Randy Roedl

posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 29

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Protecting Your affiliate Commissions

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.

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PPPPP

posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 26

Positioning of Adverts

After using AdSense for a while you must have begun to ask yourself if there’s anything you could do to improve your AdSense based earnings. But before you go on experimenting with this and that setup you have to realize a couple of things about positioning.

The first thing you should know is that there is no universal position that is guaranteed to improve your earnings. That being said, the part above about experimenting is meant to be taken literally. You have to try as many setups as you can to find the solution with the greatest benefit.

But, of course certain places usually work better then others. Of course, Google recognizes this and they publish a “heat map” of how much revenue ads placed in certain portions of the page can bring you. Experimenting is often the best way you can find, what suits the sub conscious mind of your audience.

Generally the most profitable ads are placed within the main content, generally right above it. But this is by no means a rule and there are some exceptions to it. One known exception is having a news site or something similar to a new site.

If this is your case, you will often find that you generate more earnings by placing your ads at the bottom of the content, right before comments begin. This is because as users finish reading a story, they have a short moment where they’re looking for something more to do. And your AdSense ads can offer them that something.

Also, placing ads to the left side of your page seems to work better almost all the time. Of course, this is logical because text is generally written from left to right (unless you come from certain countries where it’s the other way around).

People will finish a sentence and return their eyes to the left position, which means they have a higher chance of spotting your ads.

Also, there’s a bit more to this then just having ads visually in the right place. If you have more then one ad you have to worry about where they’re located in the code as well. And there’s a very good reason for this concern.

AdSense fills the ads in the order it finds them in the source. That means that if the first add you have in the code isn’t the one generating the highest revenue, you may soon start to lose money, rather then earn more.

This is because if AdSense doesn’t have anymore ads it will supplement your space with public service ads or just leave it blank altogether. That means that, if you’re unlucky, you could end up with your most profitable locations not having any good ads at all. To supplement your revenues

There are other issues with how many ads you should place in your site. The problem is that if you have too many, rather then generate more income, you’ll have a lower click through rate, as visitors tend not to follow ads from the places where these come in excess.

You have to constantly keep track of how the users interact with your site. Keep an eye out for where the visitors will be looking at your site most. This is generally the place where you want to use your first ads. Also try not to place ads in annoying positions as that can guarantee a lower click through rate.

Of course, you always need to have ads that blend in with your content and generally don’t make the visitor’s presence on your site an unpleasant one. The key is providing an enjoyable experience for your visitor, whilst generating revenues from their exploration.

And again, ultimately the best revenue will be earned through a lot of experimentation. Be sure to use AdSense’s channels feature and be on the look out for how certain ads in your pages are doing whilst altering the positions to better supplement your earnings.

You need to have optimized niche website templates for best results. You may find the best adsense templates and blog templates at www.AdsenseTemplates.com (www.adsensetemplates.com). They are offering 100 fresh new templates every month.

PPPPP

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posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 23

Overachieving Your Way to Super Affiliate Stardom

internet business is a bit confusing especially if you?re not really knowledgeable at it. You will also be left completely blank, asking yourself as to what type of online business is best for you. Why don?t you try affiliate marketing business?

Affiliate marketing is defined as a revenue sharing relationship between advertisers or merchants and online publishers or affiliates. It is a low cost way for merchants to sell their products and services.

In this type of online business, you don?t have to take any risk because you only have to pay the affiliate once the result is achieved. Once a customer is gained, a portion of the profit from that customer will be given to the affiliate as commission. Usually, an affiliate gets a commission for referring clicks, leads or sales to the merchant?s website. The said affiliate income can be a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage.

From this simple commission-based referral system, some affiliates become experts on this field. In fact, some of them are gaining more than five figures every month. However, among the thousands of marketers, only 1 to 5% of them reached this level. And if you?re among the lucky ones who achieve this so-called elite level, you can now be aptly called a ?super? affiliate.

This means you are capable of achieving noteworthy percentage of sales or traffic on your merchant?s website. Super affiliates are not only experts on search engine optimization; they are also great in newsletter marketing, email marketing, reciprocal linkages, keyword optimization, link exchanges, advertising in forums and other methods to advertise and promote their products and services.

But how does a person become a super affiliate? And how can they overachieve their way to super affiliate stardom? Making your way to super affiliate stardom is not that easy; and it surely won?t happen overnight. Bear in mind that you need to embrace some tactics, carry out effective online business strategies and of course give hefty time commitment. You can?t be a super affiliate without blood and sweat and without the following traits - patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge. Matched with efficient strategy, these three traits provide you the formula towards super affiliate stardom.

Affiliate marketing strategies are a bit difficult but they are achievable; you just have to work hard on it. First, look for a unique and exceptional niche and focus in it. The reason why most people in the affiliate marketing business didn?t turn out to be very successful is that they try to offer almost everything under the sun instead of giving all their attention in a particular niche market. If you want to become a super affiliate, try not to scatter all your efforts; concentrate on your niche and make it grow by means of promoting, advertising and selling it well.

The next step you must do after you have established your affiliate storehouse is to promote it. Most affiliates resort to pay-per-click engines. But what?s more advisable is to discover how to accomplish organic search results or better yet, hire a search engine marketing company. Through this, you can be saved from losing all your profits on pay-per-click engines.

Then, familiarize yourself with your product and know your audience. Remember that credibility builds trust. And you can only make information that puts up your credibility if you know the products and services your site is offering. If you?re target audience don?t trust you, how could you expect them to purchase from your affiliate storehouse? Moreover, if you take time to learn the products and services you are recommending, it will be way too easy for you to establish a website that converts well, which will enhance your affiliate income in return.

Try to promote and resell products from different merchants. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this strategy because it is just a way of protecting your business and broadening your horizons to be sure that you won?t experience the so-called famine effect. Aside from that, promoting different merchants on the same site provides your site visitors a handful of destinations to choose from. This strategy will also make you aware on what your visitor want to see and it can also help you find out how well various merchants perform against each other.

As mentioned earlier in this page, a super affiliate wannabe should have this trait - thirst for knowledge. It is because this trait can help him or her stay updated and remain on top of the trends. If you are knowledgeable in internet marketing, then you know that what was adopted few months ago may not be applicable at present. So it is important to seek knowledge and make sure that you are updated on what?s new about affiliate marketing daily. Keep in mind that super affiliates take time to read, learn and embrace the changes in online marketing business.

And what?s most important? Never, ever give up. Being engaged in affiliate marketing business is hard, that?s why you must be equipped with patience and persistence. Check your statistics and find out the things that are working and those that are not. Make changes if the situation calls for.

These are just few suggestions and ideas if you want to boost your affiliate income. Let me reiterate, you have to be patience, persistence and knowledgeable. Then, follow the above mentioned strategies and you?ll surely find yourself on the road to super affiliate stardom.

posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 21

posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 20

Money Making Tips

Affiliate marketing is all about getting paid for
selling products you don’t own and not going to
jail for it. Someone else goes through all of the
trouble to develop software programs, service, or
digital content products. They’ll do all the work
then you collect the money!

Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing arrangement
between the product developer, known as the affiliate
merchant, and the affiliate marketer who is anyone
that’s willing to promote the sale of product by
advertising the product using any type of legal
means available.

The relationship will allow the affiliate merchant
to grow their revenue by paying only for the
advertising that results in a sale. The affiliate
marketer will profit by making a percentage on a
sale that he does not have to manage after the
sale.

Getting paid
Getting paid all depends upon how the affiliate
program is set up. Some merchants will run their
own affiliate program. They’ll have special types
of software that assigns each affiliate marketer
a special link that’s used in promoting the product.
The software will track sales of every marketer
and the merchant will pay the commission on a
periodic basis using either PayPal or another
method of payment.

Selecting products or services
Your income is directly tied to how well your
selected product or service sells, and the size of
the commission you earn, which makes it very
important that you choose carefully when it comes
to choosing the affiliate merchant you’ll be
partnering with.

Choose programs that you aren’t embarrassed to
promote and programs that you’ll feel comfortable
recommending to your family and friends if they
were to ask you about it.

You’ll do much better if you promote products
that you fully understand and are already familiar
with. This way, you’ll be able to write better
ads without having to strain yourself coming up
with the right things to say.

You should only promote products and services for
companies who have gone through the trouble to
provide you with training programs and sales aids
such as banners and other marketing materials that
you can either use directly or model the one you
own after.

Be on the lookout for programs with commission
rates no less than 50%. You should give preference
to programs that pay commission on multiple levels,
which means you’ll also have to earn commissions
on sales made by people who buy the products
through your link then go on and become affiliates
themselves later on.

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posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 18

The concept of blogging is nothing new.  Many people own and operate a blog that they use for either business or personal use.  Some people blog as part of their outside job, some blog as part of their own business, some blog as a way of making money online, and some blog purely for personal purposes.  Sometimes peoples interests grow and the develop other reasons they would like to blog, but these reasons may not fit into the theme or niche of their current blog.  There is no law against the amount of blogs that someone can own and operate, so though it doesn’t occur to a lot of people, the easiest solution is to start another blog.

The main danger of owning and managing more than one blog is the pitfall of spreading time to thin so that each blog is not updated as regularly as it should be.  Aside from that, there are a number of benefits that one can capitalize on if they operate multiple blogs.

When running multiple blogs, the process of getting backlinks is made somewhat easier because these blogs can be interlinked to eachother.  This works expecially well if the blogs have content that is related to eachother.

If someone is blogging as a way to be self employed or to earn some extra money, as long as time allows then multiple blogs can increase the earning potential of those blogs.  This can be accomplished through a number of online money making ideas like the selling of links, doing paid blog posting, using an advertising network like Google’s Adsense, or selling products through an affiliate relationship like Amazon.

From link building benefits to improved or multiplied streams of money making, running multiple blogs is usually a great move for any full time or part time blogger.  As long as time allow for the added time needed for development, marketing, and updating, then the income possibilities should rise with each new added blog to a person’s network.

posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 17

Managing And Recruiting Affiliates

Once affiliates begin to sign up, even if you are
automatically approving them, its in your best
interest to audit your network on a regular basis.
Now, the FTC is making marketers responsible for
the actions of their affiliates. If your affiliates
get out of control, it could cost you a lot of money.

You’ll have hundreds of affiliates sign up for your
program. Hobbyists, spammers, webmasters and even
marketers. It’s very important that you review
each one on a regular basis to ensure the way they
are promoting you is acceptable to your company and
above all - its legal.

Below, you’ll find some tips when screening:
1. All affiliates must have an active web
site. If not, they may be spammers.
2. The affiliate site content must relate
to your products or services.
3. The site should have appropriate levels
of content.
4. Misuse of content. Be very clear with
your affiliates and what content they can use from
your website.

Affiliate fraud
Fraud with affiliates has been increasing over the
last several years, which is another great reason
to screen your affiliates on a regular basis. With
fraud, there are two main types:

Malware - Some affiliates out there have developed
software that is installed on a machine, normally as
part of a free download. When someone clicks on the
affiliate link, the true affiliate ID is replaced
with the fraud.

Fake purchase - If you have a product of high value
that returns large commissions for affiliates, you
may notice some bad parties signing up, then using
stolen or fake credit card information to purchase
products via their links.

Communicating with affiliates
Good affiliates are normally busy, as they can
easily forget about your services and products.
As time goes by, your offers can wind up less in
less visited areas or accidentally deleted.

It’s extremely important to stay in contact with
your affiliates, even more so with the high performers.
Do not wait for them to contact you, as if you
do, it normally means they are reporting a problem.
By taking the time to contact them, you are showing
that you are interested in the partnership.

You don’t need a new product as an excuse to
contact your power affiliates. Even if it’s just
a quick note to ask if they need anything. You
can also use the opportunity for feedback on your
program as well.

Managing a successful affiliate program is not an
easy task you can fully automate, as you’ll have
to get involved. Happy affiliates are more
productive, and the more money they make - the
more money your company makes as well.

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PPPPP

posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 14

Making Money Selling Other People?s Products

A lot of people are now getting into online businesses and online marketing either to supplement their ?real world? income or for it to become their primary source of income. Why? Because online marketing just provides them a lot of benefits!

First, you can reach just about anybody in the world who has Internet access if you market your products online. That means a wider market for you, which can translate to larger profits. Second, setting up an online business requires only a fraction of the cost required to set up an actual business establishment, which means a lot of savings for the business owner.

Another aspect that has attracted a lot of people towards online marketing is the fact that one doesn?t have to have his own products to get started. In online marketing, one can start making a lot of money just by selling, or even by just trying to sell, other people?s products. And getting started with this kind of marketing strategy is actually quite easy. All that one needs to do is to set up an agreement with an online retailer or merchant, and after everything is settled, one can immediately start making money by selling the merchant?s or the retailer?s products.

Incidentally, the most popular and the fastest growing method of selling other people?s products online is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing, in its simplest definition, is a relationship between an online merchant or retailer, who has products to sell, and his affiliates, who are willing to promote the merchant?s product on their website.

In a typical affiliate marketing set up, the merchant provides his affiliates with banners and text ads that links to his site. The affiliates will then get these ads posted on their website and they get paid whenever traffic or sales is directed to the merchant?s website. Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other online merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee for the affiliate?s compensation.

Starting to make money online with affiliate marketing is relatively quick and easy. All that one has to do is to sign up as an affiliate for an online company that offers affiliate programs. An alternative method, and usually an easier one, is to sign up as a member of an affiliate network?a network that hosts a variety of affiliate programs for different online merchants or retailers. Signing up is usually free, although other companies and networks may require you to pay a particular fee. Such fees, however, are made as payment for additional services that the company may render, like providing you with tools and assistance to jumpstart your online business.

When you sign up with an affiliate marketing program, you are usually required to fill out a form containing information about yourself. Some affiliate programs may also require you to present the URL of your website and describe its contents. This will allow the retailers to verify that you actually have a website with contents that are relevant to their products. Some affiliate programs, however, won?t require you to have a website. After filling out the form and all, you are then allowed to choose the affiliate programs you want to promote.

After signing up with an affiliate program and being an actual affiliate, you are now ready to start making a lot of money by selling other people?s product online. How do you make money? There are actually a number of ways for you to earn money as an affiliate, and most of these ways depends on the type of affiliate marketing program you?ve gotten into.

Many affiliate marketing programs compensate their affiliates in either of three ways: pay-per-click (PPC), pay-per-sale (PPS), or pay-per-lead (PPL). In pay-per-click affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever he directs traffic to the merchant?s site. PPS and PPL affiliate marketing programs work rather differently. In PPS, the affiliate only gets paid when his referral converts into an actual sale. In typical PPS affiliate programs, the affiliate would usually get 15% to 20% commission for each conversion. PPL affiliate programs work the same way, although affiliates are paid a fixed fee whenever his referral converts into a lead for the company.

Some affiliate marketing programs are two-tier programs, wherein the affiliate is also allowed to recommend other affiliates to the merchant. In such affiliate programs, the affiliate would not only be paid for the traffic or sales that he would direct to the merchant?s site but also for the traffic or sales directed by the affiliates who signed up with the program through his recommendation.

Yet another way of earning more profits with affiliate marketing is through residual affiliate programs. Residual affiliate programs are affiliate programs where the affiliate gets paid a number of times for as long as the merchant keeps the customer the affiliate has referred to his site. One form of residual program gets the affiliate paid a commission every time the referred customer purchases something on the merchant?s site. Another form of residual affiliate program gets the affiliate paid a percentage every month for as long as the company keeps the referred customer.

With a lot of options available and a lot of ways to earn money, affiliate marketing is undoubtedly the most popular and the easiest way to make money by selling other people?s products online. As to how much money one can get from affiliate marketing actually depends on the affiliate. A dedicated and hardworking affiliate would certainly get more from the program compared to those affiliates who would simply sign up and forget about the program later.

posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 11

keyword Research That Works

On the internet, keywords are terms or words that
relate to particular topics. Keyword research will
involve various aspects, such as finding sales
oriented keywords or driving maximum qualified
users to increase their online sales.

Keyword research is the first step towards a
successful search engine optimization campaign.
You have to be very careful when selecting keywords,
as it can be very tricky to select targeted keywords
for a website.

The selection of keywords should always be based on
various aspects such as product names, services,
brands, or general terms. Often times, people forget
about targeting geographical terms when they have
global presence.

When doing keyword research, it’s highly recommended
to do a very thorough market research analysis to
find the best keywords used by search engines to
find products and services online - and find out
what keywords are targeted by competitors who are
doing well in marketing on the internet.

The first step in finding the best keywords is to
make a list of the products, topics, and services
that you offer. You can also make good use of your
website logs to know which keywords have brought
you the traffic in the past.

Be sure to select keywords that clearly define your
business and products to drive traffic from the
search engines. There are some websites which get
high levels of traffic through general keywords
although they might not end up being sales.

Today, users of search engines are aware of how
they work, for searching products and services on
the net. Users always look for the better products,
locations, etc. Therefore, you should cover all
terms for each - products, locatins, etc.

There are numerous tools available which will help
you identify keywords that are suitable for search
engines. The challenge here, is to determine which
keyword is the best to generate traffic.

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posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 11

Almost everyone involved in the industry of designing and running web sites and blogs knows that one of the most popular and powerful blogging packages available is wordpress.  Wordpress is a free software package, some hosts will even handle installation of it for you at no charge, that makes running and updating almost every feature of a blog a somewhat easy to do task.  Wordpress is the most popular blogging platform for a reason, it is usable by both newcomers to blogging as well as experts who have been blogging for years.  But as good as Wordpress is for running a blog which is updated frequently with fresh content, can it also be used to run a static web site as well?

The answer is yes.

With a few simple adjustments involving disabling the comments, editing the theme, and setting the homepage to be a page instead of a post, a Wordpress blog can be transformed into a Wordpress static site.  The site will not be a true static site, as the information will still be assembled from a database of pages, but it will have the appearance of a static site.

One of the nice things about using Wordpress for a static site is that it is very easy to edit, delete, or create new pages too.  You would just add content in the form of pages, instead of posts like for a blog, and the Wordpress software does the rest in assembling it into your website structure.   There is no creation of new html pages, no unnecessary using of an html editor or other web design software.  The Wordpress platform is all that you will need when it comes to any updating or maintenance of a static web site.

Using Wordpress for static web sites is not only possible, but highly recommended.  It makes the setup of the site easy and the editing and up keep of the site painless.  Also, if you are already into blogging, it means you don’t have to learn another design language or content management system, you can keep on working with a program you know.  Plus, with all the new updates in terms of the Wordpress software itself, as well as the continued development of quality plugins, using Wordpress for a static site is getting more and more attractive.  Many designers and web marketing people actually prefer using this popular blogging software for their static sites as well.