Monday, March 31, 2008

10 Mistakes of Affiliate Marketing

Though anyone can achieve success with affiliate programs, not everyone manages to do the same. There are 10 common mistakes that most affiliates make. These are the biggest mistakes that make success in affiliate marketing very elusive. Study them well, and read up on how to avoid them. Hurdling through these mistakes can spell the difference between monumental profits and dismal performance in your affiliate marketing campaigns.

1. Believing that people would just click on their affiliate links. Though an affiliate’s job is merely limited to pre-selling, pre-selling involves more than just displaying the affiliate links. It also entails encouraging people to click on them by enumerating the benefits that can be derived from the affiliate merchant’s products, giving favorable recommendations about the use of the same, and providing an encouraging offer that would entice readers to check out the package.

2. Believing that there’s such a thing as organic traffic. Organic traffic, or traffic that is naturally generated by a website, is a myth. There is no such thing! If you’re hosting your affiliate links in one website, you can’t expect people to find it just like that. You have to make them find it. This can be done through effective SEO techniques and efficient marketing strategies.

3. Believing that employing one marketing strategy is enough. Some people actually think that submitting one article to the article directories would give them the amount of traffic they need. This is a fatal mistake. Limiting yourself to a single, or even a couple, of marketing tactics would be limiting the number of visitors you could generate for your website. Also, you’ll fail to tap into other segments of your targeted market if your tactics aren’t flexible enough to expand.

4. Failing to study your campaign’s performance. Most affiliates merely check on how much they have earned per day, and if such an amount remains at low levels, they fail to make corresponding adjustments because, well, they don’t know which aspects of their campaigns need improving. It is important to study every facet of our marketing strategies. How many visitors are we generating for our website? How many of them are unique? How many are returning? How much time do they spend in our pages? Where are they coming from? To where are they exiting? These are the questions that can be answered by an excellent visitor tracking software program, and these are the questions that could help us improve the performance of our marketing endeavors.

5. Failing to find an affiliate program which actually offers sellable products. Some affiliate programs may offer as much as a 95% commission per sale. But if the products are impossible to sell, you’d never realize the profit the program promises.

6. Failing to find an affiliate program with a proven record of consumer satisfaction. The credibility of an enterprise depends on how people view it. If the affiliate program has established great relationships with the members of its target market, then it has established a brand which is recognizable for its excellent service. You’d have an easier time pre-selling such an affiliate program’s products.

7. Failing to keep abreast with the latest developments in the industry. There will come a time when the marketing knowledge we know would become obsolete, more so in the field of internet marketing where everything transpires at a rapid pace. You have to constantly update yourself with the newest trends, techniques and news in this field to always keep your competitive edge.

8. Failing to invest on knowledge. Knowledge likewise evolves and you have to evolve with it. Buy noteworthy eBooks, special reports and the likes… those which would teach you the latest tactics to help you conquer your field.

9. Resting on your laurels once a semblance of success is achieved. Success is not eternal. You have to sustain it. If you leave your business alone once it shows the promise of success, you’re just setting it up for failure.

10. Believing that affiliate marketing is a “get rich quick” scheme. It is not. You have to invest a certain level of commitment, a lot of time, some financial resources on occasions, and a whole lot of effort if you want to truly realize the many wonderful things that this field does promise.


Jennifer Staley
Creator of "Jenn-101.blogspot.com"
Deals on All Boats at eBay Motors!
Magnetic Therapy Products!

Friday, March 28, 2008

Blogging Tips for WAHMs

Blogging is one of the best ways to start a Wahm business because it is so easy to get going. However, that does not mean that it is easy to make money from your blog. Don’t start a blog and expect to see money rolling in immediately. Blogging is an activity that will take time to build up to a profit level. It’s a good thing to start while you are working on other Wahm opportunities to let it build to a profitability level. With time and attention, your blog (or blogs) will grow into a business.

When you are blogging for profit, you’ll want to pay close attention to how you present yourself in your blog. There are literally hundreds of thousands of blogs out there, and there may be several hundred blogs that are related to your topic. If your readers can’t understand your blog and have trouble reading it, they’ll just move on to the next one. The following tips can make your blog more user-friendly and help you gain consistent readers.

First, pay close attention to the format of your blog. Readers want to understand how your blog works right from the start. Most blogging platforms have similar formats, with links and tags on the left or right margin, and the most recent post on top. Make sure to use the links wisely. Only put links up for blogs or content that is truly related to your blog’s topic. The point is to give your readers additional information on your topic. Keep the list short and sweet. There is no reason to overwhelm them with links to other sites.

Also, take careful consideration when choosing your blog’s background and font color. Although there are a lot of color choices that blogging programs offer, it’s best to stick with a light background and dark text. Studies have shown that the human brain can process this type of format better than light text on a dark background. Think about this before you commit to a black background and white text. It might look striking, but readers might not want to stay there for long. Also, use a solid background color instead of trying to use a pattern or design.

Proofread your entries before you post them to your blog. There is nothing that reduces your authority in the eyes of your readers’ more than bad spelling and grammar. The online world is a world of text, so take some time to learn commonly misspelled words and grammatical errors.

Keep your blog fresh and interesting by posting at least once per day. With so much information available on the Internet, your readers may go elsewhere if you aren’t supplying daily content. If you aren’t sure what to write about, try posting a poll, a link to another blog, comment on a news story or post of list of helpful tips. Not every post has to be long and complicated, but you do need to post something everyday.

These tips will help keep your blog readable and interesting to your visitors. The more visitors you get, the more your blog will grow in profitability and importance. Just make sure to present yourself in a professional way and keep your readers coming back for more new content each day. In no time, you’ll have a profitable blog and then you can move on to create two or three.


Jennifer Staley
Creator of "Jenn-101.blogspot.com"
Deals on All Boats at eBay Motors!
Magnetic Therapy Products!

5 MLM Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Multi-level marketing, or MLM, has taken the world by storm. This ingenious manner of direct selling allows the customer to become a representative of the MLM program. As a result, the customer gets recruited by the seller and is now given the opportunity to earn money from his efforts.

MLM has been implemented for the online audience in recent years, further elevating its popularity to new heights. And although many people are jumping into MLM recently, very few are succeeding.

The reason for this is that because countless multi-level marketers are committing the same mistakes over and over again. Instead of learning from the errors of their predecessors, they fall victim to the very same faults, thus jeopardizing their chances of attaining success in the MLM field.


What are these mistakes? Better yet, how can you avoid them?

1. Believing that MLM is a “get rich quick” scheme. Any person who has experienced a certain degree of success with MLM would tell you that this system is far from being one of those profitable opportunities that you could pursue while being idle. The fact is, you will have to work – and you will have to work hard – to be able to achieve success with multi-level marketing, whether it is conducted online or offline. Though eventually, and if you work hard enough for such a status, you’d be able to receive passive income from the sales that would be generated by your down line, you’d have to extend a lot of effort to establish a solid battalion of committed individuals who will share your devotion to the program. Though all of these may seem like hard work, MLM remains to be a very rewarding opportunity for anyone who would be wise enough to invest their time and industry to the program.

2. Believing your own hype. “This is easy.” “I’m too good for this job.” “I could do these with my eyes closed.” These are statements born from confidence – or overconfidence to be more precise. And this haughty disposition could very well be your number one obstacle to attaining success with MLM. Don’t get me wrong. A certain level of confidence will serve you well. You will have to win some sales for the MLM program after all, and you’d have to believe in the said program to be able to convince others to join the cause. And this requires confidence – the right kind of confidence, that is. But too much of the same would make you rest on your laurels, which is something you cannot afford in this line of business.

3. Leads are useless. This kind of attitude is doomed from the very beginning. Leads are the lifeblood of any MLM campaign. Leads represent your prospects, your future recruits. Without leads, your MLM campaign is sure to be a failure.

4. Generating a certain volume of leads is enough. Again, this is an attitude that would spell doom for your success. Lead generation is, as it should be, a continuous commitment. It should never cease. Even if you feel that you have generated enough leads from which you could convert some new recruits, there will come a time when all those leads would be exhausted. What then? Where will you gather you’re earning potentials if you have stopped looking for leads? A multi-level marketer’s task is to continuously – and unceasingly – discover new prospects everyday. Let’s face it; it’s the only way by which you could sustain the profitability of your MLM campaign.

5. Lack of focus. Many multi-level marketers are of the belief that they should join as many MLM programs as allowable to provide for themselves several income streams from which they could derive their earnings. This could prove dangerous. Spreading yourself too think by engaging in several programs at the same time would make you lose your focus. Instead of concentrating all your efforts to achieve success with one program, you’d be dividing the same among several platforms. The best way to deal with things is to firmly establish yourself in one program before venturing to the next. Build a solid down line from which you could earn some residual income in a sustainable and substantial level before joining another program. This way, you’d be ensuring that you’ll receive some profit from the first program even while you’re concentrated on the new one.

Knowledge, they say, is half the battle won. Knowing the common mistakes the multi-level marketers make is the first step towards success, as it would guarantee that you won’t fall prey to what has caused their failure. Learn from them, and succeed where they have fallen.



Jennifer Staley
Creator of "Jenn-101.blogspot.com"
Deals on All Boats at eBay Motors!
Magnetic Therapy Products!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Article Marketing to Build Link Popularity

Today, I would like to touch on strategizing your article marketing efforts,which most internet marketers are not familiar with. If you’ve been dabbling in internet marketing for any amount of time now, then you know how important Article Marketing can be for your online campaigns.

It is important, therefore, to learn about the subtleties involved with Article Marketing to optimize your usage of this technique. I will give you 5 tips to making the most of your time as you submit to the article directories.

Article marketing can provide you with a lot of back links that could help build your link popularity so that you may secure a good position in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

When you submit your articles to these article directories, you become linked with some directories that have a very high page rank. Having your link appear in the pages of hight ranking websites, substantially boosts your own website's page rank.

Here are 5 Tips for Effective Article Marketing


Only submit articles every two weeks. This will keep your site from being de-indexed by the search engines. No matter how tempting it is to submit two or more articles in rapid succession to the article directories in the World Wide Web, do not do it. The search engines (Google in particular) watch for sudden increases in a website’s link popularity. By, submitting many articles in rapid succession, you can gain 3,000 or so back links for your website. However, the search engines see it as an abnormally quick increase in links for your website, causing them to de-index your page pending further study into the matter. Play it safe.

Do not submit an article that is already included in your own website. In an effort by the search engines to ban duplicate articles, they consider the higher ranking website as the originator of the article and the website, having a lower rank, might be designated as harboring duplicate content. This will not help your page rank.
Some article directories will allow you to use hyperlinks. There is an important trick to Hyperlinking to your website. It is called using anchor texts. The anchor texts pertain to the keywords you are targeting. Using anchor texts gives you a better chance at a higher position in the SERPs. For example, if the keyword you’re targeting is “Electric guitars”, you will want to hyperlink to your website with every mention of “Electric guitars” in your article.

Do not submit PLR articles as they are. Though PLR articles are great options for affordable content, they are not meant for article marketing purposes. Submitting duplicate articles to the directories will only get your article rejected, and worse, your account will be banned. Instead, use the PLR articles as a base for the articles you will write and submit to these directories. The information is already in these PLR articles, after all, so you won’t need to spend time doing some necessary research. Write one original article from the ground up using your PLR articles as the foundation and then you can safely submit them to the directories.

Remember, people will be reading your articles. These are highly targeted folks. They will read your article because they are looking for information relevant to the subject of your work. If you could provide this information clearly, succinctly, and efficiently, they’ll regard you as an expert on the matter and they will grow to trust whatever you will put out. Therefore, only submit the best quality articles you can provide since your online business and your personal credibility is on the line.



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Jennifer Staley,
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Wellness Magnets Sailboat Dreamer I Pods on eBay
Tube Traffic Tips Jenn-101 Blog My Blog!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Affiliate Marketing Website Models

A registered domain name would give you an address in the virtual world. A web hosting service would give you a lot. It’s time to build your house.


First, a registered domain name is what you want people to type into the web address line to find your site. So, it would make sense to have a domain name that is somewhat, if not completely based on what you are trying to say, sell or obtain from your customers. If you had a domain name: www.JohnsBoats.com yet you were actually selling e-books about internet marketing, it might not be the best fit if you are looking to get any kind of steady traffic to your site. A better suited name for your products might be: www .EBookCentral. com or maybe www.digitalproductstore. com.


Ok, so what does it mean to have your domain hosted by a server company? Well, the domain is the address, the hosting service is the actual land you acquire and pay a monthly fee for. You will pay this fee for as long as you have your domain hosted to that specific I.P. address. I highly recommend purchasing your domain name and hosting your domain name with the same company. It makes life much simpler for beginners. I have tried it both ways and found that registering and hosting with the same company is considerably easier.


My personal favorite company is Hostgator. I purchase my domain from them and then also host that domain with them. It keeps it nice and tidy. Hostgator is competitively priced among the other top registrars.


Each domain name costs $15/yr. You will have to remember to renew it before the one year mark if you want to keep your domain name.


However, hosting carries a monthly fee of $4.95 - $9.95 depending on the package you purchase. The “Baby” package is $9.95/mo. And you can host unlimited domains for no extra charge. Ideally you would to keep all of your sites together in this fashion for ease of management down the road.


But there are many kinds of houses, with each type serving a particular need. In the same light, there are many kinds of websites, and each type would also serve a particular need. Our goal right now is to determine the kinds of websites you could create to best serve you affiliate marketing concerns.


As an affiliate, here are a number of website models you could decide to employ. Let’s take a look at some of them now.


A Review Center
You could create a free website using blogging software like that offered by http://www.blogger.com/ or http://www.wordpress.com/ , which seek to review the products that are released in the market. Here’s the deal, though. Review the products you are promoting. Naturally, you’d want your reviews to be favorable for the affiliate merchant’s offerings. So stress the beneficial points of the products so that your visitors may be encouraged to click on your affiliate link and be redirected to the affiliate merchant’s sales page.


An Affiliate Mall
An effective way of promoting your affiliate links is through an affiliate mall. You could make your website into an online catalogue of sorts. Display the products you are promoting, and attach your affiliate links. Provide a short but encouraging description for each product. Also include a small image of the product itself (as an affiliate, you are allowed to use the affiliate program’s images for your promotional campaigns, so you won’t be violating any copyrights by doing this).


Here is my affiliate mall site. Take a look at it, use it as a guideline or sign up for your own for free through my site. This is a great way to earn money and you don’t even need to spend the $$ to host a website.


This setup is quite empowering for your visitors. They are given the option to choose which among the products you are pre-selling would be most advantageous for them.


A Content Site
Content is king on the internet. People surf the World Wide Web in search for information. If you have the information they need, then you’re in business. You could focus on unique and quality information for your website, and include your affiliate links by way of recommendation or direct announcement.



There are many kinds of content sites which you could decide to build:
  • a news site which offers the latest information on the market you will be catering to;
  • an information hub containing guides and general information about the same market;
  • a download center for valuable products you’re freely offering (this is great for a viral marketing campaign, which we will discuss in subsequent lessons)

An Opt-In Page
You will not be able to win all of them. You won’t even be able to win a majority of them. The best thing you could aim for is to gather the “yes” visitors, try your best to change the mind of the “no” visitors, and capture the contact information of the “maybe” visitors so that you could continue to convince them for a future sale. And this you could do with a mailing list.


By having them subscribe to your mailing list, you’d be able to contact them at any time, with new offers, or perhaps with some valuable tidbits that would warm them up to purchase what the affiliate merchant is selling. All you need is an account with an excellent autoresponder service such as AWeber, which you could integrate in such a page so that it will capture prospective leads on auto-pilot.


You could employ this strategy on any of the website models we have mentioned above, or you could make a web page specifically designed to capture the aforementioned contact details.


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Thank you for your time. I will see you tomorrow!

Jennifer Staley
Deals on All Boats at eBay Motors!
Magnetic Therapy Products!