If you want to make money on the web

If you want to make money on the web, you must get traffic to your website. If you want to get traffic to your website, you must have a high rank in google's search results.

Google ranks websites based upon the number of links that point to the site.
Many novice webmasters believe they can trick Google into giving their website a high rank by swapping links with other webmasters. One reason they believe this, is because "wanna-be" web marketing "experts" keep spouting that trash.

It's only partially true that Google ranks websites based upon the number of links that point to the site. Google uses a highly sophisticated page ranking formula that keeps changing and evolving all the time. Google caught onto the link swapping trick years ago.

Novice webmasters put all their link swaps on one gigantically long page referred to as a "link farm". When Google's robot finds a link farm, their ranking formula penalizes the websites listed in the link farm. If Google finds the same site listed in many link farms, they remove that site from their search engine.

Every webmaster that wants to do link swap has a website with zero traffic. Even if Google didn't penalize websites for being listed in a link farm, why would I want to send traffic away from my website to a website that can't return any traffic?


Not only are these novice webmasters not experienced in the way of the web, they seem inexperienced in the way of the world. The first rule of the universe is "you never get a free lunch". If you want your website to rank high in Google, you have to pay them. If you can't afford to pay them, you have to do the work.


It's hard work to get traffic to your website. There is only one method I know that works: put valuable, original content on your website. Other websites, blogs, and forums will post links to the valuable content on your website, not with a link swap, but as a resource to their audience.


When someone places a legitimate link to valuable content on their webpage, the webpage has low link density. Google's page ranking formula gives the page a high score. If a link to your webpage is found on a high scoring webpage, that raises the rank of your webpage.


On the other hand, a page with a high link density, with hundreds of links and little other content, gets a negative score from Google. If a link to your webpage is found on a webpage with a negative score, that lowers the rank of your webpage.


Don't try to scam Google by swapping links, and don't cooperate with foolish webmasters who think there is a "free lunch". If you want to get a higher ranking in Google, resulting in more traffic to your website, there is only one way - good old fashion hard work.


Link exchange has to be managed wisely!


links swap management is not an easy task, but if done properly, it might significantly boost your website's ranking.


First, you should build a link exchange page for your website. If you swap links heavily, you should consider links categorization, and you should create a separate page for each sub-category. It is very annoying for surfers to see huge links pages, with hundreds of non-categorized links, even if they are theme-related. ANY category can be sub-categorized, and you should do that.


Second, you should include your link exchange information in a very clear manner. Some webmasters give the HTML code to be included for the link, and this is a great idea! Anyway, you should provide at least you URL, your link text (your keyphrases to be included!) and a short description of your website (again, your keyphrases to be included!). If you want, you can provide a small image or banner, but keep in mind that text links are more valuable than graphical links. If you provide an image for linking, don't forget to provide also the "alt" text for that image! An email address for link swap is also needed. If you actively do link swap, it is a good idea to have a special email address just for this purpose.



Third, you may want to take a closer look at the website you are swapping links with. If they use a third-party service for link exchange management, then you will get a link back from the website of the third-party service, NOT from the website you are trading links with! Those links are not very precious, because the third-party website, by managing the links of hundreds of different websites, might look to the search engines like a "link farm". Basically, you are "giving" a link to somebody's website, but "receiving back" a link from somebody else's website. To check that, just visit their links page, and watch for an URL change in the address bar of your browser. If the URL does not begin with their domain name, they are using a third party service for links management, and the link you are getting in exchange for yours does not worth too much in terms of page ranking. Many webmasters avoid to trade links with websites that do not host their links page in the same place with their website, but on third-party sites. Anyway, the link that you are getting back might still generate direct traffic for your website. If you need a better understanding of all of the above, you should try a closer look on how the PageRank algorithm works.



Finally, it is a good idea to visit some forums dedicated to links swap and/or link popularity. Many good things can be learned from other people involved in this activity. Knowledge is power, and practical experience is valuable knowledge! Keep that in mind...



How Do I Swap Links?


There is no standard procedure, but a logical recipe for links swapwould look like:

• Find a link exchange partner

• Send an email and ask for a link swap

• If you get a positive reply, add a link from your website to the partner's website

• Send an email to let them know, and to ask for a feed-back when they will add the link to your website


A shorter recipe for link swapwould be:


• Find a link exchange partner and add a link from your website to that website


• Send an email to let them know, and ask for a link back


• If the answer is negative, delete the link you added

Although the second way looks shorter, it is often less efficient, especially if you want to swap linkswith a large number of link partners in a short time. If this is the case, than you might waste much more time tracking negative-answering partners and deleting their links...

You should also periodically check if the link from the partner's website to your website is still there!

If you want to make money on the web

If you want to make money on the web, you must get traffic to your website. If you want to get traffic to your website, you must have a high rank in google's search results.

Google ranks websites based upon the number of links that point to the site.
Many novice webmasters believe they can trick Google into giving their website a high rank by swapping links with other webmasters. One reason they believe this, is because "wanna-be" web marketing "experts" keep spouting that trash.

It's only partially true that Google ranks websites based upon the number of links that point to the site. Google uses a highly sophisticated page ranking formula that keeps changing and evolving all the time. Google caught onto the link swapping trick years ago.

Novice webmasters put all their link swaps on one gigantically long page referred to as a "link farm". When Google's robot finds a link farm, their ranking formula penalizes the websites listed in the link farm. If Google finds the same site listed in many link farms, they remove that site from their search engine.

Every webmaster that wants to do link swap has a website with zero traffic. Even if Google didn't penalize websites for being listed in a link farm, why would I want to send traffic away from my website to a website that can't return any traffic?


Not only are these novice webmasters not experienced in the way of the web, they seem inexperienced in the way of the world. The first rule of the universe is "you never get a free lunch". If you want your website to rank high in Google, you have to pay them. If you can't afford to pay them, you have to do the work.


It's hard work to get traffic to your website. There is only one method I know that works: put valuable, original content on your website. Other websites, blogs, and forums will post links to the valuable content on your website, not with a link swap, but as a resource to their audience.


When someone places a legitimate link to valuable content on their webpage, the webpage has low link density. Google's page ranking formula gives the page a high score. If a link to your webpage is found on a high scoring webpage, that raises the rank of your webpage.


On the other hand, a page with a high link density, with hundreds of links and little other content, gets a negative score from Google. If a link to your webpage is found on a webpage with a negative score, that lowers the rank of your webpage.


Don't try to scam Google by swapping links, and don't cooperate with foolish webmasters who think there is a "free lunch". If you want to get a higher ranking in Google, resulting in more traffic to your website, there is only one way - good old fashion hard work.


Link exchange has to be managed wisely!


links swap management is not an easy task, but if done properly, it might significantly boost your website's ranking.


First, you should build a link exchange page for your website. If you swap links heavily, you should consider links categorization, and you should create a separate page for each sub-category. It is very annoying for surfers to see huge links pages, with hundreds of non-categorized links, even if they are theme-related. ANY category can be sub-categorized, and you should do that.


Second, you should include your link exchange information in a very clear manner. Some webmasters give the HTML code to be included for the link, and this is a great idea! Anyway, you should provide at least you URL, your link text (your keyphrases to be included!) and a short description of your website (again, your keyphrases to be included!). If you want, you can provide a small image or banner, but keep in mind that text links are more valuable than graphical links. If you provide an image for linking, don't forget to provide also the "alt" text for that image! An email address for link swap is also needed. If you actively do link swap, it is a good idea to have a special email address just for this purpose.



Third, you may want to take a closer look at the website you are swapping links with. If they use a third-party service for link exchange management, then you will get a link back from the website of the third-party service, NOT from the website you are trading links with! Those links are not very precious, because the third-party website, by managing the links of hundreds of different websites, might look to the search engines like a "link farm". Basically, you are "giving" a link to somebody's website, but "receiving back" a link from somebody else's website. To check that, just visit their links page, and watch for an URL change in the address bar of your browser. If the URL does not begin with their domain name, they are using a third party service for links management, and the link you are getting in exchange for yours does not worth too much in terms of page ranking. Many webmasters avoid to trade links with websites that do not host their links page in the same place with their website, but on third-party sites. Anyway, the link that you are getting back might still generate direct traffic for your website. If you need a better understanding of all of the above, you should try a closer look on how the PageRank algorithm works.



Finally, it is a good idea to visit some forums dedicated to links swap and/or link popularity. Many good things can be learned from other people involved in this activity. Knowledge is power, and practical experience is valuable knowledge! Keep that in mind...



How Do I Swap Links?


There is no standard procedure, but a logical recipe for links swapwould look like:

• Find a link exchange partner

• Send an email and ask for a link swap

• If you get a positive reply, add a link from your website to the partner's website

• Send an email to let them know, and to ask for a feed-back when they will add the link to your website


A shorter recipe for link swapwould be:


• Find a link exchange partner and add a link from your website to that website


• Send an email to let them know, and ask for a link back


• If the answer is negative, delete the link you added

Although the second way looks shorter, it is often less efficient, especially if you want to swap linkswith a large number of link partners in a short time. If this is the case, than you might waste much more time tracking negative-answering partners and deleting their links...

You should also periodically check if the link from the partner's website to your website is still there!

Introduction

The business of affiliate marketing has become very popular and with good reason. It comes very nearly to the ideal or "perfect" business. You usually have no need for employees or overhead or carry any physical inventory. Additionally you don't ever have to deal with customers. Handling customer issues is the job of the merchant you are promoting. Finally It is truly a business where you are your own boss. For those who haven't heard the term before affiliate marketing is basically where you promote someone elses product or services and recieve commissions when you refer someone who makes a purchase. Commissions are usually a percentage of the sale. Some programs will pay affiliates for leads instead of sales. There are some affiliate marketing techniques that are free and some that require a investment of money. Affiliate marketing is in my opinion the best way to make money online. It is also an evolving business which means there are always new ways to advertise and new opportunities that open up. A good book I've read that explains comprehensively how to build an affiliate marketing business is The Superaffiliate Handbook.

Where To Start

Where To Start The first thing you need to do if you want to be an affiliate marketer is to find a affiliate program that you want to promote. There are many individual merchants that offer affiliate programs. Unless the program is a well established site such as amazon I recommend instead signing up with an affiliate network. The largest two networks are commission junction and clickbank. I like promoting clickbank products myself but that is just a preference. Clickbank only has affiliate merchants that sell products that can be delivered digitally such as ebooks. They have over 10,000 merchants to choose from to promote. The other big network commission junction has a wide variety of merchants. Some very well known and prominent merchants are a part of commission junctions network. There are many other affiliate networks such as linkshare, affiliate fuel, commissionexchange and too many others to mention.

How To Find The Right Programs To Promote

In order to be successfull in affilate marketing choosing the right merchants to promote is very important. You can do everything else right from creating effective ads and advertising in the right places and still not make money if you don't promote the right merchant. The first thing I recommend looking at is the amount of commission that is offered.

This isn't the only thing you should consider but to make money the commission should be generous. I would say in most cases a good program will payout at least 50 percent commission. Commissions earned for each sale in most cases should be around 25 or 30 dollars. This can change due to other considerations such as conversion rates and popularity of the product or service.

If what you are promoting is a hot popular item you can expect the conversion rates to be higher and an easier sale which might justify promoting a merchant with lower commissions per sale. I also look at how many others are promoting a merchant. If there is a large number of affiliates that means you will have a lot of competition promoting that merchants product.

If there are few affiliates promoting a merchant that tells me that maybe the merchants site isn't converting sales or some other reason affiliates haven't been happy with that merchant. It can sometimes be complicated finding the right merchant to promote so I hope some of my general ideas might be of help in choosing.

If you want to get input from other affiliates about a particular merchant before you promote them I recommend going to affiliate marketing forums such as Ewealth and asking others in the forum for their opinion. Many times affiliates in those forums will be happy to give you their honest opinion if they have dealt with the merchant before.

Other than that sometimes just test promoting a merchant with a small amount of advertising can be a good way to find out if they will be profitable for you.in the right places and still not make money if you don't promote the right merchant. The first thing I recommend looking at is the amount of commission that is offered.

This isn't the only thing you should consider but to make money the commission should be generous. I would say in most cases a good program will payout at least 50 percent commission. Commissions earned for each sale in most cases should be around 25 or 30 dollars. This can change due to other considerations such as conversion rates and popularity of the product or service.

If what you are promoting is a hot popular item you can expect the conversion rates to be higher and an easier sale which might justify promoting a merchant with lower commissions per sale. I also look at how many others are promoting a merchant. If there is a large number of affiliates that means you will have a lot of competition promoting that merchants product.

If there are few affiliates promoting a merchant that tells me that maybe the merchants site isn't converting sales or some other reason affiliates haven't been happy with that merchant. It can sometimes be complicated finding the right merchant to promote so I hope some of my general ideas might be of help in choosing.

If you want to get input from other affiliates about a particular merchant before you promote them I recommend going to affiliate marketing forums such as Ewealth and asking others in the forum for their opinion. Many times affiliates in those forums will be happy to give you their honest opinion if they have dealt with the merchant before. Other than that sometimes just test promoting a merchant with a small amount of advertising can be a good way to find out if they will be profitable for you.

How Commissions Are Tracked

In order for an affiliate to get credit for their commissions there must be some tracking system in place. Affiliates are given special links to send traffic to that looks different from a regular url. These are sometimes called hoplinks. Hoplinks usually go through an affilate network so activity can be tracked. A normal website address looks like this: www.yoursite.com. An affiliate url looks something like this: www.yoursite.com/?affiliate=abc123. This allows for tracking but has some disadvantages such as in search engine marketing that I will get to later.

Some affiliates worry about theft of their commissions that they work hard to earn. There are two ways affiliates lose their commissions. First of all other affiliates can replace their own ids when making purchases. Secondly some people will see an affilate link and decide to chop off the affiliate id in their browser. To combat this to make sure they get the commission many affiliates are using link cloacking software. This hides the affiliate link and helps protect their commissions from being stolen.

How Affiliates Go About Earning Commissions

Affiliate marketers are faced with multiple choices on how to promote their favorite affiliate site. I will go into more detail later on on each marketing technique but here is a list of the most common ways that affiliates use to make commissions.

1. Blogging. My favorite method. There are many individuals who make a very good living from putting affiliate links in their blogs. Well written blogs with either good information or honest and well written reviews of affiliate products have high conversions. Tip: putting an afiliate link in the main text of a blog produces the highest conversion rates.

2. Squidoo lenses. Good way to make money online with affiliate links.

3. Advertising in Google adwords. Affiliates put small google ads in the search results and pay for every click trying to make more money from the commissions than the cost of the adwords. This is very competitive and often times low profit margins. Despite the challenges there are still many affiliate marketers who do well with adwords.

4. Articles. This is becoming very popular. An affiliate writes articles and submits them to article directories. The articles contain a link to an affiliate landing page of some kind in the bio box. Affiliates can do very well with this if they are able to crank out hundreds of well written articles. The traffic quality and conversion rates from well written articles is very good.

5. Forums. Posting in several high traffic forums is a great way to establish yourself as an expert and earn commissions.

6. Ezine advertising. Many affiliates do well with this. Even though conversions generally are not as good as having your own list the cost of advertising in most ezines is very low and your ad can easily be seen by tens of thousands of readers.

7. Building your own list or ezine. This is how most superaffiliates make a large percentage of their commissions.

8. Banner advertising. Not very effective overall in generating commissions. I don't recommend paying for banners on other sites. If you have a high traffic site and have the room for a banner it might be worth doing. Another option is to use free banner exchanges.

9. Contextual advertising. This involves placing small classified type ads on other websites. These are also known as content ads.

10. Newspaper advertising. This involves placing classified ads in newspapers. The response to ads will vary greatly depending on what paper you advertise in.

Article Marketing

Well written articles are one of the most powerfull affiliate marketing methods. The conversion rates from good articles is phenomenal much higher than adwords, banners or many other paid advertising. Writting articles and publishing them online has the additional benefit of establishing yourself as an authority in the topic you are writing about. The way you start getting traffic to your articles is by submitting them to many article directories such as ezinearticles and goarticles.
You can put a link back to your website in the bio box of an article. Since most article directories don't allow affiliate links in the bio box one must make either a blog or some other webpage promoting the affiliate site to link to instead. Your article then gets reprinted on hundreds of other websites creating links and traffic back to the affiliate site you are promoting.
Usually one article won't be enough to create enough traffic to get a large volume of sales. It usually takes over 50 articles to start seeing significant results. Here are some tips to start making money online with articles.
1. Keep your articles between 500 and 750 words.
2. Write your bio box in a way that compells the reader to click through.
3. Make your article about a common problem and offer a solution. Sales pitches don't make good articles and are a turnoff to readers.
4. Try to write as many articles as possible and submit them to as many directories as possible.
5. Keep in mind that article marketing is not a get rich quick deal. It takes time and many articles to start making money. It is a good way to build long term income though.
6. Other affiliate marketing methods should be used in addition to articles. Don't rely on article marketing alone. Top earning superaffiliates use multiple methods to earn commissions and you should too.
7. Many article marketers write multi part articles to keep readers coming back. This is the blogging equivalent of daily posting.
8. Pick a niche for your article that is low competition. This will make it easy for your article to rank high in the search engine results. The best keywords to target have less than a million search results.
9. Article titles are very important. For a couple of reasons. The old saying people judge a book by its cover is true. Secondly your title should have keywords that you want to rank high for.

Marketing With Blogs

There has been an explosion of the number of blogs online in the last few years. A large percentage of those are affiliate blogs. Blogs are a perfect tool for affilate marketing for a couple of reasons. First of all they are search engine friendly and highly optimized. Blogs in general are heavily favored in the first pages of search engine results. This is especially so for Blogger blogs and squidoo lenses. Yes thats right this lens you are reading is very highly optimized for the search engines. Squidoo lenses have dominated the first page resluts for countless keywords. Blogger blogs also do well in google because well they are owned by google. Here are some important tips for using blogs to get commissions from a blog.1. Put links to your affiliate site in the body of your blog. Ideally the links should be in important keywords.2. Write helpfull and usefull information for the reader.3. Some bloggers write product review blogs and do well with them. I recommend if you do this to actually buy the product you are promoting first and either use it or read it to be able to offer an honest review.In order to earn commissions from blogging you need traffic. Here are some tips to get people to your blogs.1. Write multiple blogs and link them togther to drive traffic to each blog and help with SEO.2. Post frequently to keep the search engine spiders coming back.3. Use blogger blogs or squidoo lenses. They tend to do well in search engines.4. Choose your blogs topic carefully and make sure it isn't a highly competitive market. Shoot for a keyword that is searched for at least 2000 times a month and has less than 5 million sites listed in the search engine results.5. Get as many links as possible to your blog by submitting to online directories, forum and blog comment posting(must be something usefull added to the discussion, not blatant advertising which is spam) and writing articles and submitting them to article directories. The more links you have to your blog the more direct traffic and SEO benefits it will get.6. Claim your blog on technorati and use keyword tags for each post.7. Ping your blog after every post. I recommend pingomatic.com for this.

Forum Marketing

A great way to drive free targeted traffic to your affiliate site and make commissions is to participate in forums. Forums are a great place to both learn new ideas and information and also market at the same time by helping others. In most forums you can put a link in your signature and many forums allow multiple links so you can promote more than one site. In forums you basically have discussion threads where people ask questions and others answer them. To build up your reputation it is important to answer questions in a thoughtfull and respectfull way. Most forums will show your track record for posting and that is how you build up a reputation and get more visitors and earn commissions.
The best strategy to follow is to first find two or three high traffic forums about the topic of your affiliate site. To find out if a forum has high traffic go to alexa.com for the traffic data. Any forum with an alexa rank of less than 5,000 is worth joining. Next you just start posting as much as possible. Over time your traffic should start building as you accumulate posts and build your reputation. When you participate in forums it is very important not to spam. Only putting an advertisement in forums and not contributing anything of value will just get one banned. Another thing to help build a good reputation is to be respectfull of others in the forum and be postitive.
A couple of forums that I participate in and recommend is the Warrior Forum and Digital Point Forum. Both are very high traffic sites. I especially recommend the warrior forum because some of the biggest names in affiliate marketing hang out there and the forums focus is affiliate marketing. Digital point is also a great place to get traffic from. They have an alexa rank of 180 and just get an enormous amount of traffic.
All you have to do to tap this traffic is post frequently. Another nice thing about digitalpoint is that they share adsense revenue providing another income stream.Forum marketing is not likely to make anyone rich quick but if one posts to them regularly over many months one can build up an income from it.

Advertising In Ezines

Putting ads in ezines is a great way to make affilate commissions. Ezines are basically online magazines or news journals. There are web based ezines and also ones that are delivered by email. Since most ezines are very topical their readers are a very targeted audience to advertise to. The more closely related the subject of the ezine is to what you are promoting the greater the chance of success.

There are 3 main types of ezine ads classifieds, sponsor and solo ads. The first one classified ads is the least effective at getting traffic to your affiliate site and making commissions. Even though they are cheap I recommend avoiding classified ads. Sponsor ads can be broken up into three types top, middle and bottom sponsor. The top sponsor ad is at the beginning of the ezine and is the most effective at getting clickthroughs and sales.

The middle and bottom sponsor ads are less effective but usually cheaper than a top sponsor spot. While classified and sponsor ads are found within an actual ezine along with other advertisers a solo ad on the other hand is sent out alone by email to the ezine subscribers. Solo ads often make the most sales but cost the most.Some marketers say that since solo ezine ads don't have any other subscribers they are the best way to advertise.

While solo ads are a powerfull marketing tool I actually prefer top sponsor ads myself for a few reasons. First of all they are cheaper than solo ads and still can pull a lot of traffic and sales from readers.

Secondly while you only have one shot with a solo ad Sponsor ads are often archived online by the bigger ezines and can keep pulling in commissions for you for a long time. Whether you choose solo ads or sponsor ads here are some tips to help you make more money from them.

1. Write your ad to make it look interesting so people reading will click on it.

2. Don't promote a site that is highly popular. This goes against common sense but many people will have seen the site already or have already purchased a popular product. Instead of looking for a popular product to promote look for a high quality one thats less well known.

3. Advertise in the same ezine 4-6 times to get the best response since people usually take several times to see an ad before they buy.

4. If you use sponsor ads advertise in ezines that archive their issues.

5. I recommend advertising in ezines between 25,000 and 100,000 subscribers for the bes

Classified Ad Sites

Sites that allow you to post free classified ads online offer another way to market affiliate sites. There are a few classified sites that can be used to make some commissions. I recommend usfreeads and craigslist. Most classified ad sites offer free ads as well as paid upgrades to help get your ad more exposure. To be successfull using classified sites for affiliate marketing the way the actual ad is written is critical. Your ad has to be both attention grabbing and compelling enough to clickthrough.

Your Own Email List Or Ezine

Most top marketers will tell you the best way to make affiliate marketing commissions is to have your own list. Email lists are very effective at getting sales because you can follow up on people who are interested but not ready to buy yet.
It can be very profitable to own your own list but it is also requires a lot of know how and hard work. If you want to create an ezine that you publish regularly that can especially take a lot of time and work. You have to first find a good autoresponder.
Next you have to actually build your list through various advertising or coregistration. Then you have to put together a newsletter and decide on what products to promote in these newsletters. This all has to be done on a regular basis because email marketing success depends on keeping in touch with your customers on a regular basis.
If you want to build your own list a couple of popular autoresponder services are aweber and getresponse.If you have the time to develop your own list I definitely recommend doing that.
For affiliates who don't have the time it takes to building and maintaining a list there are a couple of turnkey options. If you are a clickbank affiliate cbmall has a built in autoresponder that follows up with your affiliate id in a years worth of emails.
Another good option if you want to have an ezine of your own but don't want all the work is a place called e-zine-factory.com that will do everything from content to delivery for you

Newspaper Advertising

This is an oftentimes overlooked affiliate marketing method. There are some affiliates who make a lot of commissions from just placing classified ads that have their affiliate site in them. Here are some tips for being profitable with newspaper advertising.
1. Write powerfull ads that will stand out and compell readers to visit your url.
2. Test different newspapers. Response rates will vary dramatically with each paper.
3. Response generally increases by advertising more than once in a paper. Try to advertise for at least 4 consecutive issues in the same paper.
4. Make sure you advertise in the correct section of the classifieds. If your affiliate site is business related then that is the section of the classifieds that your ad should be in.
5. If you put a long affiliate url in your ad people are likely to chop off your affiliate id when typing it in their browser. I recommend using a service called tinyurl to make your affiliate url smaller.
If you want to learn more about making affiliate commissions by advertising in newspapers I recommend reading The Ultimate Mail Order Guide.

Contextual Advertising

These are small classified type ads that show up on others websites. Google has the largest contextual ad network. It is widely known by webmasters as adsense. Advertisers generally pay per click using content ad networks. One can use content ads to drive traffic to their affiliate pages. I advise caution when paying for content ads. The conversion rates from content ad traffic is very low. If you do use google or any other paid content ads I recommend bidding the minimum amount per click. Other major content networks include yahoo and adbrite.If you have a website and are a clickbank affiliate there is a free alternative to paying for content clicks. There are several services that allow you to place clickbank text ads on your site. A major player in offering these clickbank ads is cbclicks. The way most of these work is that whoever refers you to the ad network along with the network itself gets a percentage of the clicks with their ids in them along with your own. In turn if you refer others their websites will have some ads that have your affiliate id on them. To make good commissions using this method one must build a large referral base to get a lot of traffic to their clickbank id's.

Google Adwords

If you want to start earning affiliate marketing commissions fast Google adwords is the best way to do it. When you advertise on google adwords your advertisement shows up in their search results for the keywords that you bid on. Google ranks where your ad shows up in the results by a combination of clickthrough rate and the quality score of your ad and website. You can advertise direct affiliate urls on adwords if you want but since they tend to have a low quality score the minimum bid prices tend to be high. I recommend using either a landing page or blog with links to your affiliate site in your ad instead of directly linking to affiliate site. This will improve your quality score and lower minimum bids and at the same time gives you a chance to presell visitors before they go to the affiliate site. Here are some other tips for getting the most out of adwords.1. Use keywords in your title and make your ad stand out from others to increase your clickthrough rate and lower your cost per click (cpc).2. Try to bid on as many four word keyword phrases as possible because there is generally less competition and lower cpc with those phrases.3. Build your keyword lists as deep as possible and bid the minimum 5 cents. As an affiliate you don't want to get into a bidding war. Since you will probably only get a sale for every 100 to 200 clicks using adwords minimum cpc is necessary to make a profit.4. Only promote products on adwords that pay at least a $30 commission.5. Put the cost of the product you are promoting in your ad to keep freebie seekers from clicking your ads costing you money.6. To increase your conversion rates you can break up your ads in different groups with simaler keywords. Then make a different ad for each group.7. I don't recommend putting adsense ads on pages you promote with adwords. It will lower your pages quality score and increase cpc.8. Try to track your ads if possible to see which keywords are converting. You can then weed out the keywords that aren't making any commissions and add new ones.9. It's important with adwords to test new ads and get rid of ads that have low clickthrough rates. I recommend removing ads that aren't getting over 1% clickthrough rate. This will lower your cpc.10. Adwords success is all about testing. Campaigns should always be adjusted with new keywords and ads to lower your costs and improve conversions.

Squidoo Lenses

A great affiliate marketing tool is to create squidoo lenses. Google has been favoring lenses in their results. Besides getting a share of squidoo profits you can also put links to your favorite affiliate sites in a module to earn commissions.


In order to start getting traffic and making money from squidoo it is important to get a high lensrank. The top 100 lenses recieve the most traffic. Here are some tips to get a higher lensrank and search engine rank for your lens.

1. Update your lens daily with new content

2. Join groups on squidoo. This will generate links and direct traffic.

3. Get links from other sites to your lens. The link text should be what word or phrase you want your lens to rank high for. You can get free links by blogging, participating in forums and by writing articles and submitting them to article directories such as ezinearticles.com.

4. Create usefull and quality content on your lens. Better content will get you better ratings by other lensmasters. Good ratings are important to getting a higher lensrank.So to summarize the 3 most important things about creating a successfull lens with a lot of traffic are links, frequent updates and good ratings from other squidoo lensmasters.I recommend reading Squidoo Blue Print if you want to learn more.

Niche Marketing

Many affiliates have been very successfull at niche marketing. This generally involves first finding keywords that are low competition in the search engines but still have a lot of searches. A good niche keyword in my opinion will have 5,000 or more searches a month and less than 2 million results listed in the index. Keywords like that will provide traffic and will be relatively easy to get a top ranking. The next step in niche marketing is to get ranked for that keyword by writing informative and helpfull articles and blogs. You can then earn commissions by having links back to the affiliate merchant you are promoting.

Why You Need A Website

If you want to be a serious affiliate marketer you are going to need your own website to promote your affiliate programs with. A blog, squidoo lens or any kind of webpage will also suffice. Any affiliate who tries to send traffic to a direct affiliate link is doomed to fail in my opinion.

Here are the main reasons why having a website is very important to affiliate marketing success.

1. Your own webpage helps establish your online presence and makes you look more professional than just sending traffic to direct hoplinks.

2. With the recent "google slap" having a landing page other than an affilate hoplink is needed to have a profitable adwords campaign. For those who have not heard of the google slap here's the deal. Around a year ago google changed it's algorithm for adwords. Any affiliate urls were penalized with the algorithm change and minimum bids skyrocketed for advertisers who used direct hoplinks.

3. A website can be used to pre-sell visitors before clicking through to the merchant that you are promoting. This increases conversions.

4. With a website or blog you can get free traffic from search engine optimization. There is no way to optimize an affiliate url for the search engines

Traffic Exchanges

One free way you can generate visitors to your affiliate programs is to use traffic exchanges. They can be a very usefull tool if used the right way. Any site that is trying to directly sell products to visitors is not likely to do well on a traffic exchange. They are best used as a lead capture tool. Traffic exchanges are great for building email lists that you can earn affiliate commissions on the backend. They also work good for mlm programs. Exchanges can also work for any free signup programs. Most all traffic exchanges use a credit system where you earn credits from surfing other members sites and referring others. The biggest traffic exchange online is Trafficswarm. So if I were to give a secret formula for making money as an affilate using traffic exchanges here is how I recommend doing it.1. Sign up for several traffic exchanges.2. Use each exchange you sign up for to build referrals to the other ones.3. Surf on each one periodically to increase your credits.4. Once you have built up enough referrals and credits start sending traffic to a squeeze page with an signup form for your email list.

Day Job Versus Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing Compared To A Traditional Job
If you are considering affiliate marketing for a carreer I will put some of the differences between it and a normal job here for you to decide.Traditional job:

1. Set amount of pay determined by your boss or company.

2. When and how many hours you work are generally set by your employer.

3. Your income is stable and secure. Unless of course you are unfortunate and get laid off or fired.

4. Most employers offer some kind of retirement plan. This is either in the form of a pension or 401K.

5. You usually get paid vacations although your employer has final say as to when you can take them.

Affiliate Marketing:

1. You set your own hours. You can work as little or as much as you want although those who work harder at it generally make more money.

2. The income you make is going to be how well you are able to market and promote online and how much effort you put into it. Income from affiliate marketing is not guaranteed and does fluctuate.

3. There is no retirement plan in affiliate marketing. It is up to you to invest for retirement.

4. You take vacations and breaks when you want. Although you won't get paid for them if you automate your affiliate marketing you will still make money even when you aren't working at it.


5. Unlike most jobs you can work from home or wherever you like. The only 2 things required are a computer and internet connection.

BCPS cutting teachers' jobs

At least 27 teachers will be reassigned or laid off under a plan approved unanimously Monday by the Battle Creek Public Schools Board of Education.

The cut, representing about $1 million in savings to the district, saved jobs on the chopping block in a previous plan.

The staffing proposal, approved 5-0 as part of a finalized 2007-08 budget, will reassign 14.75 full-time equivalent positions to lower-paying positions and cut 12.75 full-time equivalents.

Officials haven't said which teachers will be affected.

Full-time equivalents cannot be translated to exact positions because some teachers work part-time.

Finance Director Deborah Nozicka said the plan would cover almost $1 million of a projected $3.9 million deficit for the 2007-08 school year.

Under Michigan law, the district cannot use for operating expenses any part of the $68.9 million bond proposal approved in May by voters.

"At the present time, there is not a sufficient number of positions available in which the excess number of teachers can be placed by the district," said Larry Yarger, assistant superintendent for human resources.

According to the plan, six probationary teaching positions, or those with less than four years service, will be allocated to elementary schools, increasing class sections to keep class sizes below 30. About 6.75 positions will be moved to substitute teaching services, and two more will be assigned to the Small Learning Communities program at Battle Creek Central High School.

The displaced positions, Yarger said, could be reinstated if summer retirement trends hold true to form.

This oversupply of teachers was caused, in part, by decreasing funds from federal, state and local entities, officials said. For the 2007-08 school year, according to numbers released by the school district, total grants decreased over $600,000, with state funding still up in the air thanks to the budget crunch.

Battle Creek, like other districts, also is facing flat enrollment projections. Enrollment was at 7,131 in 2006-07, and is expected to stay the same or dip slightly in 2007-08.

Administrators presented the plan to the board after last week proposing to cut about 17 positions. But Yarger, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Kathy Griffey and other administrators composed a plan that would use general fund dollars to save about five positions.

Many teachers received notice June 6 from human resources that they were being considered for cuts, but were then told the decision had been halted.

"We needed to step back and determine whether or not we were doing the best thing for the students and our teachers," Yarger said.

"It's unsettling, but I know the district is doing its best to save jobs," said second-year Wilson Elementary Academy teacher Brandon Coats, 27. "I'm hoping that I'm high up on the (reassignment) list, because I'd like to stay a part of the district."

"It would have been nice to know about these changes a little earlier," said Battle Creek Education Association President Terry Smith. "You want to know whether you'll be packing your things in a cupboard or cabinet or in a cardboard box. But we're encouraged that the district is working on this, and we look forward to working with them."

Smith said he would be meeting with Yarger today to discuss which teachers would be impacted.

How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs

How do bloggers make money from blogs?
I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogs.
I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.
The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.

So What is a Blog???

Confused yet? Don’t be - its really quite simple. To put it as simply as possible - a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.
Have a look at the main page of my blog at here for an example. for a different example you might like to look at this one (another of mine).
Ok - now you are a seasoned blog reader - you’ve seen two already at least.
Blogs are usually (but not always) written by one person and are updated pretty regularly. Blogs are often (but not always) written on a particular topic - there are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. From photography, to spirituality, to recipes, to personal diaries to hobbies - blogging has as many applications and varieties as you can imagine. Whole blog communities have sprung up around some of these topics putting people into contact with each other in relationships where they can learn, share ideas, make friends with and even do business with people with similar interests from around the world.
Blogs usually have a few features that are useful to know about if you want to get the most out of them as a reader. Lets examine a couple briefly.
Archives - You might look at the front page of a blog and think that there is not much to them. A few recent entries, some links to other sites and not much else. However its worth knowing that there is a lot more going on under the surface that might initially meet the eye. For example in addition to the main page of this blog - at the time of writing this post there are over 520 other pages or posts below the surface that I’ve written over the past few months.
When I write a post like this one it goes to the top of the front page. As it gets older and as I add more current posts it begins its journey down the page until it disappears from it. This is not the end of its life however, because it goes into the ‘Archives’ of my blog. It sounds like a dusty dark place but its really just like a filing cabinet that is easily accessible in a couple of ways. You can read my ‘archives’ simply by looking on the ’sidebar’ (over on the left of this blog) at the ‘archives’ or ‘categories’ section. There you will see links to all my old posts which you can access either by category. You’ll see a category for ‘Advertising’ - click that link and you’ll see all my old posts on the topic of Advertising with the most recent at the top and the oldest at the bottom.
Comments - Not all blogs use comments - but most do. This blog is not a monologue but a conversation. You can give me feedback on almost everything I write simply by clicking the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of each one of my posts. This will take you to a little form where you leave your name, email and a link to your own blog if you have one as well as your feedback, comment, critique, question, essay on why you love my blog, promise of money…. etc). Try it now. Scroll to the bottom of this page, click ‘comments’ and fill in the blanks with a little introduction to yourself.
A great way to learn about blogs is to read a few. Leave some comments, ask questions and bookmark your favourites. An even better way to learn about blogs is to start your own. Ok - you might be laughing at me now - you think you are not web savy enough to have your own site? You wouldn’t know where to start? You don’t know how?
My Secret
Let me share a secret with you - three years ago I knew nothing about blogs, I had never used the internet for anything more than email, surfing and chatting to friends and I could only barely do any of that! But one day I discovered a blog and after surfing from one to another (blogs tend to link up to other blogs a lot) for a few hours I was hooked and wanted to start my own. I found that there are free blog services that almost anyone could set up in a matter of minutes. Really it is that simple. Literally millions of people blog from around the world. Its not just something for young people, or geeks, or cool folk, or Westerners, or even for people with their own computers - instead its something virtually anyone with access to a computer and the internet once or twice a week can start up.
Are you still confused? Would you like more information? Below are a few helpful articles on the topic - there are many more on the web - just do a search on your favourite search engine. Otherwise shoot me an email using my ‘contact’ button with your question and I’ll do my best to get back to you.

What is a Blog?

So what is a Blog anyway? This is a question I am asked every week via emails, conversation and Instant Messaging chats. If you’re reading this you may well be asking the same question.
There are a number of ways I could answer this question ranging from the broad to the highly technical.
Here are a few definitions from other much wiser people to get us started:
‘A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.’
‘A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.’
‘From “Web log.” A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.”‘
‘A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there’s also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.’
‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.’
‘A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as Washington, D.C.’s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.’