There are hundreds of thousands of affiliate programs out there, all of which claim to be the best. Many of them try to give you the impression that all you have to do is use their banners and links then wait for the money to start rolling in. Although this can be the case, this type of scenario normally applies to large sites with a lot of web traffic.

Choosing banners
With most affiliate programs, you are offered a variety of banners to plan on your website, as very few of them will be effective. The problems with most banners are their size. If you choose a banner that is high in size, it will take a long time to implement and use. Therefore, it’s recommended that you use banners no more than 15kb in size.

When you select any types of graphical advertising, you should try and keep the theme of your website in mind. Even though graphical ads are meant to stand out and catch people’s eye, they shouldn’t be to the point where everything else on the page is completely ignored.

Pop ups and unders
A lot of companies will now give their affiliates the chance of using pop up or pop under ads. In most opinions, pop ups aren’t the way to go. They can easily annoy visitors and are normally closed before they even have the chance to load. You should instead go for pop unders and those types that only display once per visit.

Text link ads
Once of the most successful means of advertising is text link ads. They are easy on bandwidth, don’t use a lot of space, and they easily be implemented into most types of page layouts. Good text links offer some information as to why your visitor should investigate your offers.

Email advertising
The direct promotion via email has really taken off over the last several years, although it has brought tons of spam with it. If you plan to use email as a method of advertising your products, you should stand behind what you sell and make yourself available to answer any questions.

Patience
If you feel confident that your site can generate great sales for certain company’s, you should contact them to negotiate an arrangement. If they don’t seem to enthused to begin with, you should remain patient as companies are approaced every day with affiliates looking to make better deals.

The reality remains that most affiliates can’t deliver what they promise, and companies are aware of this.

You should always keep in mind that most forms of advertising will take time. No matter what methods you plan to use, give it some time before you make any type of decision. Although something may not happen overnight – it very well could in a few days or weeks.

There are numerous software products on the market that range from 15 – 50 dollars for special types of software that’ll assist you in protecting your affiliate marketing commissions. The effectiveness and ease of use for the programs range greatly, so before you buy one, you should always learn as much as you possibly can.

Banner servers
Banner servers not only serve banners, as many of the more recent servers will also display text links as well. The link coding that’s associated with served ads is normally long, so that the visitor won’t be able to see on the status bar where the redirect is heading.

Click tracking software
Click counting software will not show the target URL as the links point inwards to the software, which is normally installed on your own website.

Once someone has clicked on the link, the click tracking application will then redirect the visitor to the URL that you have specified within the script. The click tracking software will also provide a great way to monitor the usefulness of your ads and not just relying on the reports that merchants will provide.

Protecting your commissions is extremely important, as you want to get paid for what you do. Even though fraud is possible with affiliate marketing, you can protect yourself. Fraudsters have certain techniques and tactics they use, which you can protect yourself from.

If you own your own business, the last thing you want to experience is either credit card fraud or affiliate fraud. They do happen on a regular basis, simply because those who have it happen haven’t taken the necessary steps they should have to protect themselves.

There is no doubt that website traffic is critical to your business success. And the best kind of traffic is free traffic. So where do we get free traffic? Google and other search engines.

How do we get free traffic from Google?

You’ve experienced this process a lot of times. You load up Google or another search engine. Type in something you’re looking for. And click one of the links that shows up. Turns out that the website you visit just got free traffic from the search engine. We will be discussing here how to get website traffic to you for free.

If you’re like most people you only click links on the first page or two. In fact, the first page of results receives almost all the free traffic. What’s even more amazing is the the first 3 links get more than 70% of the free traffic.

This means that to get any real traffic you need to be on the first page in Google. To do that, you need to be “ranked” in Google’s Top 10 results. Which brings up..

What is search engine optimization?

SEO means that your website is clearly about something specific, Google knows that that is and thinks others will agree and find your site useful. It’s a complex formula that only people working for Google know exactly. But there are several things that we know for sure.

Getting indexed

Before you can get ranked, Google has to first know your site exists. This is called getting “indexed.” This is when Google looks at your site and take notes about it, which are stored in their database.

In order to get indexed, Google has to be able to find you. Getting a link from another site will accomplish this easily. Because Google already knows about these sites, it will follow the new links to you.

A couple of great places to do this are in your Twitter or Facebook profiles. Google visits these sites many times every day. So your new link will get indexed very quickly.

Gaining ranking

After this first hurdle, you need to start gaining ranking. Just getting indexed does you almost no good, considering that Google has billions of pages in their database.

There are three components of gaining ranking:

• Content
• Links
• Activity

SEO content

This is also called on-page SEO. And it means that the content on your page matches the keywords you’re targeting. Clearly this article is about search engine optimization. Google knows that not just because the words search engine optimization show up. But also because other related words like traffic generation show up in it, as well.

The title of the page, the domain name and other pages on your site are also important. Google uses all of this content to figure out what your site is really about.

Link juice

The second factor is your linking. The links to your site, as well as the sites you link to are important. You want to make sure you have more inbound links than outbound links. So the number of inbound links is important.

One great way to get lots of inbound links is through web 2.0 sites. To accomplish this you start by writing an article that targets the keywords you’re after. You have to also write several different versions of your articles. And then upload a different versions to a bunch of sites that allow you to add content. And quantity is the key here – so do lots and lots.

Getting activity

The last thing we know for sure is that Google likes to see active sites. Static pages that just sit may rank at first, but will fall off over time. So you need to update your pages often. One way to keep adding new content it through RSS feeds.

Comments from other people on your page are another fantastic way to keep your content updated. This means you need to get real live people to your site, as well. One simple method for doing this is to use forums.

Set up forum profiles with the ones related to your website. Visit often and make posts. Then put a link to your site in your profile. This gets you inbound links. And it also gets people to your web page.

Conclusion

Each step listed above is critical. However, writing a bunch of different articles on the same topic. Creating profiles on a ton of forums. And visiting all the sites to post up your comments and articles takes a really long time. Which means you probably won’t end up doing it.

However, rank builder software exists. And it automates everything we’ve just talked about. So, use your time wisely and automated to tedious tasks. Otherwise, you won’t do it at all. And not doing it means you will never get free traffic from Google.

Successful Blog Marketing Tips

So you have a blog and want to market it and make it a successful blog. How do you do this? How do you go about getting your blog out there to be seen and known by others? How do you draw readers and keep them coming back for more? There are many ways to get your blog out there and known by others. This can be known as challenging for some and just quite easy for others. If you have ever had a successful blog before then you know what it takes. You are not going to get anywhere by just setting up a blog and hoping that people will find it and read it. You are not going to gain any links, nor a higher search engine ranking by just having a blog. This is all part of blog marketing. Anyone can do it, even you.

Successful blog marketing tip number one. When you first create a blog, of course it is unheard of. No one knows anything about the blog unless you give them the link and show it to them. However, for a new blog that has never been seen, there are many ways to get it out there and known. You just need to know how. The first thing that you can do is to allow RSS feeds be taken from your blog. Allow other websites and blogs to publish your same exact blog. When you do this, they are giving you a link back to your blog, and also telling their readers all about your blog. You will get more traffic than ever with this tool. RSS feeds are wonderful for promoting and getting your blog out there.

Blog marketing tip number two. Update your blog frequently. We can not put enough emphasis on this tip. If you tell your readers that you are going to update your blog daily, then do it. If you tell them that you will be writing in your blog weekly, don’t let them down. Your readers are what makes your blog successful. You may not realize this in the beginning, and you will have few readers in the beginning as well, but you will eventually build a readership base and have people checking out your blog regularly. Maybe you do not plan on telling your readers how often you will update your blog. That is ok too. However, think about this, if you were reading a blog on a weekly basis, and you expected to see the blog that you like to read updated at least once a week, you would be very disappointed to find out that it was not. Sure, things happen that might prevent you from updating, and that is expected, and excused, but week after week can hurt you and cause you to lose readers.

Tip number three. While you are working on your readership base, and trying to gain readers, you are going to find that commenting on blogs that are relevant to yours will surely help. Find a blog that is on the same topic to yours, or close to it and leave comments. You can also make a track back with your blog postings to comment on your own blog. Doing so will probably more than likely give someone else the urge to track back to your blog. Which will be good for it as well. Commenting on blogs that get many comments will make yours be seen by those interested in that market. You will gain traffic and readers that way, and it is easy as well as free.

The fourth blog marketing tip. Learn and apply SEO to your blogs. SEO is search engine optimization. You are going to find that if you want your blog to go anywhere, you need SEO, and you need to know how to use it to the advantage of your blog. Just like a website, a blog will be better off optimized.

If you’re not preselling, you’re losing money

If you want to make more money as an affiliate, you must presell.

Before we begin, we need to first define what preselling is. Well, it is an art. And it’s also a science. And it’s function is to prepare your reader to buy something. Then you send them to the site that sells what you’ve prepared them for. When done correctly, your reader will not even notice.

The gist is that you give your reader some useful information. And then refer them to the product website. In a second we’ll talk about how to do actually it. First, it’s important to understand why we do it. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

• It builds trust – And gaining the trust of your readers helps them want to click your links. And the more traffic you can send to the sale page, the more commissions you’ll earn.
• It takes your reader out of defense mode – Nobody likes to be sold something. By not doing that to them, your reader is less defensive. Unguarded reading means they’re not filtering what you say. And your intention is conveyed more easily.
• It creates buying readiness – Your readers are now receiving your message. And in turn, they’re open to other messages, as well. Like the info on product sales page you’ve linked to. Sending them to the sales page in this state makes them more receptive to the actual pitch.
• You make more money – You’ve prepped them and referred them in the right state of mind. Open to the sales message and feeling safe. The only possible result is more sales!
• Your customers are happier – People like to make their own buying decisions. Instead of feeling pressured or “sold”. So they are happier with their purchase.
• Preselling increases your bottom line – Satisfied customers are less like to refund. And that translates to more commission staying in your affiliate business.

Clearly preselling makes sense. You increase your profits. And produce happier customers. That’s a clear win-win.

OK, so how do you do it?

Now you know whey preselling is critical. And I hope you’re resolved to being preselling, too. So, it’s time to break down how it works. Remember, there are two components – art and science.

Mastering the art

The first step is in getting your readers to trust you and open up. Honestly, the only way to do this is to provide real value in you content. Now, providing enough info to be useful, but still making them want more – that’s the art of it. That is, they have to be wanting more when you refer them to the product sales page for the product you’re trying to sell. Plus they’re not guarded, so they’re more open and likely to purchase the product.

It’s also a science

There’s also a specific formula you need to follow.

The first is how you present the information. You need to know where you’re going before you begin. Your goal is to sell the product you’re promoting. There are two ways to accomplish this with great content. First, you can provide useful but incomplete information. Or you can give them so much information that it feels overwhelming to do what you’re talking about. Whichever method, you send them to a product website that solves the problem you just created.

But you can’t link to your affiliate link. You have directly to the home page of the product. When you do this, you’re click-throughs go way up. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? This is all part of the science of preselling. You “pre-cookie” your reader before sending them to the sales page.

Next, you want to make sure you’re linking on related words and phrases. People are used to clicking on hyperlinked words to get information they’re looking for. And when the words are in context like this, it makes perfect sense for your reader to click them.

What you have now is a super powerful system for affiliate marketing success.

Now for the bad news…

Doing all of this right is really hard! Let’s look at the skills required to pull it off: Great content. First of all, you actually have to write great articles and give value to your readers. To do that you have to have enough information to be valuable and be able to present it in a useful way. Writing to presell. First, you have to give good information. And you have to make the content accessible in order to provide value. While at the same time making them want more. The other approach is to reveal a self-evident problem through the information.

Product selection. You also need to determine what products you’ll be preselling. Even if you can pull off writing and great article. Your efforts are completely wasted if you don’t pick a winning product.

Techy stuff. And finally, you need the technical know-how to embed your image tag and make sure you get credit for the sale. This is actually pretty simple – just embed a 1 pixel X 1 pixel image and set your affiliate link as the “source” of the image. (But if you mess it up, your referrals won’t be tracked.)

In closing:

Now you know what it takes to be a Presell Pro. Preselling properly will boost your affiliate profits up to 500%! So, start now and develop preselling content for all your affiliate promotions. Don’t wait another minute. The effort it takes is well worth the benefits…