If you have been promoting products on the internet you have probably seen the effects of the falling economy. I have and trying to adapt can sometimes be a challenge on its own. Many have gone back to there full time jobs and quit all together. I am here today to give a little hope.

Even in the great depression, there where opportunities to make an extreme amount of money. You just have to think outside the box. People are still buying on the internet, contrary to what some may believe. If you sit back and think about it…What do people need? What do people want? Right now regardless of what you are promoting people want to see offers, they want the best offers with the least hassles.

Are you making offers? Do you have an e-book that you are selling? is there a bonus just for purchasing your product? If not there should be. Start offering people bonuses and extras and watch your sales jump by at least 30% or more. You have nothing to lose, split test this and come back and share your results. Remember the economy is only going to get worse before it gets better, lets step back and get creative!

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PLR stands for Private Label Rights, which is a term given to articles that are researched and written by paid authors for the intent and purpose of others to take them and claim them as their own original article, without fear of violation of copyright laws.  While the immediate urge is present to just copy and paste an entire article verbatim, this is actually a foolish way to make use of a great resource.

PLR documents are intended to save the end user countless amounts of time in research.  In order to properly gain the advantages of this system, the final owner should rewrite portions of the article, giving it his own personality and style.  The final author should also bear in mind that these writing products are up for grabs by anyone willing to purchase them, therefore there is high probability that the PLR article that he has purchased will end up on someone else’s site also.

This form of information sharing can be of great use to the affiliate marketer who Is able to use it to increase search engine traffic at their websites.  PLR content is also useful in newsletters and email marketing, saving loads of time and copywriting dollars.  The documents are purposely written in a generic format, so the end user can easily insert his own branding text and logos to quickly make the document personalized to his site and services.  There are also many useful topic ideas within the PLR document listings, for when the affiliate marketer just simply runs out of topic ideas for his blog or newsletter.  

Another common marketing method used by many affiliates is to post PLR documents to review websites for their own or competitors affiliate marketing programs.  Many affiliate marketers are under the mistaken impression that using PLR documents in product reviews gives the impression that the marketer is an expert and trusted source in his field due to the background content of the PLR piece.  Unfortunately, there are lots of really lazy affiliate marketers out there who cut and paste the copy verbatim.  When a consumer is researching a product, he will look at more than one review for input.  7 reviews where 4 of the authors have obviously used the same PLR content does not build any credibility.   The wise marketer will retain the meat and bones of the PLR document but rewrite portions of the peripheral document, so the content remains the same, but the style is unique to the person putting his name on the final document.

Affiliate marketers are also in the unique position to be able to purchase PLR articles, ebooks or manuals, and compile them into one volume of text to be forwarded to their affiliates for marketing.  The affiliates can take the electronic files, repackage the documents using their own graphics and inserting their own website links.  With some graceful editing, to adjust the emanuals content to promote your products and services, you have provided your affiliates with a useful tool to increase traffic to their site and increase sales of your programs.
 

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Generally it is advisable to align yourself with affiliate marketing networks that have established themselves in the marketplace as a reliable company to work with.  If you choose to go against the grain and select from the pool of up and coming affiliate networks, you will enjoy reduced ad rates as a promotion to gain membership, but there are also things that you should take into consideration when before committing to a new affiliate network: Make sure the company will protect you from Fraud. This gives the most benefit to affiliate merchants that go for the cost per click model. The idea for the system is to protect both you and the affiliate from fraud.

The newest online marketing networks should logically have access to the most sophisticated technology for tracking site traffic.  This should be one of the items they use to try to lure your business.  If no mention is made about tracking programs, be sure to inquire about it.  List and site traffic tracking are the fundamental tools used by affiliate marketers to determine the success rate of their advertising campaigns.  An outdated tracking program will render the affiliate relationship useless.
 
Visit affiliate blog sites and message boards and inquire about any network you are considering alignment with.  Avoid any network with questionable integrity, as you are the representative of the products and poor quality or business practices will follow your name even after you have left the offending affiliate network.  Since the blog sites in particular contain a large audience, a renegade answer or two will quickly be squashed by the overriding population.

Pay attention to the level of customer service support provided by the affiliate network.  New companies typically suffer from growing pains, and those are most evident in the areas of customer care and satisfaction where the staff members are often overwhelmed by lack of product knowledge simply due to the young nature of the company. 

Find out if you have direct access to the marketing affiliate, as it will solidify your relationship if you have some one on one contact with a staff member.

Finally, determine what steps the network will take in promoting you as a new website to the network.  Many of the newest companies are issuing press routine press releases which will contain their member website addresses, or conduct mass emailings.  The youngest companies are usually the most innovative in this respect, so discuss what the affiliate has to offer you for your membership.

Affiliates usually sign up for many different networks to see what offers are available in the initial stages of their career. Working with a few networks to start with helps provide a higher level of site traffic, which immediately raises your search engine listing, an important consideration to the success of the affiliate marketer.  By connecting with as many potential affiliates as possible, many networks will try to get you to give them exclusive rights to your program.  It is always best to first test several networks to compare performance.

Here are a few that I personally recommend:

• Clickbank.com
• Paydotcom.com
• cj.com
• Linkshare.com

Popularity: 86% [?]

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Popularity: 88% [?]

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Every method of advertising has benefits and drawbacks, depending on the cost of advertising involved and whether the campaign is ultimately successful or not.

PPC, or Pay Per Click, advertising is the technique used in search engine marketing that requires you to pay a fee to the website owner every time someone clicks an ad on your website. Typically search engine placement is done through a bidding process by which you can secure the number one spot on all search engines by being the top bidder for your keyword and or keyphrases. The effectiveness of your ad campaign will be determined by the number of clicks to your website, that is, the amount of visiting traffic that you pull from your ads.

 The general belief is that an increase in site traffic will translate into an increase in sales.  Not necessarily.  There is a strong opposing opinion, which has been tested by many marketing gurus, that holds that targeting exclusively your niche market through SEO enhancers will generate more revenue due to the quality of the site traffic visitors.  By narrowing your market, you are promoting your site only to those who are already interested in your market sector products, thereby saving money in advertising and generating a larger percentage of PPC sales.

Some of the benefits of PPC advertising for the affiliate marketer are in the simplicity of the ad campaigns, immediate results, and use of any available search engine.  There are also PPC programs available which allow the marketer to budget their bid quotes to never go over a certain cost per month. 

Another advantage to PPC advertising is in the tools which are provided by the networks to track how the pay per click limit is working for a certain advertiser. Additional tools check the SEO and provide tips to increase listing results of ad copy keywords to increase traffic to the affiliate marketers site.

The downsides to PPC advertising are primarily budget based in that you must have the funds available to sustain monthly payment to the search engine and your pay per click fees.  If you are unable to pay your agreed upon fees, your website is immediately removed from the ad listing.

In PPC advertising, it is vital to determine the keywords and phrases regarding your product that will maintain its top ranking in the various search engine results. You have to select at least ten “very specific” keywords that would give you the best traffic in the search. Most website owners write their own site copy, but some contract the professional services of a copy writer to convey the benefits of their site products and services.

As advances in technology continue to dominate the online marketplace, PPC advertising will continue to gain in popularity among affiliate marketers who are continually striving to increase their site traffic and reduce the costs of advertising.  As competition between search engines for PPC ads begins to heat up, the market will likely see a reduction in advertising rates as well as an increase in targeting ability of the search engines. 

Popularity: 89% [?]

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Your website landing page is perhaps the most important document of your website, in that it will determine if the visitor will hang out long enough to let you sell your product, or be gone in a flash.  While SEO is obviously primary in obtaining listing rankings and traffic to your site, your site itself should have some very important components that will make your landing page successful in capturing the attention of your visitor and quickly projecting your company mission.

Here are several easy ways to create and improve on your landing page:

An Opt-In Box at Entry Page

Every website should have an opt-in box to build email lists and give you to opportunity to continue marketing to a visitor who has already expressed interest in your products or services.  If you relocate your opt-in box to the entry page, this will increase your email list dramatically and allow you to follow up with the visitor to reinforce your commitment to satisfying his needs.

Don’t Hide the Opt-In Box

Make sure your opt-in box stands out from the rest of the site, without being obnoxious.  I take that back - obnoxious may actually work, depending on the site product or service.  The point is to grab the attention of your visitor without losing the personality of your site in the process.

Offer a coupon or free service for opt-in in, giving your visitor a reason to opt-in even if they later choose not to use the coupon, you will be increasing your mailing list and have the follow up opportunity to cross sell or ask for feedback from the visitor.

Have a Dramatic Headline

And be sure to work the graphic properties of your site!  Use color, different font types and sizes and any other graphic embellishments that you can tastefully employ to grab the attention of your visitor.  Remember, the visitor will likely visit several other sites like yours; if he chooses to go back to yours, be sure you have left him with a memory to trace back to your site.

Be sure your headline states the name of the product or service, or a catch phrase that you can follow up with the name of your product.

List Sub Benefits Under Your Headline

You headline should obviously state what your product or service is.  Follow this up with a couple sub headings that list the primary benefits of your product or service.

Use Images to Break Up Text

Product photos always reinforce what the client will be receiving with their order, and goes a long way in increasing the professional appearing of your site. If you are branding yourself as an expert in your field, include a photo of yourself.  Make sure the images are clear and of high quality, nothing cheapens the look of a website like a low resolution .jpg file on the website. 

Be Careful of Large Image Files

The public is fickle and has a short attention span.  If they are waiting for your images to upload, they will likely click away and find another site.  The internet is a large place and, according to public opinion, there is always another product option out there.  Be sure that yours states its purpose clearly, quickly and requests that you visitor leave an email address before continuing for follow up marketing.  

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As affiliate programs are becoming the premier way for website hosts to generate income from their website traffic, the parameters of selecting a reliable affiliate program have become more rigid.  Any affiliate program will not benefit the webmaster unless there is ample traffic to the affiliate site, the affiliate program is of high quality and the methods of marketing the affiliate program are comprehensive.
 
When searching for an affiliate program to join, be sure to look for the following qualities:

Make sure the website is established and has been online for some time.  Before committing to a company that you will rely on for income, or have any type of long term financial agreement with, it is imperative that you verify the stability of the company you will be working with.  Check out how long the company has been in business and verify its standing with the Better Business Bureau.
Examine the affiliate programs product line for quality. Your reliability with your clients will promote referrals to other clients.  If you are representing sub quality products, your reputation will be damaged and that is the kiss of death in the affiliate marketing profession.

Generally expect to yield 50 to 75% commission on the products of the affiliate program.  If the affiliate program is screaming that you’ll be filthy rich in the next 30 days, it is likely not a reliable program.
 
Reliable affiliate marketing programs have excellent tracking systems which incorporate programs that track visitors to their site using both CGI and cookies so you always get accredited with sales that you generated from your own site.  The tracking systems will also allow you to check all of your promotional methods to see which affiliate links are most beneficial to you at any given time.  In order to maximize your commissions, seek out affiliate programs that track site traffic for 30 days or more.

Also be sure to find out how you will be paid, how often payments are sent and if there is a minimum threshold to bypass before receiving commission. In addition to your initial research of an affiliate program, be sure to thoroughly read the affiliate agreement and save a copy of it.  Ask if you will have a personal affiliate manager and find out how long he or she has been with the company.  Staff that turns over regularly is a red flag that the company practices are unstable or there are problems with product quality which the staff gets frustrated in dealing with.  In addition, ask the program manager for references of the top affiliates, if they balk at this request, keep looking.

Also don’t overlook the benefits of affiliate messageboard forums.  These can provide a valuable resource for getting inside information on working with particular affiliate programs. Don’t be afraid to ask questions on the message boards.  The benefit of a wide audience is in that one false claim will not go unnoticed by the rest of the site.  You will likely receive good feedback to help you make your determinations. 

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As we’ve all been conditioned to believe that our business will crash and burn if our search engine positioning falls, the knee jerk reaction when this happens is to revise site and ad copy to try to reestablish the previous rankings.  Is this necessary?  Perhaps not, it depends on other factors in addition to the simple mechanics of search engine ranking. 

If, for example, you’re conversions have declined you absolutely want to consider modifications to your copy.  While a decrease in conversions may not necessarily be due to site copy, this is a marker of your site traffic and needs to be addressed.  Simple tweaks to your current copy may be all it takes to re-energize your site and bring your search engine rankings back up to their previous glory.

Obviously, a decrease in business coinsiding with a drop in search engine ranking is cause for reviewing the site copy and making adjustments to try to regain ranking.  In addition to reviewing site copy, it is always advisable to employ additional marketing campaigns, at least on a temporary basis, to work in conjunction with your new copy in bringing your site visitor numbers back up.  If accomplished through a system of backlinking, this will also help to restore your search engine ranking.

Other reasons for possible drop in search engine result rankings can include that the search engine spiders are being rejected by the website server due to alterations in your spam bot blocker or your robot.txt file.  Changes to these files may render the search engine spiders unable to crawl your website, resulting in loss of ranking.
In many cases, there is a change to the algorithms of the search engines.  These are maddening and sometimes occur with no warning or reasoning.  The solution to this issue is to allow the algorithm to finish its update and allow the website rankings to regenerate back to pre-change status.  In most cases, the website rankings will stabilize and your site will be restored to its original ranking.

Always keep in mind that the SEO game is one of competition.  As other users are becoming skilled in building ways to increase search engine rankings, and even if nothing has changed in the search engine algorithms or in the makeup of your website, others may simply be doing something more effectively than you are.  Regular review and maintenance of your website will help to ensure your list rankings and benefits to your website traffic.
Plummets in Google search engine ranking over the last few weeks resulting from prolific spamming have site owners scratching their heads, and experts offering some advice: Padding up your keyword meta tag with well researched related phrases will help to restore your placement, over repetition of a keyword registers with search engines as duplicate text and hurts your ranking, and add related content to your web pages to boost crossover marketing.  Google is overdue of an algorithm update, and indicators are that the listings are beginning to stabilize, but implementation of the above suggestions will speed the process along. 

Popularity: 33% [?]

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The knee jerk reaction to the question is “yes, of course!”   Upon further consideration, there are many cases of eventual disloyalty of the customer base by continually trying to sell something to them that they do not want.  If the customer knows that you are going to attempt an upsell with every sales opportunity, you lose credibility with your customer, and are relegated to the level of a bottom feeder who will say anything to make a buck.  The sense of trust that you have fostered with your customers is then broken.

By selectively upselling, your customers will come to know you as someone who understands the specifics needs that they have and can recognize when a product hits the market that would be of use to them.  The customer appreciates the upsell when it feels like customer service rather than a sales tool. 

Cross selling is another tool that can promote additional sales, when appropriate.  Unlike upselling, where the attempt is made to convince the customer to purchase a more expensive item, in a cross selling situation, the customer is offered additional items which are companions or accessories to the main item.  Again the attempt to cross sell should be taken advantage of on a sporadic basis to relieve the customer of the knowledge that you are a commissioned salesperson, but in most cases customer are more receptive to cross sell attempts than upsells.  Be that as it may, there are still general rules to cross selling that the experienced online salespeople use on their website. 

Never display more than 3 cross sell items, and these are done best if displayed in a “customers who bought this, also liked this”  format on the right side of the screen in a vertical format.  Extensive studies have been conducted regarding the perception of vertical and horizontal elements, and the vertical stacking will actually produce more final sales.

Be sure that all displayed cross sell items are in stock.  The loss of credibility is not worth the additional sale.
Cross sell items should be full price – do not display sale items as cross sell suggestions as it will give your website the appearance of trying to “clear out” old merchandise.

Each cross sell item should be less expensive than the item originally purchased, to retain the accessory mindset of the customer.

All cross sell images should be of same size, but smaller than the main item, and link to enhanced product discriptions. Keep in mind that the customer was likely already familiar with the main product when he arrived at your site to purchase it, but will have to be educated on the features and benefits of the cross sell items.

Obviously there are additional sales opportunities to be made with upsell and cross selling techniques.  The promoter should also not neglect to follow up a sale with a quick ‘thank you’ email and a note regarding an additional item that he came across that the customer may be interested in.  This, very often, is a good way to switch up cross sell methods, and still increasing sales.
 

Popularity: 26% [?]

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Marketing to a List

By marketing your products and accessory products to a generated opt-in list, you have the benefit of targeting a market which already trusts you and the products you deliver.  The way to capitalize on this is be consistently forwarding offers to your list of additional products and services. As you have already established a relationship with those on your list, additional revenue generation should be an easy step.

Pay Per Click

Pay Per Click, or PPC, is a method of advertising your site by posting site ads within other related websites.  Through this method, you would be responsible to pay the web host a fee every time an interested consumer clicks onto your website ad for more information.  Basically, you are purchasing advertising space on another site.  Fortunately for the provider of an affiliate marketing program, there are many adjacent avenues available over the internet that are closely related to the affiliate marketing and make these sites good locations for advertisements and generating site traffic.  Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN Adcenter are the most widely used and provide you with the most targeted traffic. 

Article Writing

Taking the plunge into article writing is a good way to promote yourself as an expert in your field as well as promoting your site as a reliable source for the affiliate marketing products and services that your company provides.  By writing and posting articles on various website and blog forums you have the advantage of asserting name recognition in addition to providing information about the services of your site it’s course materials.  The added advantage of having direct exposure to the issues that others related to your topic are experiencing with your competition also provides a way for you to illustrate differences between your programs and others and then direct readers to your site. 

Enzines.com

Enzines.com is an article site where authors are allowed to post up to ten articles on the topic of their choice.  As a website business owner, a great marketing tool is to post articles relating to the issues surrounding your product or service and outlining the benefits of your affiliate program in helping other writers and readers in generating income through your affiliate marketing program.  In addition, you can purchase ad space on Enzine and have them send your offer to their subscribers.  This is an excellent way to quickly advance your own subscriber list.

Viral Report

Creating a viral report is one of the most successful ways to market on online affiliate marketing program.  By using rebranding software, you create your own viral report, complete with a link to your site and issue it to as many people as you can through article marketing websites, purchased email lists, and your own website.  The premise of a viral report is that other users can take your report and rebrand it under their own name, offering your product along with products of their own as “bonus” items, thereby benefiting both companies simultaneously.

Popularity: 30% [?]

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