Free - Getting Viral Traffic

Desktop Lightening has arrived and it is absolutely wonderful. The windows application allows you to build a network of interested visitors to your site right from your desktop. Really cool so check it out.



This is not just another marketing program. They recommend Proper use of the tool as being the platfrom from which you broadcast your newsletter to your network.

Your network expansion goes Viral as soon as you start using this tool.

It is a high quality resource with a great non intrusive interface and no more surfing to generate traffic to your site.

You really should take a look at this!

Marilyn Lamont

Recommends: CBAdsPro

No Adsense Ads Here !

I am not sure how many people have tried to make money installing Google AdSense Ads on their web sites but I know it has gotten me nowhere. Mind you I did not take the time to learn all of the site optimizing techniques needed to generate a Google AdSense income . The websites I built were for small and medium sized businesses focused on the provision of services in our local area. Site traffic was not high in a global sense so generating AdSense income was not a high priority.

I have been designing sites for about 6 years, professionally that is. Hosting and designing sites for small businesses became too much of a headache as I found it was too time consuming to work with clients one to one. What I really needed was to be able to hire staff for the front end operation while I did the scripting work which I loved. If my clients read this I hope they do not take it personal. By majority I enjoyed my clients, but there are always a few that ruin a good thing.

CBProAds Market Click Bank

CBProAds is a five Star Program for anyone wanting to generate a passive income stream.

1. The same tools are available for both paid and free affiliates.
2. The only difference to Free and Upgraded Affiliates is the commission level.
3. Free Affiliates make 50% of the commission paid by ClickBank for product Sales.
4. ClickBank is renown for their effective use of cookies to track Product Sales.
5. ClickBank cookies last for 60 days.
6. The interest in ClickBank Digital Products increases daily.
7. Their System is so easy to use. I should say SIMPLE.
8. The member panel is attractive, easy to use and professional
9. Contextual ads created using CBProAds are high quality.
10. Free & Paying Affiliates can market their web StoreFront hosted without cost.
11. Free and Paying Affiliates can create contextual Ads for use on any web site.

Definitely worth taking a serious look at this one.

Marilyn Lamont

CBProAds Affiliate

Taking My Own Advice

In respect to maintaining my focus this is indeed difficult when involved in Internet marketing. The Internet is so full of wonderful things to explore. So many programs, so many good offers, such talented marketers trying to get my money. Yes it is difficult and must say I have wasted many an hour and many a dollar before finding success. It still irks me to say the least when I come across one of those really fraudulent sites. I won't mention names but I have one my plate to deal with tomorrow and I am hot to say the least. Over $100.00 and no service at all. I actually complained last week and they were to waive this months fees. Guess what? They managed to work their way around and still get another month out of me. Really bad company, suppose to be reputable but that is not my current opinion. If they do not comply with my request for a full refund tomorrow I will be posting the story on these folks. That is if they have not changed their phone numbers again. It really is buyer beware when it comes to getting hooked and parting with your cash.

Maintain Your Focus

'Take Dead Aim' with Affiliate Programs

One of the key success secrets for those that are successful with affiliate programs is to focus. You must take dead aim.

There are many thousands of affiliate programs you can join. Yet to succeed you must ignore 99% of them. You must select a subject area and stick to it.

The days of taking the scattergun approach with affiliate programs are long gone. Once upon a time this was a good method for making money with affiliate programs but now the
opportunities in this area are all but gone.

Today, you need to be a sniper and sniff out the best affiliate programs around. You need to take a shotgun approach. Do some affiliate marketing research by reading as many articles
on a subject as possible. Pick an area you are good at and know something about.

Then pick 3 affiliate programs in this area to join. That's right, just 3!

This way you will focus. You will force yourself to concentrate on fewer areas and fewer affiliate programs.

If you focus and find your own niche you will stand a much better chance of making decent money with affiliate programs.

You see, one of the biggest problems with affiliate programs is there are just TOO MANY opportunities. The irony is that by ignoring most of the

opportunities you will actually do well.

The real key to success is not which affiliate program you chose but the affiliate marketing strategies you choose to implement. With 3 affiliate programs you are able to focus more energy and effort into these products. You may even be considered an expert in this particular area because of your
knowledge.

Taking dead aim means becoming a specialist. The internet is a great place to specialize and affiliate programs make it just that much easier. The new breed of affiliate that focuses on particular products or services is succeeding now. They are spending all their time on affiliate marketing because that is what differentiates the successful affiliates from the rest.

Take aim with your affiliate programs. Pick just a few.

Concentrate all of your time into marketing these programs - because you are so knowledgeable about the product or service you are selling, you will automatically drive more targeted
prospects to what you are selling.

About the Author

David McKenzie is offering a Free Email Course
"5 Tips to Being Successful with Affiliate Programs"
==> >http://www.1sthomebasedbusiness.com
Click now for your FREE course!
Written By: David McKenzie

Ads By CbproAds

Select a Single Program

"Marketing A Single Affiliate Program is the First Key to Success!"

Marketing A Single Affiliate Program is the First Key to Success!

There are a lot of affiliate marketing programs out there that claim to make you more money than you could possible spend; when in true reality, you've just sign up to be another person that the company can send you emails to buy their products!

Have you fallen for that kind of bait?
I have before! Hook, line, and sinker!!

Well the FIRST KEY to really making an affiliate program work for you is just by sticking with the one program you've signed up for. It gets quite easy to keep signing up for program after program in hopes that you will finally hit pay-dirt. What has happened is that now you are spread so thin in your ability to market a single program effectively.

Marketing A Single Affiliate Program is the First Key to Success because:

It would be in your best interest to really market only one program until you have made a successful amount of residual income from it before you go out and start marketing other programs. You should learn all there is to know about what kind of program you have joined first and see how others in that program are doing it. Learn what they do to become successful. Many programs offer coaches, partners, or loads of success oriented eBooks for you to read. Tackle all that stuff first until you get a grasp of what a successful affiliate marketer must do to make it to financial freedom.

Marketing A Single Affiliate Program is the First Key to Success because:

Like with most affiliate programs, the program will provide you with a viable URL (website) address in which you can send prospects and get them to go check out what you are offering. Your goal is to send tons of traffic to that site URL and then in turn change those visitors into paying customers; further, your goal is to turn those customers or visitors into a down-line group that will help you build an extra layer of residual income on top of your regular commissions.

Marketing A Single Affiliate Program is the First Key to Success because:

If you have signed up for multiple programs, then which program can you really promote like an expert? How can you be an expert when you have not mastered the first program you signed up for? For example, when I first got into affiliate marketing, I already had a ecommerce website and was looking for a way to ad some viable content to place in my website; and, I thought affiliating with a proven Internet Marketer would help; however, it seemed to get me farther away from my goals as possible. I was spending more time trying to learn what they were doing than in promoting my own website. I wasted time trying to get people to visit the affiliate's website than in getting them to purchase from my website. My thinking was that if they would not buy from me then I would just

get them over to the affiliate and make huge money like they promised I would make.

What a Mistake that was!!!!

Marketing a Single Affiliate Program is the First Key to Success because:

Step by step, a good affiliate program will lead you through to the mistakes and get you to market things in the right way. If you have your own website, then definitely you should spend 80% of your time marketing that site. Remember, you are the master of that site, so act like it. Promote it more than anything in the world. Look at yourself like you are the #1 affiliate in your own program. Do all the things necessary for that site's success, and when you make a comfortable, dependable income from it, then go out and pursue a top-notch affiliate program to be associated with. Make sure the program is compatible with what you are selling. Don�t affiliate with a satellite website if you have a health website!! I tried it and the results were disastrous because I fell for the high payout from the affiliate and did not consider what type of customers I was attracting.

Marketing a Single Affiliate Program is the First Key to Success because:

Staying in tune with your Program and its target market takes a lot of time, work, and commitment on your part. If you are dedicated to the Affiliates mission, making the mission your mission too, then it is easier to succeed because you too will have all the answers to the customers questions and will better server those down-line associates that you have managed to sign-up under you. By signing up people underneath you, you've taken on the responsibility to direct those associates to a path of success, just like the path you were shown and are trying to emulate. Many programs I have signed-up for gave me good first initial contact, but then dropped the communication down to a level of buying some type of product or eBook from them. It seems they are only interested in getting you to buy stuff rather than truly help you to the next level of affiliate success.

The Key is to Market Only One Program or website until you have fruit on the tree so to speak. If you get one apple, why not go for another apple rather than go looking for an orange or a pear. Stick with the tree that gave you the apple, and go back for more until the apples are falling in your direction regularly. Hows that for an analogy of Affiliate Marketing. Always read every step, every word, and learn every tool the Program you have elected to promote to ensure that you do know what you are doing and don't fall into the trap of Jack of All Trades, Master of None!

Stick with it, and here's to your success!!

Eric Smith, On Line Associates, LLC
2004 All Right Reserved


About the Author

webmaster
>http://www.on-line-associates.com
Written By: Eric B. Smith

Selecting an Affiliate Program

How To Select Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs offer most promising opportunities to earn money, to grow contacts and to establish yourself on the net. But this is easier said than done. There are so many affiliate programs available - genuine programs and the other ones. Joining most of these programs is extremely easy. The natural question is - how do you locate good programs that will suit you?

This is an important question and needs careful consideration. It is better to do a little research before joining a program rather than realizing later that all is not well.

The first consideration is the reputation of the program. It is worthwhile doing some research on this to satisfy yourself. There can be several ways of doing it. You can get in contact with the person who referred the program to you and find out his experience with it. Visit the website of the program and look for testimonials. If you know someone who is well versed with Internet marketing he can offer you some advice. There are also websites that evaluate various affiliate programs and you can find them quite easily by searching on Google.

There are affiliate directories which provide some details of hundreds of affiliate programs registered with them, such as:

>Commission Junction

>http://www.associateprograms.com

>http://www.affiliatematch.com

>http://www.becomeanaffiliate.com

>http://www.affiliatedirectory.com

>http://www.refer-it.com

>http://www.linkshare.com

>http://www.2-tier.com

>http://www.lifetimecommissions.com

Generally affiliate programs found at these directories can be trusted because these directories do their own verification of the programs before registering them. However, this should not absolve you from doing your own little research.

Once this issue is settled to your satisfaction, you have crossed a big hurdle. I shall assume that you are interested in long term relationship and your own persistence with the program will count as much to your success as the benefits you get from the program.

Another consideration is how much it will cost to join the program. Many programs offer free affiliate membership and to that extent risk is minimized. Therefore it will be advisable to go for free or low cost affiliate programs unless you have definite information that it is worth paying for the program of your choice.

Payment schedule of the affiliate program is another issue to be considered. There are wide variations. Various programs pay weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and some programs give immediate payments. There is now a tendency towards immediate payment and many affiliate programs are adopting it. This is facilitated by using payment processors like PayPal and Stormpay. The method of payment also varies - payments may be made by checks, direct deposit in the bank account or thru the payment processors. Also different programs have their own policy regarding minimum commission that must accrue before payments can be made to the affiliates. You will be in the best position to decide whether the program's payment policy suits you.

Another factor to be considered is - what is the hit per sale ratio? This is the average number of hits to a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. Many programs make this data available to the affiliates which is a big help. This factor is extremely important because this will tell you how much traffic you must generate before you are likely to earn a commission from the sale.

Now almost all the affiliate programs track the computers which are used to access the affiliate sites by placing cookies on those computers. The lifetime of these cookies varies from few months to the lifetime of the computer. This is necessary to give credit to the affiliate for any sales made through his promotional efforts. The period of time that those cookies stay in the system is also important. This is because most of the time visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. It will be advantageous to know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.

Success of promotion can be improved only by trial and error. There is no fool-proof strategy which will work for all situations. This has to be done the hard way. The affiliate program should give ad-tracking services to their affiliates to keep track of their promotional campaigns. The data these services generate should be available online anytime you decide to check them out. Constantly checking your individual stats is important to know how many impressions, hits and sales are already generated from your site.

The affiliate program should offer physical goods, goods in electronic form and/or services of some value to their customers. As an affiliate you should have good knowledge about what the program offers. It will be to your advantage if you actually own and use any of those products - you will be able to narrate first-hand experience to your prospective customers. If by any chance you do not really understand what the program offers, it is better not to join such program.

Does the affiliate program have a single tier or multi-level structure? A single tier program pays you only for the business you have directly generated. A multi-level program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Multi-level programs help you leverage your earnings which grow to huge amount with consistent effort. In the process you have a chance to get to know your up-line and down-line affiliates well and develop personal relationships with them.

Lastly, what is the commission paid by the program? What other payments are made by the program? There can be one time commission for selling a single item, recurring commission for services or memberships, leveraged earnings and bonus of various types. Understanding the compensation as well as affiliate structure is necessary for an affiliate.

These are some of the important considerations for evaluating an affiliate program. It is not a complete list by any means. The affiliate needs to remain watchful for surprises. Even then some element of risk will always be there. The success of the affiliate will depend not only on the program, but also on his own efforts.

About the author:

Sanjay Johari is an author and an Internet marketer. Visit his website for network marketing opportunities, resources, articles and other information: http://www.sanjay-j.com
Written By: Sanjay Johari

Advice for New Marketers

The 3 Easiest Ways For A Newbie To Start In Affiliate Marketing

With the aid of the Internet, you can almost have everything right at your fingertips. With just a few clicks you get access to thousands and even millions of pieces of information and data on virtually any field of interest. As years pass by, the Internet continuous to effect radical changes in many facets of human endeavors, including commerce. Experts say that the information space, commonly known as the "world wide web," grows by over a million pages everyday as more and more people utilize the Internet for information, education, entertainment, business and other personal reasons. It doesn't take a business-oriented individual to realize that this phenomenon can bring about sky-high financial gains. The Internet's fast-growing popularity in the recent years is surely an opportunity for business that any entrepreneur would not want to miss.

You might be thinking only businessmen can make much money out of the Internet, don't you? Think again. You too can earn big bucks through the Internet even if you don't have products to sell and high-profile and established company. How? That is through affiliate marketing. You might have come across these words over the net while surfing. Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing between a merchant and an affiliate who gets paid for referring or promoting the merchants' products and services. It is one of the burgeoning industries nowadays because it is proven to be cost-efficient and quantifiable means of attaining great profit both for the merchant and the affiliate and other players in the affiliate program, such as the affiliate network or affiliate solution provider.

Affiliate marketing works effectively for the merchant and the affiliate. To the first, he gains opportunities to advertise his products to a larger market, which increases his chances to earn. The more affiliate websites or hard-working affiliates he gets, the more sales he can expect. By getting affiliates to market his products and services, he is saving himself time, effort and money in looking for possible markets and customers. When a client clicks on the link in the affiliate website, purchases the product, recommends it to others who look for the same item or buys it again, the merchant multiplies his chances of earning. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer benefits from each customer who clicks on the link in his website and who actually purchases the product or avails of the service provided by the merchant. In most cases, the affiliate gets commission per sale, which can be fixed percentage or fixed amount.

If you want to be an affiliate marketer and make fortunes out of the Internet, you may follow the following three most basic and easiest ways to start an effective affiliate marketing program. First is to identify a particular thing you are interested in or passionate about so you won't be bored and forced to develop your affiliate web site.

later on. Focusing on a specific area you know very well will help you bring out your best without much risks and effort. You can add a personal touch to your site and give your visitors who are possible buyers an impression that you are an expert in your field. In this way, you gain their trust and eventually encourage them to buy the products you endorse. Next is to look for good paying merchants and products or services related to your interest and create now a website. In choosing the products, you must also consider its conversion rate--the number of visitors-turned-buyers. There are various affiliate networks and affiliate solution providers that can give you info on the most profitable products and best paying merchants. The key here is, be wise enough to choose the right one.

Now that you have decided where to concentrate, have chosen the products to endorse and the merchant you are supporting and have created your own web site with top level domain name and reliable hosting, you are ready to promote. This is a crucial task, since it is through this that you would be able to increase traffic to the business website, sales and of course, profit. In affiliate marketing, it is possible to earn large sums of money in a short span of time especially when you're endorsing high-priced items. Expensive products are hard to sell; however, with the right marketing strategies and sales techniques, you can draw visitors to the merchant's site and make them buy the products. How to promote the products, though, would need a separate discussion. Continue to educate yourself by reading books or other articles online about the best advertising techniques.

Keep in mind, there is no facile and quick path towards success. Affiliate marketing may seem very tempting due to numerous encouraging testimonies of merchants and affiliate marketers alike who have benefited from it, but it entails great deal of hard work and persistence. Likewise, you need to be creative, flexible and willing to embrace new ideas to market your partners' products until you find the perfect strategy that works for a specific market that you are targeting. Neither signing up for an affiliate program nor copying ads and leading others towards the merchants' site doesn't guarantee success yet. Many affiliate marketers fail to understand this, so when they don't make sales, they quit, look for other programs and repeat the same mistake. In the end, they conclude that affiliate marketing is just one of those scams in the Internet. Even as you sleep, you can work your way to great financial success if you employ the right strategies in affiliate marketing. Be creative, be smart and surely, you'll achieve your goals.

About the Author
Matt O'Connor is owner of www.the-complete-guide.com the ultimate resource for anyone wanting to start their own home-based business
Written By: Matt O'Connor