Tuesday, November 27, 2012

How to Select and Join an Affiliate Program

Affiliate ProgramThere are many horror stories about affiliate programs and networks that related to illegal programs or pyramid schemes. Basically, these do not have worthy products.
These are the schemes you do not want to be associated with. It is obvious you want to be with a program that offers high quality product that you will readily endorse. The growing number of those who have joined already and are succeeding is proof enough that there are reliable and quality affiliate programs out there.
Why participate in an affiliate program?
An affiliate program allows you to work part-time. It gives you the opportunity to build a generous residual income. And it makes you an owner of a small business. Affiliate programs have already created lots of millionaires. They are the living testimony of how hard work and continuous prospecting and motivating or training others, pays off.
If you decide to join one, you must take note that you are getting into something that should be patterned to what you are capable of. This will assure that you are successful.
How do you choose a good affiliate program to promote / join? Here are some tips to consider before you sign up:
1. Will it cost you anything to join? Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. So why settle for those that charge you some dollars before joining.
An extremely good affiliate program with many products and marketing tools available to you is mentioned on my site within my articles menu with the same subject name as this article. Have a browse and if you like it - join!
Affiliate Program2. Join a program that you like and have an interest in. One of the best ways of knowing if an affiliate program is the kind of program you wish to promote, is if you are interested in purchasing the product yourself. If so, there are likely others who are also interested in the same program and products.
3. Look for a program that is of high quality. For instance, one that is associated with many experts in that particular industry. This way, you are assured that you are joining a high standard program.
4. Join affiliate programs that offer real and viable products. How can you tell? Do some initial research. If possible, track down some of the members and customers to give you testimonial on the credibility of the program.
5. Check whether the program is catering to a growing target market. This will ensure you that there will be more and continuous demands for your referrals. There are forums and discussions you can participate in to get this information.
6. An affiliate program that pays out 30% or more would be a great choice. There are some programs offering this kind of compensation. Look closely for one. Do not waste your time with programs that do not reward substantially for your efforts.
7. Be aware of the minimum quotas or sales targets that you must fill. Some affiliate programs imposes pre-requisites before you get your commissions. Just be sure that you are capable of attaining their requirements.
8. Choose one that has plenty of tools and resources that can help you grow the business in the shortest possible time. Not all affiliate programs have these capacities.
9. Check out if the program has a proven system that can allow you to check your networks and compensation. Also check if they have it available online for you to check anytime and anywhere.
10. Choose an affiliate program that is offering strong incentives for members to renew their membership or that provide continuous help and upgrades for its products. These programs have the tendency to retain their members and can assure the growth of your networks.
11. Be aware of the things that members are not happy about in a program. As mentioned above, you can do your checking at discussion forums. If you know someone in that same program, there is no harm asking if there are many downsides involved.
12. Is the affiliate a one tier or two tier program? A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two-tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor. More like a recruitment fee.

How to Find the Right Affiliate Programs

Affiliate ProgramsFinding the right affiliate programs to make money with is fairly simple. The first step is picking the niche topic or niche topics you want to have websites about. The best topics to start with are the topics you are interest in or passionate about.
After you decide the topics you can begin to look for affiliate programs that offer products that are related to your topics. Applying for most affiliate programs is easy and only requires you to give them your information and they'll allow you to join their affiliate program. However, some affiliate programs have an approval process and won't approve you to join their program without certain requirements like having a completed website, a certain amount of traffic or a certain method of advertising their product. For the affiliate programs that have tight criteria re-apply for them at a later date when your website is getting a large amount of traffic and your website is completely built.
While you search for affiliate programs you should also learn about what types of keywords people that search for the topic you have chosen use to search for to get to information about the topic. There are quite a few websites available that have keyword information. Some websites you need to pay for to use their service. If you want to minimize your costs you can do some research on your own. Keywords are determined by what a person is interested in regarding a topic and what words they use to search for topic.
Affiliate ProgramsAnother topic to research while you are looking for affiliate programs is the how people advertise affiliate programs. Banner ads are a common way that people advertise affiliate programs, but many people say that banner ads have become ineffective means of advertising. The statistics of banner ads show they usually have low click through rates for affiliate programs. A popular way people are using right now to advertise affiliate programs are through text links. Text links can appear any where in an article and do best in a context that pre-sells the link and make a person want to click on it when they read it.
Text links also serve another purpose and that is to drive traffic to a website. Links that use keywords are considered 'anchor links' for a search engine and will give a higher ranking through a search engine.
Sometimes it can be hard to find a lot of affiliate programs for certain topics. If there are different websites that sell products for the topic you have chosen, but they don't advertise that they offer an affiliate program you can contact them to see if they do have one or would be interested in setting one up. Many businesses don't realize that they have nothing to lose setting up an affiliate program and everything to gain. When you are searching for affiliate programs you would be wise to learn about how affiliate programs are created and offer this to webmasters who don't have an affiliate program started.
Content for your topic is the next step in creating your website. Having some knowledge about HTML coding can be very helpful, but often time it is not necessary, because there are so many programs available that make building a website easily.
When you create your website content it is important to keep three things in mind: Know the information people want about your chosen topic, know the keywords people search for and know the affiliate programs that are available to you. The content you write should be able to catch a person's interest and direct them to an affiliate program website for the desired results. Learning how to pre-sell a product appropriately will give you the best results.
Another affiliate program type worth mentioning is contextual based advertising programs. Google ad sense and Kanoodle are two of the programs that offer this type of advertising. The simplest explanation of these programs is they analyze the content on a web page and display ads that are related to what you have written. If you have a topic that really interests you, but can not find any affiliate programs out there that will apply to your topic these are a good affiliate program to join and use on your website. These affiliate programs are good to use even if you have many affiliate programs already, because they can produce descent revenue by themselves.
The more affiliate programs you join the more chances for making money you will have. The more topics you have available for people to gain information from the more ways you can earn money from affiliate programs. Keeping up-to-date on the newest ways people use to advertise their affiliate programs and continuously improving your marketing knowledge will give you an advantage and lead you to a lucrative affiliate program business.
Kevin has been a successful online business owner since 2003. Need Help Deciding Try a FREE HOME CAREER at [http://www.ezymoneyathome.com] He is also owner of http://www.sheetmusicweb.com, and [http://www.travelinsurancedot.com].
If you need help with a homebased business contact Kevin at ezymoneyathome@yahoo.ca

4 Tips For An Effective Affiliate Program

Affiliate Program
1. What Is an Affiliate Management Program and Why Do You Need One?
Affiliate management programs allow you to effectively operate your affiliate program and the partnerships formed through it. You need effective affiliate management to ensure the highest ROI possible for all of your partnerships. Amazon.com is the poster child for a hugely successful affiliate management program. How did they do it? By using a robust affiliate management progr`m and providing powerful tools and training to their affiliates.
2. Where Can You Find an Effective Affiliate Management Program?
Of course, Amazon's affiliate management program, code is proprietary, so you won't be able to get your hands on that, but you CAN get one. Then, just how can you get your own affiliate management program? It's simple, they're everywhere. If you type the phrase "affiliate management program" into your favorite search engine, you'll see a plethora of returned search results. Don't despair just yet; I'm going to tell you just what to look for in an effective affiliate management program.
But for now, you must decide if it's more of a benefit for you to buy and install an off-the-shelf software package on your server, or to pay for a hosted service, even if you have the expertise to easily install your own program. Does the boxed version do everything you need it to do? Is the price right? (Only you can decide that.)
3. Things to Look for In an Affiliate Management Program
Affiliate ProgramYour affiliate management program should allow you to track your affiliates' progress, train them, contact them individually, and even make special arrangements with them (partnerships). A quality affiliate management program should immediately give you the information you need about your affiliates at a glance.
You should instantly be able to see who your best performing affiliates are and which ones are struggling. In this case, use the tools in your affiliate management program to email an automated training series to the affiliates who are having difficulty, or offer more personalized help. The choice is yours. On the flip-side of that, you can offer your best performers better incentives to keep the sales coming. Does your current affiliate management program allow you to do this?
4. What Are Multi-tiered Affiliate Management Programs
A multi-tiered affiliate management program is one that not only pays your affiliates commissions on the sales they make, but it also allows them to recruit others and make a percentage of their sales as well. Multi-tiered affiliate management programs are structured somewhat like MLM programs. They allow the top person to make a percentage of the sales of everyone else whom they recruit. Some affiliate programs go as deep as 5 levels, but these normally don't live up to expectations. It's like, "each one - teach one. The person directly above is responsible for the success of the person directly beneath them.
Two-tiered affiliate management programs usually work best for this. They are the most effective, as others don't pay as well on the 1st and 2nd levels (tiers) as the 2-tier affiliate management programs. Affiliate management programs that stretch beyond 2 levels may place the highest commission percentage to be earned on the lower levels - which are usually not filled. This prevents the affiliates from making the max commissions on their sales. It also provides little incentive for affiliates to keep promoting your product/service.
Therefore, for the best results I strongly recommend you use a two-tier affiliate management program if you're thinking of implementing a multi-tiered affiliate management program. Better yet, implement an affiliate management program that gives you the flexibility to offer a flat affiliate program, a 2-tiered affiliate program, or no program at all to your affiliates.
Look for an affiliate management program that's part of a package, or e-business suite. The package or suite should be a synergistic combination of e-business tools that you effectively manage and see the results of your efforts. For instance, you should be able to view your affilliates' stats, ads, and progress, etc. Don't make it harder that it has to be. Let the tools do the work for you by choosing the right tools upfront. So, you need a combination of powerful tools that automatically run and manage your affiliate program for you.
Offer your affiliates a chance to earn commissions, even recurring commissions through your affiliate management program. Let your affiliate program do the tracking and expense calculations. You benefit by instantly seeing which ads produce the best results for you, and which ones you need to toss. Then, everyone's happy - you and your affiliates!
Thanks for reading, and much success to you in your online endeavors!
Ettione Stuckey has a passion for ecommerce and Internet Marketing. He understands the science and application of ecommerce technology and concepts. Benefit from his efforts and learn more about affiliate management at http://prowebware.com/affiliate_management.html