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Affiliate
Programs – The Fast Track to Wealth
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by:
Peter Dobler
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Copyright
2005 Peter Dobler
Remember the day when you made the ultimate decision to change your
life? Yes, it was the day when you decided to start your own home
business. Gosh, I remember the anxiety when I uploaded my very first
web site, waiting for something to happen. It’s like going onto a stage
and performing in front of a large crowd.
Ok, what has this to do with affiliate programs and how to make money
with them? Not much other than this is the primary reason why people
spending money online. Emotions are the number one selling factor,
period. And newbie web masters are loaded with emotions.
When you started your home business, did you have a product to sell?
Neither did I. That’s why affiliate programs are perfect for startup
home businesses. In a nutshell, an affiliate sells products from
somebody else and keeps a commission from each sale. An affiliate id
responsible for all the advertising and only gets paid whenever there’s
a sale.
Take a break and think about this for a minute. Every day there are
thousands of people online, searching for products and ideas to make
money with. They know that there’s big money to make and they are eager
to get started. When you started your home business it probably never
crossed your mind to sell your own products and to run your own
affiliate program.
If you’re in the online business for a while with mediocre results it
is time to switch sides. Why should you carry most of the risk with
your advertisement spending with less than satisfactory sales results?
Not to mention that you’re at the mercy of somebody else’s reliability
to send you your hard earned money.
If you don’t have a product to sell, go out there and search for
products with master resale rights. This will grant you the exclusive
rights to sell the product and keep 100% of the profits. Selling the
product through affiliates doesn’t violate this, because you’re paying
your affiliates for the advertising efforts, the final sale is still
made by you.
Of course there are a million products with master resale rights
available. Choose your product wisely. You don’t want to start an
affiliate program with products that are already over marketed and
maybe available for free or as part of a bonus package. This takes some
time and research, but it is well worth the effort.
One source is to research the public domain sector and compile your own
information product. There are numerous publications available on this
topic. Another source is to join a membership program that sells master
resale rights products. Make sure that they offer unique products and
check their rules. Many offer a trial membership, take advantage of
this.
Once you have your product start your affiliate program. Don’t join one
of the many services that offer affiliate program services for a
monthly fee. Here’s why. Having thousands of affiliates advertising
your product is a great thing. Having thousands of free links to your
web site is priceless.
Create as many advertising samples for your affiliates as possible.
Have these samples point to different entry points to your web site.
Banners are the worst advertising tools, but newbie web masters love
them. They are easy to implement. What do you care, you got your free
link to your website. Make sure that you use search engine friendly
affiliate links. Affiliate links with a “?” are recognized as such.
Better are the affiliate links that look like a directory structure.
The easy way to implement this is to use PHP as your language of
choice.
Guess what will happen after a few months running your own affiliate
program from your website? Your own web site will skyrocket in rankings
on any search engine, because you got so many links to your web site
without having a link farm on your own. This is every web masters
dream. Now you have a choice. You either aggressively promote your
affiliate program or you promote your products. Either way you win.
If you’re still skeptical, go to Google or Yahoo and search for links
pointing to your favorite affiliate program. Simply type ‘links:’ and
your affiliate program’s domain name into the search field. Make sure
you don’t have any blanks. This will return all the websites that are
linking back to this affiliate program. Check out the number on the
right upper corner where it says ‘Results 1 – 10 of about x’. x stands
for the total number of links. Now do the same for your website. Hmm,
you got nothing? Well, that’s the difference. I hope you see the power
of this by now.
Before you go out there and slab together your own affiliate program.
Do your homework and research as much as possible. You want to get it
right the first time.
Good luck to you all,
Peter Dobler
© 2005
Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active
Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner.
Learn more about wealth building methods at http://www.thefasttracktowealth.com
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