Developing an Affiliate Program For Your Website

One of the best ways to improve traffic to your website is with the help of targeted websites who earn money promoting other peoples products. One of the websites I work on generates more than 35% of its revenue from other sites selling their products and services. If developed correctly, affiliate programs can have a significant impact on your revenue.

What Is and Affililate Program?

An affiliate program is a way for you to sell your products through other websites. Essentially the process is simple. You provide another website with the necessary promotional items to sell your product(s). However, the affiliate never takes actually inventory of the product you are selling.

A great example of this is the website that sells mystery novels. For this example, let’s call the primary website Mystery Novels Central dot com. The website provides an affiliate website (affiliatewebsite1) with some banners and buttons promoting mystery novels. When a browser of affiliatewebsite1 clicks on the banner, it redirects him to Mystery Novels Central dot com. If the user purchases a novel, Mystery Novels Central dot comp pays affiliatewebstie1 a percentage of the sale – also known as a commission.

How Do Affiliate Programs Work?

When your promotional assets are placed on another website, each asset has a tracking URL. This tracking URL is invisible to the browser but keeps track of his activities. When he passes through the purchase process and receives a payment confirmation page, additional tracking code confirms a sale. This information is captured and tracked back to the initiator of the sale (i.e. the affiliate).

In its most simple form, an affiliate program works like a real life sales force. Imagine having sales reps spread our across the Internet selling your product to each of their new and existing customers. Each time that sales rep sells your product, you fulfill the order and pay the rep a small commission. In a nutshell that’s an affiliate program.

How Can I Start My Own Affiliate Program?

You can start your own affiliate program in a variety of ways. One of the most simple methods is to use and affiliate marketplace like ClickBank or PayDotCom. These affiliate sites aggregate many affiliate products. For a small fee, and sometimes simply a percentage of the sale without an upfront fee, you can join their program.

When you join, you agree to let the marketplace add your product to a list of products that third party websites can promote. When you do so, you also agree to let the affiliate marketplace (ClickBank or PayDotCom) receive a percentage of each sale. Remember, you will also have to pay a commission to the actual affiliate website that promotes and sells your product. The fees can add up quickly but are worthwhile if your product has a good margin.

There are other programs from well established companies like Commission Junction, but they charge a significant fee for joining and a larger percentage of each sale. For those starting out, CB or PayDotCom is your best choice.

What I particularly like about affiliate programs is the scale you can achieve. Affiliate programs are relatively easy to set up and can have a significant impact on your top line. If you have a product to sell and haven’t started using affiliates to promote your program, get started today.

Affiliate Marketing : Succeed Online

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways for website owners to earn some extra cash. Millions of products are sold each and everyday online, and with each transaction, many individuals earn a commission.

So how can you get a piece of this ever-increasing affiliate product pie?

Simply stick to the tried-and-tested methods that have worked for many years and still continue to work well in the affiliate marketing world of today - you'll be sure to win! With the top three affiliate marketing strategies given here, you will be in a very good position to increase your sales and be successful in the amazingly profitable sphere of today's affiliate marketing programs online.

1. Having unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. Do not just throw them all in 'en masse' to save a little money on web hosting.It is desirable to have a site focusing on each and every product and nothing more.

Actually, having said that, there are quite a few web hosting companies that will allow you to host Unlimited Domains on your account - so hosting charges should not be a problem if you go down that road.Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial appreciation on what the products can do for those who purchase them.

Try to include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure, however, that these customers are willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.

You can also write articles displaying the uses of the product and include them on the website as additional pages. Try to make the pages attractive and compelling. Also, don't forget to include a few requests for them to act on the information.

Each headline should attract the readers and encourage them to try and discover more, possibly even to contact you. Draw attention to your product's special points. This will help your readers to learn what your page is about and will possibly make them want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible, locate them at the very top of your page so they simply cannot be missed.Try to create personal-type auto responder messages that will be mailed to those who input their personal information into your sign-up box.

According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospective client.Only one of two things can possibly happen with the web page alone: a) a closed sale or b) the prospect leaving the web page never to return again.By placing useful information into their in-boxes at certain specified periods, you will later remind them of the product they were interested in and may find out that the sale is soon closed.

Do make sure that the content of your messages is directed toward specific reasons for buying the product. Never ever make it sound like a sales pitch.Focus on important points showing how your product can make life easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email.

As much as possible, avoid having the word "free" in there because some of the earlier spam filters dump those kind of contents straight into the junk so no-one even gets the chance to read them beforehand.Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing out on something big if they do not take advantage of your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are promoting, they will be among those who move on and never come again.

Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that are focusing on your target customers and what you have put up might just grab their interest. Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day.

Always try to remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or subscribe to your services. If you can generate as many as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, this means that you can make 10 sales, based on the average statistics.

The methods defined above are not really difficult at all to do, if you think about it. It just involves a small amount of time and a definite plan of action on your part.Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You can end up doing something that not every affiliate marketer can do and that is, maintaining a really good source of income and being successful in this business. Besides, when you become successful, think of those regular massive pay-checks you will be receiving!

Affiliate Marketing: Why is it One of the Most Cost-Effective Ways to Advertise your Business

Ever heard of affiliate programs? These are forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates for driving traffic to the advertiser or for other transactions. The advertiser pays the affiliate to place a link on their website, and the affiliate sends traffic to the advertiser in return. Simply put, it’s about paying commissions to people who help you make sales. It’s that easy. NOT.

Affiliate marketing has its ups and downs. It could be draining if you are not armed with updated information and the technical how-tos. But this article’s sole objective is to reach out to you and not to badmouth affiliate marketing.

Here are the following reasons on why web marketers go gaga over affiliate marketing as a form of Internet advertisement.

1. Low cost

Many are scared to go on a home based business because of the capital required. In affiliate marketing, you don’t have to spend much to start raking in moolah.

2. Inventories not included

Product management fuss could be very stressing. An inventory is not asked to be maintained. The merchant does the maintenance required.

3. Unlimited income through leverage

When you have a paid job, your monthly income mainly relies on whether you go to work or not. With affiliate marketing, your affiliates could all just lead traffic to your site without having to lift a finger after providing them your ad copy and links. Though not every web marketer earns limitless, it still is a fact that all the necessary matters for the advertiser or Internet marketer are all there to be successful.

4. Go worldwide

With affiliate marketing, you are dealing with a global market place. All you have to do is choose a niche product and prepare all the necessary tools for your affiliates to lead traffic from just about anywhere to your website.

5. Low risk

The very main reason for Internet marketer’s enthusiasm with affiliate marketing is its having a low risk factor. Especially for those with low budget set aside for advertising, affiliate marketing is just the way to do it.

6. No closing time

With affiliate marketing, your business works every single second of the day while targeting a worldwide market! What could be better than that?

But all of these will be put to waste if you don’t have the right niche product and all the other important tools to make it big in affiliate marketing, i.e., well-SEO-ed website. So better work on this first before ever considering those benefits.