Affiliate Marketing - A Goldmine at 50 Percent Per Sale

I could never understand why anyone would pay me 50 percent of their selling price when I sent a customer to their site and that customer buys their product?

Wow to me this seems more like a goldmine!

On the other hand maybe they have a good reason for paying so much. The product owner might know that it is not easy and takes a lot of work to get people to buy products. Even at 50% commission you will be working and after paying for all your advertising costs your commission may not meet your costs. So they are happy to pay half of what they collect in commissions to you and in some cases actually price their product and then add the affiliate commission to get their selling price.

Now have you seen those emails where they tell you that if you buy a certain product you can then sell that product with 100% going into your Paypal account? Up until recently I always wondered how these people ever made any money out of this. It just didn't make sense to me. Then I realised that product promoter didn't want to make money out of this product. It is in the future sales to that customer where the product promoters profits will be realized. He was in fact into niche list building so that he could then use his newly acquired customers details to promote more expensive products in that particular niche. Basically he was using the fact that you the affiliate wanted a quick small gain to help build his list and not yours. He was focused on the long-term rewards and was prepared to lose in the short term.

BY now you would have worked it out that product promoter does know what he is doing and is not crazy giving away so much money in commissions. He only has to give the commission away once because he now has the buyer's name on his list and can therefore sell him further products without paying further commissions to affiliates. In the mean time the affiliate must continue to find more and more buyers through expensive marketing while the product promoter now uses his autoresponder to send out further offers to those buyers found originally by the affiliates.

Now you know why product promoter can afford to give away such big affiliate commissions.

Affiliate Marketing in a Nutshell

What exactly is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is the single fastest growth industry on the Internet. It's also true that affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and most creative ways to make money and have a career on the Internet.

Simply put, affiliate marketing is selling products on a commission basis. You own a business that advertises and sells products for other companies. You may have a product of your own to begin with or not. The things that a successful affiliate marketer must have are:

1. Your website is the jumping off point of all your marketing efforts. So the first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. You must build a user-friendly website, which will attract your prospects and motivate them to click on the links to the products and services you are promoting and make a purchase. There are companies whose business is building websites that you can hire to build one for you.

2. You must find products to sell, you must be able to determine whether there is a demand for those products and if people will actually buy them. You may either have your own original product or products that are made by others. Which ever way you go, you must believe in the products.

3. It will be necessary for you to become an adept advertiser and be able to tell whether the advertising you are paying for is producing more income for you than the advertising is costing you.

4. It is necessary that you have good mathematical skills. You will need to be able to track your sales and determine profit, as well as, see to it that your suppliers are paid in full and on time.

5. You need the full and unwavering support of your family so that you can devote the time and energy necessary to launch your affiliate marketing business.

Is Affiliate Marketing Really The Easiest Way To Make Money Online? (Part 2)

So what is your business plan like? No kidding. Just like a conventional
business, you do need to strategize your affiliate marketing business
around a particular system.

Have you got a system in place? You would naturally be promoting a
particular product or service, but have you got an "upsell" to offer? What
about an "O.T.O" (one time offer) or "backend" product? Of course, you
can solely promote the main product just by driving traffic to the
merchant's website via your affiliate link, but without all these sales
components in place, you would be leaving a lot of money on the table,
so to speak.

Affiliate marketing is a lot more than just about making a sale. If you want
a viable business, one that you can depend on to bring you a decent
income month after month; then you will need to build that business
around a sound, proven system.

Think about it - if you were to build a house, however small; would you
dive right in laying bricks for your walls without laying the proper
foundation first? Of course not. For that same reason, going into
business whether online or offline, without a definitive plan is a
venture destined for failure right from the start.

Do not let the term "system" scare you, though. It is nothing more than
the assembly of all the sales components I had mentioned above. There
is no Internet-Marketing-Guru-Secret or any other magic pill required
for you to succeed online. (Of course, if you have been online for a
while, you will find the Gurus passing off this system as their secret!).

There are many reports and courses offering you an insight into how
you too can systematically package the sales components - the upsell, the
one-time-offer or backend products - into your business. Most of them
even come free of charge. All you need to do is tailor your component
products around the main product or service that you are selling.

Taking Advantage of Google Adsense

Google's popular Adsense program allows companies and individuals with web sites to display ads that are relevant to the content of their site. In return for displaying the ad, Adsense users will earn money for each ad clicked.

Sounds great, right?

A quick search for Adsense brings up thousands of hits for sites claiming to help you get rich off of programs such as Google's Adsense. Google makes it very easy to sign up, and after that you can have your ads created in a few clicks. However, there are many factors that can influence the amount of revenue these ads will generate for you.

In this article I will layout 4 simple ideas that will help you boost your Adsense earnings. None are particularly complicated, but all are good practical solutions for boosting your Adsense earning, whether you are starting out with your first site or you already have an established site.

1. Set goals and research ahead. This can apply if you have an existing site or are looking to create new content. You know you want to start out with Adsense because of its simplicity and easy of use. Make sure that Google approves of your current or planned content. For example if you plan on topics such as gambling, brass knuckles, alcohol and tobacco, chances are Google will not approve your site. Google has a full list of topics on their Adsense site.

2. Once you have decided on a topic, make it one of your goals to keep focused. Having multiple different topics on the same page will mean that Google will place over these broader topics. In order to place the ads, Google will scan your site for content keywords. If it finds large varieties of keywords, you ads will be less focused and will become less attractive to your visitors who will probably be visiting your site to find information on a specific topic. Keep in mind, content is king. If you are looking to create a site from scratch, don't start thinking about how many ads you can place on your site until you've got your content in place. There is no harm in planning ahead and building up some content.

3. Be conscious of ad placement. Don't simply look for a block of empty space on your site and drop the ad in. The content of your site is what the ad content is keying off of. So it is important to integrate the two as closely as possible. We've all seen the ads that flash and move, while they might attract your attention initially, many savvy users will simply tune them out, instead focusing on the content of site. So do yourself a favor and integrate the ad into your content. Take advantage of Google's color customization options. Craft an ad that is noticeable but not obnoxious. In terms of placement, most agree that upper left; top and bottom are the standard choices for ad placement. However, going off the idea that content is king I prefer to have at least one ad integrated into the content itself.

4. Spread the word. Now that you have got your site up and running and you have your content in place, you are ready to start driving visitors to you site. The first thing to do is to look for others that have similar sites or content. If they have forums or comment sections, stop by and introduce yourself. Don't feel bad about promoting yourself, don't be a jerk, but don't be shy. Generally most of these places will allow you to leave a link, a link which others can follow back to your site or that a search engine will pickup and follow. Look around for some web directories. Submitting your sites to these directories will boost your exposure and create more links back to your site. All these simple things can boost your page views and page rank.

Just remember to be patient; it takes some time and effort to build up links and articles. Don't expect an explosion of traffic, many people often get discouraged at this point and give up or fall prey to one of the many 'get rich quick' sites. Take the time each day to learn something new or explore a new opportunity. As silly as it may sound, hard work and determination will play the biggest part in your eventual success.

Casino Affiliation - A Beginners Guide

If you are new to the world of affiliate marketing then you first need to understand how it works. Basically, affiliate marketing is the process by which you (the affiliate), direct traffic to a merchant site where a product or service is being sold, and you are paid commission for any sale on that site to a person you have directed. Casino affiliation is much the same. You direct players to a casino site, and if that player signs up and spends money, you are given a commission on the amount. Most casino sites entice you to send players to them by providing incentives such as bigger commission or prizes. However, you would do well to provide a good balance across these sites as it does not pay in the long run to direct to one major site only.

As an affiliate you will normally sign up with the merchant site in advance. You will then be provided with banner or text adverts which contain your unique affiliate code, and which you then place on your site. When a user is directed to the merchant site from the banner ad or links, the embedded code will identify you as the affiliate, and the merchant site will pay you commission (usually on a monthly basis) on any sale(s) to users that you have directed from your site.

There are many different types of affiliate software available and the pros and cons of each are outside the scope of this article, but they are normally determined by the merchant site.

One of the most important factors in making your affiliate casino portal or directory a success is your own determination to out perform your competition. Now initially, that does not mean you have to out perform them in terms of the commission you receive (although that would be a definite long term goal). More importantly it means out performing them in terms of exposure of your site on the internet. You have to be determined to ensure your site is in an optimum position within the search engines, and potentially higher than the merchant site itself. It includes finding niche keywords to target, and keywords that the merchant site has not optimized for. For example, maybe a casino site is well optimized for "online casinos", but you could target "play roulette online" and build your page around those words. You also need to promote your site in other ways, both offline as well as online.

Initially you may want to set aside a budget for placing advertisements on other complimentary sites, such as bingo or poker or other gaming sites. Sites that offer competitions and prizes are a good place to start as they have similar demographic of user.

You may also want to purchase a database to market to. Some companies offer databases that you can rent. It might also be worth doing a search to see if you can find some old casino portals or directories which are for sale. They may offer their database for a reduced fee and indeed you may even consider purchasing their domain name if you feel it is better than your own.

One of the first things to consider when designing a portal or directory is your competition. It is easy to find casino portals and directories by entering a few keywords in Google or Yahoo. Words such as "casino", "casino directory", "best online casinos", return many sites. Take some time reviewing these sites, perhaps jotting down some of the more common factors that you feel are ensuring their success, and other points that you would do well to avoid. Put yourself in the place of a player, who is searching for a casino site for the first time. What would you expect from a directory or portal in order to help you make your decision on which site you should join?

This article does not provide extensive search engine optimisation techniques. Though there are some aspects that need reaffirming. You should have a good web optimisation strategy in mind, perhaps you know a bit about SEO, or perhaps you want to make a start by reading the following related article at http://ezinearticles.com/?Bingo---Online-Promotion&id=550489. There are some essential elements that you need to ensure you have in your pages to make them well optimized.

Firstly you should optimize the site on a "per page" basis. The site should contain the usual html elements such as good title tags, description tags and header tags, individual for each page. Each page should be topic specific. For example, perhaps one page can be about roulette, while another only about blackjack. Mixing the two subjects dilutes the importance of the topic on the page. The body element should contain at least 300 words of text which are both interesting to read and which contain good keywords relating to the topic. The text should be connected to the title and description tags; that is they should contain similar words.

It is a good idea to ensure that the homepage does not contain too many affiliate links. Perhaps embed these further in the site. Having them on your homepage could penalize that homepage as the search engines are becoming more aware of affiliate sites and not giving them as much importance.

Of course the single most important factor in gaining site popularity is the amount of incoming links to your casino portal. Many portals at the moment offer reciprocal links. This is a good way of building links but obtaining one-way permanent links is much better for your search engine position. Using a tool like Optilink, you can gauge your competitor's links and perhaps contact them for a link for your own site.

Anyone can design a website with a simple list of casino sites. The key is designing a great website that improves the user experience. Consider placing your casino site reviews somewhere else other than the homepage, if people want to read reviews they will happily search for them. Instead, try making your homepage a fun user experience as opposed to simply a list of sites.

In designing the graphics and colour scheme for your site you would do well to make your site stand out from the rest. Many site designs come from purchased templates and contain similar colour schemes like browns and reds, supposedly attempting to represent the colours and ambience of a real casino environment. However, why not try something different. Try using a more modern approach. A white background will enable you to place many different graphic elements and colours without contrasting too much against a single brown or deep red background. White backgrounds also offer a more professional feel.

As internet users have become aware of new technologies, graphics and images are attracting them to more modern sites. Expectations of users have increased and so should the quality of the sites. Many new sites contain flash elements and graphics which keep the user interested. Also, a good idea would be to have an interactive element on the homepage. Perhaps include a scratch card or a flash game, which the user can interact with and keep them on the page for longer. This increases the popularity of the page and keeps the user coming back for more.

Writing articles, issuing press releases to online sites, getting listed in other directories and generally promoting your sites with other sites requires a lot of time. Whatever you do to create your casino portal or directory, you must ensure that you dedicate 100% your time each day to improving its position and beating your competition. Ensure your site is updated regularly and can provide useful information to those who are visiting. A popular casino portal or directory site is one which normally offers an opinion but also remains a fun and interesting site.

Marketing Strategies - Are You Utilizing Multiple Methods for Effective Marketing?

Do not put all your eggs in one basket. You have heard that so many times in so many different contexts.

Effectively marketing that we are talking about is utilizing multiple marketing strategies that best fit to market your business.

Most new comers copy cat just one or two methods that others are doing, whether appropriate for your business or not. The best marketing strategy involves selecting and using numerous marketing approaches at the same time. This way if one or two methods temporarily not working well, you can still continue. You do not have to be completely out of business while you resolve the problem or come up with different strategy to replace the old one.

The more options and approaches you have for marketing, the more successful you can be in growing your company without interruption. And you will continue to move towards your goals even if you have setbacks in any one or two marketing approaches.

Do not just adopt two or three methods to bring in business. There are numerous methods for marketing a new business, for increasing traffic to your websites, and surviving during trough times, especially in the beginning years of your business.

Most new and unprepared entrepreneurs are making this same mistake. The reasons for that could be many. For example, they have not done their homework thoroughly, may be too busy, and cannot afford to have employees to help out.

If you are determined to make your business successful, you should always avoid the single-approach marketing strategy. Instead use as many marketing methods as possible for your company.

5 Blogging Tips to Improve Your Work At Home Business

One of the best ways to start a work at home business is by blogging. Blogging can be an easier vehicle for earning money online. It frees you from web design and thus has become a popular option for work at home moms. On that note, this doesn't mean that it is easy to make money from your blog.

Blogging is an activity that will take time to build up to profit level so you can not expect to see money rolling in immediately. In order to be successful at blogging, your blog needs to be user friendly, if your reader can not understand your blog or navigate through it with ease they will simply move on to the next one. Consider the following tips to make your blog more user friendly and to build up your reader base.

For starters, it's important to differentiate between using a blog as a personal diary and using it to generate a profit. When blogging for profit you need to establish a professional presence. You want your readers to take you seriously and, regardless of your competition, you will need to have an air of expertise regarding your blog topic. You will be competing with thousands of other bloggers who write about your topic, the better your presentation the greater your success.

In order to create a positive presence from the beginning, avoid sending mixed messages. The format for most blogs are similar and provide the blogger with link tags on the left or right hand margin and in some cases on the top. It's these links that you want to be careful with. Do not offer your readers random links for various websites. Choose your blog topic from the beginning and stick to it. Every post, link and other resources you provide to your readers should be related to your blog topic. You want to make the user experience a pleasant one; do not bombard your reader with links and ads.

Next, consider your blog template carefully. Avoid a dark background and light text if you can. The reading experience is different online and studies have shown that people process information better when the background is light and the text is dark. Also, a dark background makes the readers tire faster. Another thing to avoid, are patterned backgrounds, for the same reason as dark backgrounds.

The success of blogging relies heavily on subscribers. You want your reader to subscribe to your blog. The best way to capture subscribers is to be consistent and post regularly. With so much information available on the Internet, your readers may go elsewhere if you are not supplying daily content. If you are going through a dry spell and can't think of anything to say try posting a poll, a link to another blog, comment on a news story or post of list of helpful tips.

Of course it is important to proofread all your posts before posting. When you are running your own work home business it's important to be professional and credible. Nothing diminishes your credibility faster than spelling and grammar errors. Have someone look over your post for you. If no one is available, read your work out loud.

Many work at home moms are finding success in blogging. You can help to insure your blog will be readable and interesting to your visitors by following the tips provided above.