do your
own customer service. All you have to do is promote the
product.
On the other hand, starting an affiliate business can be
the hardest type of business to start. You are competing
against hundreds, maybe even thousands of other
affiliates. You need a competitive edge to help you make
more sales and distinguish yourself from other affiliates.
Below are seven solutions for helping you develop the
ultimate affiliate business and make more sales.
1. Link Cloaking There are advantages and
disadvantages to cloaking your links.
The major advantage is that it protects your commissions.
Visitors to your site won't know exactly where the link
goes so they can't hijack your commissions.
The major disadvantage is that the search engines have a
problem with redirects. They will reject any redirect that
doesn't go where it is supposed to.
You can solve that with the right link cloaker. Free Link
Cloaker - http://click-4-more.com/on/Free-Link-Cloaker.html
- is a tool that you can set up on your site to cloak your
links that your commissions don't get hijacked. It's very
easy to use, and it will make it look like the page is on
your site.
This cloaker is also very similar to many products you see
on the internet selling for $59 or more.
2. Keyword Search Before developing your site, or
planning any marketing campaigns, you need to make sure
that you choose the right keywords. Choose the wrong
keywords, and your marketing plan will fail.
Niche Keywords - http://www.easytoolbox.com/cgi-bin/keywords/nichekeywords.cgi
- will help you find the right keywords for marketing your
business, as well as optimizing your site for the search
engines.
3. Affiliate Program Search Finding the right
affiliate programs for your new business is crucial. You
want to create multiple income streams, as well as
different combinations of programs.
These programs include one time sales, as well as
recurring commissions on products like memberships. You
can also earn commissions for referring others to
services.
Something to keep in mind when choosing your affiliate
programs is that you want to look for programs that pay
high commissions. You don't want to waste your efforts
promoting a program where you only get a few dollars for a
lot of hard work.
These two sites will help you find affiliate programs, as
well as alert you to new programs as they become
available.
http://www.websitemarketingtactics.com/blog/2005/04/affiliates-alert-free-software.html
http://www.associateprograms.com/search/free-software.shtml
4. Affiliate Program Management You will make a lot
more money from your affiliate programs if you track and
manage your programs, as well as track and manage your
commissions.
This will help you see what programs work best for you,
and what is selling the best. Then you can concentrate on
promoting those programs.
Personal Affiliate Manager - http://www.georgecain.com/PersonalAffiliateManager.htm
- is a free software that will not only keep track of all
of your affiliate programs, it will help you find new
ones.
You can also use it to track your commissions and keep
records of the money that you have made. This software
will also create affiliate reports for you, and it's free.
5. Landing Pages
If you promote using any type of Adwords program, or you
have a direct response site where you are building a list,
then you need some type of software or online tool to help
you build your landing pages. This is especially important
if you don't know anything about HTML.
Landing Page Builder - http://www.landingpagebuilder.com
- this is a donationware software. This means that if you
like the software, you can make a donation to help the
program owner.
The beauty of this software is that you can use it to help
you build landing pages, and you can build as many as you
want.
Google Publisher - http://www.googlepublisher.com/index.html
- This online tool allows you to build pages that have
Google Adsense already incorporated into the page. All you
have to do is add your Google Adsense Publisher ID.
This is especially helpful if you have a MAC instead of a
PC because you can build your pages online. Also, you
don't need a website.
The free version allows you to build about 200 pages, but
you don't get to add your Google Adsense ID. The paid
version, which is insanely cheap, allows you to build as
many landing pages as you like.
6. Website Building If you really want to succeed
as an affiliate, you need to build a content rich, keyword
rich website.
If you don't know HTML, this can really be a problem.
These two tools will help you with building your website,
as well as finding content for your site.
Orwell - http://www.portalfeeder.com/blog/
- Orwell searches the article directories for you to help
you find keyword rich articles on your topic. It will
format the articles into HTML for you, and all you have to
do is copy and paste the code. It will also tell you the
keyword density of the article.
Easy Web Page Creator - http://www.easy-web-page-creator.com/
- is a piece of free software that you can use to build
web pages for your site with only a few mouse clicks.
7. List Building List building is absolutely
crucial for affiliates. By building a list, this will give
you an opportunity to market to your potential customers
repeatedly, allowing you to raise the conversion on sales.
The best tool for list building is an autoresponder. An
autoresponder will handle all of the tedious tasks like
managing your lists and handling subscribes and
unsubscribes.
Two free services:
http://www.getresponse.com
http://www.sendfree.com
I would also recommend that you check out this site.
Anthony Tomei offers an excellent tool for affiliates, and
you can also get some great resources for your affiliate
marketing on this site. They all free.
http://www.gurupal.com
Let me caution you here, the problem with a free service
is that they put ads for other products in your headers
and footers. You want to upgrade as soon as you possibly
can.
Starting an affiliate business can be easy. Plan your
website carefully, offer valuable content, and
differentiate yourself from other affiliates. Implement
these tools in your affiliate business and watch your
commissions rise. |
