Why Affiliate Marketing?

Why Affiliate marketing? With so many opportunities for a home based business available why would I choose Affiliate marketing? One word- Options.

Affiliate marketing offers me the option to represent brand name products from well established companies of my choosing. They will in turn pay me an advertising fee or sales commision for transactions originating from my websites.

I can now offer followers of my blog hundreds of products from top companies. Unlike some sites I am very particular about relevence and value of the companies I represent at my websites.

I know I keep saying this but, this is a long term venture. I am not looking to take the money and run.

Reputation goes a long way in any type of marketing, the companies I have chosen have a solid reputation for quality and value. I want happy, satisfied customers who, not only come back but also refer friends and relatives.

The best advertisement you can recieve is a personal recommendation from a happy customer.

And I am able to do this without contacting all these companies directly and working out a deal. How is this done? I use Commission Junction and ClickBank as my affiliate networks.

Commission Junction is an online advertising company owned by ValueClick and operates in the affiliate marketing industry. The company is the largest affiliate network in North America and operates worldwide. Of the top 500 retailers using 3rd party affiliate marketing software, 62% are powered by Commission Junction.

Basically, Commission Junction acts as a “broker”. They are contracted to develop a relationship with 3^rd party marketers (like you and I) to advertise their products and services. CJ handles the interaction with the 3^rd party marketers and keeps track of all the statistics and distributes payments.

Here is another great example of networking and leveraging. A company such as AVG Technologies now has thousands of people advertising their product, and it does not cost them a dime until a transaction is completed on their end. Brilliant!!

ClickBank was founded in 1998, ClickBank is a secure online retail outlet for more than 50,000 digital products and 100,000 active affiliate marketers. They offer the same type of service as CJ but sell only digital products (software, CDs,DVDs). They offer products in 23 different catagories from Arts and Entertainment to Travel.

Commission can be very high 80% or more, this is due the fact the products and the companies that supply them are relatively unkown. When choosing affiliate marketing partners from ClickBank I look at product closely. No disrespect to ClickBank, I just do not want anyone to not get what they paid for.

Between the two, I have plenty of options for affiliate marketing partners. All my affiliate partners offer a wide variety of advertising links and banners.

Placing them at your site is as easy as choosing the ad, copying the HTML or Java script code and pasting it at your site. The code contains your member code number to ensure transactions are credited to your account. And once again, and this is the best part, is all offered for you use free of charge.

The two websites, advertising from 16 affiliate marketing partners and I am not spending one single dime. Even, if I was to get an offer for my dream job (drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd) I would continue to keep the websites in a position to be profitable.

This may be why some people claim running a online home based business is so easy to do. They just neglect to tell you about the six weeks it takes to get the ball rolling!!

All my affiliate partners are seeing impressions everyday of the week. Time will tell who will bCommission Junction, Clcikbanke the most profitable.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Work at home success

As of today, I am completely satisfied with this webpage and my daily blog. Getting to this point took approximately 6 weeks. I like the look of the page , the length and style of the blog, I am happy with my affiliate marketing partners and I am very happy (and thankful) for the traffic.

The traffic being all of you who read this blog. The fact that the banner and text link ads are getting impressions means people are visiting the site. People visiting the sites means my efforts to drive traffic to the sites are working. I consider it a success. Now the job is to steadily increase traffic and sales.

The site has not created income to this point, but it is also has not cost me a dime to operate other than the electricity to run my PC and my time. I will continue to update the blog daily and review as many home based business opportunities as I can. Like I stated yesterday, I fully believe I will see income from my affiliate marketing efforts yet this quarter.

So, instead of talking about this blog everyday I will start to share the other sites progress. But, before I do that I want to share some of the changes and tips I learned in the last 6 weeks.

First of all, If you want to start a home based online business using no start up capitol, you need start by working online. Sign up with Amazon M-Turk and a good survey provider or two like MySurvey or Vindale Research and start getting paid for working online. The extra $20-$30 a month will pay for business cards or any monthly fees you have accuired.

This should provide you with plenty of income to get the ball rolling. Take advantage of free services. Google, Yahoo, Yola, Blogger all are excellent places to get these free resources.

You can even practice blogging at Squidoo and get critiques and tips from other bloggers. One of the best tips was to use smaller paragraphs or modules when writing a blog. Here is a paragraph from my second blog at Blogger.

Hello again,

  I spent some time last night going through the sites where I am registered to earn money viewing e-mails ads. The first thing I realized was, I do not like the "sales pitch" in general. Having spent a number of years in manufacturing I have heard "the pitch" a thousand times! Be it from supervisors looking for more resources to foreman trying to get parts or processes approved. "The pitch" always comes with quantifiers, all the reasons the part or process isn't perfect and never will be.
  Most of the ads I reviewed were merely a re-hash of the same tired cliches. It's like they are not even trying a full 50% of the time, just throw some text into the template and sit back and let the money roll in! They give little to no reason to even view the entire page. And the cars and women, come on ladies and gentleman, haven't we moved past using these two things to portray  happiness. It's getting insulting. I can see why some people are buying up these sites, re-working them and "flipping" them, they must be totally useless to the people who purchased them. Just because anyone "can build a website of their own" doesn't mean they should.  More on that later, it is something I am going to pursue later this month.

Notice how everything is bunched together, bland and difficult to read. Even though it has a few keywords, it is not optimized.

This is from a blog I posted last week.

I want the reader comfortable as they read. I also want the reader to come back. So I have an RSS link (Really Simple Syndication) so you don’t have to go to the site every day, it comes to you. I know in my case, if I have to “work for” or wait to view a website, I am moving on.

If you keep these things in the foreground, you can save yourself some time. Of course a blog based site is not your only option. Though, I think it is a very good solid option.

I also have a forum style site. This is a site designed to allow musicians to post questions and comments about musical equipment. It is in fact another “Tool” I am using for affiliate marketing. I use the site to post advertising for my affiliate partners. I chose the affiliate partners specifically aimed at the musician demographic (a specific group of customers). Visit the site and you can review this option.

Nice short modules, space between the modules and lots of keywords (I still higlight them for your benefit). These tips and many more I will share are secrets the System Sellers don't want you to know.

For the most part the System Sellers don't want to see you again after you have paid for the system unless you signed on to pay a monthly fee then they want to hear from you once a month. The sad fact is 80% of them don't have anything to sell. They are just sending you to another site and getting an advertising or referral fee.

The best example I ever saw was during my first year of community college. The local paper had a classified ad which stated; Send me $5 and I will send you a fool proof way to make money at home.

Since I was a fool at the time, I sent him 5 bucks (which is like 30 bucks today) and he sent me a letter.

The letter stated I should place a classified ad in the local newspaper telling people to; Send me $5 and I will send you a fool proof way to make money at home. And they should do the same. He sold me a system.

I am pretty sure in constituted mail fraud and didn't get invovled, but getting someone to send you $5 and all it cost you is a piece of paper, an envelope and a stamp is a great scam.

Next time I will discuss how to identify a scam.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Web Hosting, blog content and a review of Jimmy Jazz

Ok, you have decided to build a blog based website. You have your niche market, you picked your web host, you've got your computer and you are ready to rock and roll!!

If you have never built a web page either using HTML code or using template software you need to do some reading or check out YouTube for videos. I searched YouTube for “building a webpage using Yola” and there were numerous videos walking you through the Yola process. Yola has a tutorial as well. Take the time to watch a video before you start.

Now the real “Brainwork” starts. Take the time to look at other websites in the same category. It is not a crime nor a sin to “covet” the layout of someone elses website. If you find one you like go ahead and borrow their ideas. Or if you are artistic (I am a musician not an artist) then come up with your own design.

Once you start building you will need to consider the “content” of the webpage. You need to decide how many pages you will need. I have five; a Home or landing page, a page for the blog itself, a forum page, Recommended links page and a page to sign up for the newsletter. You decide what works best for you.

I like a home page at any site. It should provide you with enough information to keep you at the site. Mine even has a partial excerpt from my blog to entice people to stay. The banners are there for two reasons. One so I can show you examples of affiliate marketing partners and most importantly to get potential traffic even if they never leave the home page. You will need a page for the blog, the other pages are at your discretion.

The problem at this point is getting feedback for your design work. I would like to help you with that issue. If you need someone to give you “notes” on your website, feel free to send me an email with the details. I will at no-charge, give you a fair one page critique.

With those things completed, you are ready to start blogging.This can be either the easiest or the hardest thing to do.

In order to get noticed by the “Search Engine Spiders”you need to use words or phrases people use as search criteria. If your blog is about work at home opportunities, you want to attract people searching for work at home opportunites. So, you want the blog to be “rich” with these type of keywords. I am not sure if it just because of the subject matter, but I have no trouble creating keyword rich content.

I purposely use bold italic type for words and phrases I want to emphasize, but it also to allows you to see how keywords sprinkled throughout the blog's content will look. Go back to the top of this blog and then scroll down looking only at the bold type. Get it?

If someone's search query is “ How do I start blogging at home online for free?”I am giving the search engines plenty of keywords relating to that search.

I would suggest to anyone who has never blogged to sign up at Squidoo http://www.squidoo.com/. They have a site designed to help “budding” bloggers. They offer tons of help direction and support. You can even have other bloggers critique your blog before you post it. I started out using Squidoo and picked up a few good tricks. And the best part is it is free!!

How about a review, today we have Jimmy Jazz http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-4929398-10789531

a 

Jimmy Jazz is recognized as the largest urban clothing and sneaker retailer in the United States. They offer our customers the hottest hip hop brands of clothing for teenagers and adults; and “kicks” for both adults and kids alike. They feature premier apparel brands like Rocawear, founded by Hip Hop icon Jay-Z, Coogi, Akademiks, Baby Phat and Dereon, along with the best selection of shoes from Nike, Creative Rec, Jordan, and Polo Footwear to name a few.

Living in a small(ish) town in southern Wisconsin you can imagine there is not a lot of options for folks wanting Urban style clothing. It is a “niche” market. Jimmy Jazz is a division of ManAlive! http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-4929398-10793833 If you went to a disco or a mall in the late seventies you know who they are. They have a good reputation, the pricing looks reasonable,they offer discounts and price breaks for the customers and carry a wide selection of styles and sizes.

I am marketing Jimmy Jazz http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-4929398-10789531 through Craigslist and with banners at this site. Even though the clothes and shoes are not my style, I see it everywhere I go. I may email market this affiliate marketing partner later this year. Up to 10% commission and exclusive coupons and deals for affiliates.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Next time: More about content and a review of my Amazon aStores.

Poppy's Guitar Zone http://astore.amazon.com/poppys-20
Aipom's Jungle Shop http://astore.amazon.com/johnjohnstore-20

Review of AVG Technologies

Welcome back. I would like to start today by quickly discussing diversification. After 30 years in manufacturing it is easy to understand why you need to diversify. For those of you who are new to business, I will try to explain. 

Since I lived within walking distance a lake most of my childhood, I learned to fish at a young age. Armed with a cane pole and a can of worms I would spend hours fishing and bring home 1 maybe 2 each outing. As I got older I started using different types of fishing poles and baits, to increase the amount of fish I could catch. I diversified my approach.

Definition according to Merriam-Webster:

1: to make diverse : give variety to <diversify a course of study>

2: to balance (as an investment portfolio) defensively by dividing funds among securities of different industries or of different classes

3: to increase the variety of the products of <diversify a business>

The easiest way to catch more fish, is to have more lines in the water. The same holds true in business. If you limit yourself to one product you are at the mercy of the economic trends. By diversifying your business you can “bend” with the economy. If sales slowdown in one area, you can focus on the profitable areas of the business until the sales come back.

As I build my new online business I am trying to keep things diverse from the start. I am marketing products and services (yes, services not only products) at my websites, posting on Craigslist and through email marketing. A couple of the products and services can even be telemarketed if I choose to do so.  I am looking for new marketing strategies daily. I suggest you think about doing the same.

Now the review; I was introduced to AVG Technologies about 3 years ago. Our I.T. guy at work switched all of our internet browsers to Firefox and installed free anti-virus software from AVG Technologies. 

The free version from AVG is very powerful and works extremely well. They of course offer an upgrade and many other web related services. If you do not have antivirus software take time to download the free version. If you are going to be “surfing” numerous sights daily you need at least minimal protection from Adware and Spyware.

Choosing AVG Technologies as an affiliate was easy. I have used their products for the last few years and I am very pleased with the performance. I am sure my customers will be pleased as well. Make a customer happy and they may tell a couple of their friends, make them angry and they will tell everybody they meet.

If you want more detailed information click the AVG banner on the home page or follow this link:

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-5193667-10719151

I try to choose affiliates that I believe have something unique to offer. Be it, unique products, services or pricing. I personally, use the internet to makes sure I am getting the most for my money all the time. I don’t have a problem ordering online to save money. I see more and more people doing this every day. I hate the fact gasoline prices are rising daily, but I am sure it will drive business to the internet.

As of today AVG Technologies has received the most “hits” of any of my affiliates. The AVG banner is seeing traffic daily. Unless I miss my guess, my first sales will be from AVG Technologies.

Like always, sign up and follow the blog, use the banners and text links to visit and sign up to start making money. Any questions you may have or sites you would like me to review can be posted at the EWAHR Forum page. 

Peace.

Review of Candy and Gift Boutique

My intention was to start reviewing affiliate partner sites today. But I had almost forgotten about one more survey site. I signed up for E-Poll Surveys http://www.epollsurveys.com/  at the same time as MySurvey https://www.mysurvey.com/ . I have earned $30.00 in Amazon Gift Cards with MySurvey and still don’t have the required points (I have earned 2700) to  receive a $5 gift card (3500 points) at E-Poll.

E-Poll Surveys is pretty a pretty straight forward survey site. You just answer surveys and collect points. The points can be traded in for a number of things. One thing I thought was cool is that they allow you to donate your points to a number of different charities, 2500 points is a $5 donation. You can refer others through an email sent from E-Poll Surveys. I don’t see any reference to benefits for a referral.

As soon as I reach 3500 points I will drop this site. I have only received 3 or 4 surveys in 30 days. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just have other things to focus on.

As far as I can tell E-Poll Surveys is not a scam. All the referral sites I have reviewed so far, offer you an opportunity to make money and be paid. It is up to you to decide how to use each site to your best advantage. None of them are scams. They deliver exactly what they offer. None of these sights make claims of wealth and power. Keep that in mind when looking at new sites on your own.

Now, on to affiliate marketing partnerships. An affiliate partnership is much more complex than a site that pays you a commission for referrals. As an affiliate partner you are representing a company as an advertising agent. You basically receive a commission for leads or sales generated. It is up to you to promote the company and its products.

Depending on who you are using (I am using Commission Junction and ClickBank) as a “broker” there are endless companies to represent. I don’t want to get bogged down in how affiliate marketing works at this time. I want to get into who I have chosen and why as Affiliate partners. Here is a very good article explaining affiliate marketing. http://www.workathomenoscams.com/2009/08/03/free-affiliate-marketing-ptc-course/ .

The first affiliate marketing partner I signed on with was Candy and Gift Boutique http://www.candygiftboutique.com/jamaffiliates/jrox.php?uid=emac2011 . Like I said this was the first one I found at ClickBank . My thinking was I could market it in more than one way and I also figured people buy candy and flowers online every day. So I tried a banner link at the blog site, posted it on Craigslist in a couple of places and even bought some targeted email addresses. I have had 73 visitors to the main site. Zero sales.

What I didn’t do was really look at what they were selling and how much they were charging. The product line looks nice enough, but the pricing is very high for those products online. I do not think they are even close to being competitive with any other online store in the same category. Shame on me. I will stay with them for 90 days and If I still have zero sales I will look for something to replace them.

Candy and Gift Boutique offers a very nice clean, easy to use Affiliate portal. They also offer a number of statistical and advertising tools that are free to use. They also offer a referral program for those who would like to sell rather than buy. What I don’t like is the pricing and the fact I sent an email a month ago requesting a specific type of text link and have still received no response.

Are they a scam? Since it costs you nothing to become an affiliate and they offer you a bunch of free tools to promote their product, I would say, not a scam. Are they a profitable affiliate partner? The data so far says no. This could change with Mother’s day, Father’s day and Easter on their way.

On the up side, I have been using the tracking tools at Commission Junction and I am seeing an increase in traffic at this site over the last week. Yesterday, I had 209 impressions and my affiliate sites had over 20 impressions each. I haven’t seen any sales, but I am very excited about the jump in traffic.

 

This may due to the fact I beefed up my “tags” (keywords) using Google Adwords Keyword Finder.  I also noticed I am getting some hits coming right from a search engines (Google, Comcast). This is another positive indicator.

So, I will keep working behind the scenes to boost traffic while I review my other affiliate partners over the next week or so. As a teaser, once I have reviewed all my affiliates, I will start to review free web hosting sites like Yola.

Like always, sign up and follow the blog, use the banners and text links to visit and sign up and start making money. Any questions you may have or sites you would like me to review can be posted at the EWAHR Forum page. 

In my next blog I will review ProCard International http://www.procardinternational.com/EricM9993.

Peace.