Creating Web Site Voice Affiliate Programs that Succeed

With the advent of Advertising Agencies, followed the fifteen percent mark up for all services the client purchases via the agency. As a radio station General Manager it was always important to have the best agency rates posted. In the business they are traditionally referred to as �gross� rates. The net rate, is the cost the advertiser would pay if they purchased direct from the radio station. This is now such a common practice that no one even questions the ad agency methods. It is all a part of doing business and benefiting from the guidance of an advertising agency.

Today, the landscape of our world has expanded with the Inteet. Breeding new occupations such as web designer. Clients pay the company to design a website that best describes their business and reaches their target demographic. Many advertising agencies have joined in this medium and offer such services. A growing feature in web design are the inclusions of voice tracks on the main and subsequent pages. With over fifty percent of the American Inteet users continuing to connect with a telephone modem, the loading time for these files is an issue that still needs further development. What is not at issue is the need for voice work.

Based on the same concept of advertising agency commissions, we developed an Affiliate program that is simple and free to use. If a company is a reseller of services, such as web site voice work, the options are many. The difference is the method of payment is often an obstacle. We all want our money now, but in the Advertising Agency world, radio stations have come to accept the fact that payment will be delayed one billing cycle. Balance due in thirty days, becomes sixty. Why? The agency must bill their client and receive payment before they can pay the radio station.

Ultimately, payment responsibility rests with the advertising agency is liable, but in the new age of web page, both the page designer and the client may be start-ups or organizations absent the business structure like an advertising agency.

If you have a service tailored to the next generation of business growth, a flexible credit program is required for you Affiliate or reseller program to flourish. As the axiom in the auto loan business states �if we are not writing some bad loans, then we are missing too many good loans,� so must be the attitude of the Affiliate program owner.

Scott Perreault, CEO of Scott Radio, Inc. (http://www.scottradio.com) is a radio and narration voice veteran with over twenty years of broadcasting and voice work experience specializing in website voice work and telephone answering voice work. Scott has experienced many facets of the voice business including audio book narration and political and traditional radio commercial copy writing and production.

Affiliate Programs A Not THAT Easy Start To Your Own Online Business

"Where is all the help I'm supposed to get. I have been buying ezine and classified ad builders and signing up for Echecks and Virtual credit cards. In the meantime I have no business and no ads set up. When does all this happen? Let's go here. I spent all day on this. I'm running out of time."

I kid you not, this is the sum total of an actual email that hit my inbox this week. Not only did I not know this person from Adam, this was the first and only email I had ever received from her and to this day, I have no idea what she's talking about. Presumably, she signed up for one of the affiliate programs I promote from my site and was asking, in her own inimitable style, for my help. Although I am always ready and willing to help anyone I can, this is most definitely NOT the way to go about asking for it. Needless to say, I let her know what I thought of her approach in NO uncertain terms.

The attitude displayed in this person's email to me (and she is by no means an isolated example) exemplifies why so many people fail to make a success of their online businesses. Leaving aside the utter rudeness of the approach, notice the impatience, the expectation to be up and running in a day, the HURRY, the apparent belief that real world principles such as courtesy and good manners don't apply online (they do). Think this person is going to last the distance? What kinds of tactics do you think she is capable of resorting to in pursuit of the almighty dollar?

So, let's take a realistic look at affiliate programs, what they can and can't do for your business and how to maximize your chances of creating a successful, long-term business with them.

WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM?

An affiliate program (also known as a reseller, associate, referral or partnership program) is essentially a revenue-sharing arrangement whereby you, the affiliate, receive payment from the owner of a product or service that you promote on their behalf.

Affiliate programs are an excellent way for the new inteet entrepreneur to start an online business.

TYPES OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

There are various types of affiliate programs.

The most simple involves you, the affiliate, placing a banner ad, graphic or text link at your site which is linked to the site of the business you are promoting. This link is coded with your unique affiliate ID so that the site visitor is recorded at the target site as having originated from your site, thereby allowing you to be credited with the sale.

Payment is generally a fixed percentage of the sale value (commission) or "pay per click", where the affiliate is paid a certain amount for every time a site visitor clicks on the link at the affiliate's site, whether or not a sale is made.

The more sophisticated affiliate programs are multi-tier and allow the affiliate to ea commissions not only on the traffic they directly refer to the target site but also a proportion of sales generated by their sub-affiliates.

BENEFITS OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

The greatest benefit of affiliate programs is that when you are just starting out in your own online business you don't have to worry about creating your own product or service. You just promote someone else's and get a share of the revenue pie for your efforts.

You also don't have to conce yourself with warehousing, transport or logistics headaches. All of this is handled by the business whose products/services you are promoting. All you need concentrate on is driving traffic to that business's website. This means that a high proportion of your revenue is profit.

The owner of the product/service is also responsible for collecting payment, customer service and the myriad other details that come up on a day to day basis in running the business.

DISADVANTAGES OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

The main and obvious disadvantage of affiliate programs is that it is the owner of the product/service who eas the lion's share of the profit on the sale.

You're working on commission. You will NEVER ea by way of affiliate program commissions as much as you can ea by way of profits from producing and selling your own product/service.

As a result, affiliate programs represent a high opportunity cost when you consider what you could ea if you instead channeled the time and energy you spend on promoting affiliate programs into creating and promoting your own product/service.

For this reason, it does not make sound business sense to rely solely on affiliate program income for the longer term growth of your business.

Instead, think of them as a way of dipping your toe in the water when you're first getting started, and a nice little sideline once you've created your own product/service. Do NOT build your business around affiliate programs with the intention this will always be the backbone of your business. You'll be stunting your own growth if you do.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT AFFILIATE PROGRAMS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

So, keeping in mind what affiliate programs can and can't do for your business, let's tu to what you should look for when choosing an affiliate program or programs to promote in your business.

=> Synergistic Products/Services

First off, and this is a cardinal rule, only promote those programs which will allow you to create synergies with your site. This means selecting programs that naturally complement the subject matter of your site and that will therefore be of interest and relevance to your site visitors. This will ensure your prospects (ie your site visitors) are pre-qualified which will result in a relatively higher conversion ratio (the ratio of visitors to purchases) than would be the case if your traffic is untargeted (which will be the case if you promote unrelated products and services from your site.)

=> Quality In All Things

Keeping the need for synergy uppermost in mind, look for quality programs first and foremost. The last thing you want to waste your time, money and reputation on is a shoddy product or service. There are just too many quality programs out there to settle for anything less.

=< Stability of Company

Look for a company that's been around for a while and that's reputable and stable (both financially and in its management). Any reputable company will have full contact details readily available so do your research.

=> References

Look for testimonials and references from other affiliates. If the company you're interested is not forthcoming when it comes to putting you in touch with other affiliates, move on.

=> Affiliate Agreement

Look for a professional, considered and detailed affiliate agreement (contract). This shows that the company is serious about its business.

Watch out for exclusivity clauses and other restraints. Some affiliate agreements will require that you not promote competing businesses' products and services. This is not to say you should avoid such agreements. As a general rule, it is your interests not to promote competing programs anyway. Just be aware of what the agreement says on the subject to avoid getting yourself into hot water.

Look also for an agreement that treats spammers harshly. This protects not only the company but other affiliates as well. The last thing you or any other reputable affiliate needs is to have your reputation and the reputation of the product/service you are promoting besmirched by these sorts of tactics.

=> High Commissions

Promoting someone else's affiliate program necessarily requires that you divert traffic away from your site and towards someone else's. Make sure you're properly compensated with a high commission structure. And be sure to set up your link so that when the visitor clicks on it, a new browser window is opened for the target site. This at least keeps your site in front of the visitor so they can go back to your site once they've finished at the site your link has taken them to.

=> Lifetime Commissions

Look for affiliate programs that will credit you with not only THIS sale but all other sales the customer may make in the future. Many programs are set up so that the customer is identified as "yours" so that when the customer retus to the target site in three months time, the sale is recorded as having been generated by you.

=> Residual Commissions

Include programs that offer residual commissions in your portfolio. Good examples are webhosting services, autoresponder services and the like where customers sign up for a continuous service that requires periodic, regular payments. You receive periodic, regular commissions as a result.

=> Tracking of Commissions

Look for programs that allow you real-time access to your stats so you can keep easy track of your commissions.

=> Reliability of Payment

When checking with affiliate references, find out what the business's record is on paying out commissions. If they're slow or there appears to be a patte of problems, keep looking.

=> Frequency of Payment

Make a note of payment schedules too. Some programs pay weekly, some monthly, some quarterly. Some only pay once you accumulate commissions of a certain amount. None of these arrangements are necessarily good or bad in and of themselves. Just be sure you know what to expect.

=> Programs that Require Payment Up Front

Two words: MOVE ON!

=> Affiliate Support

Finally, take a look at what support the business offers its affiliates to make sales. Do they provide resources such as sample ads, banners, logos and the like? Do they provide useful advice about maximizing your sales? A good affiliate program provides affiliates with a LOT of support in these areas.

MAKING MONEY FROM AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

OK, now you know what to look for in an affiliate program. Here's how to maximize your sales of those products and services and, therefore, your commissions:

=> Get Your Own Website

No ifs, no buts. DON'T rely on the you-beaut self-replicated job the company provides all its affiliates. Link to that site from your main site.

=> Get Your Own Domain Name

This presents a much more professional image. Many people won't give the time of day to a business that thinks so little of its prospects that the owner won't shell out 70 bucks for a domain name. So mean business and look like it.

=> Get Traffic To Your Site (Duh!)

As a rough guide, you will need at least 500 targeted unique visitors a day to your site to make reasonable money from affiliate programs.

=> You Must Have A Site That Will Attract Repeat Visitors

If your website is nothing more than a splash page consisting of little else other than banners for umpteen different affiliate programs, forget it. Your site must be worthy of your visitor's time and interest before you can even begin to think about converting that visitor into a paying customer. So create a real site with real content that will keep them coming back for more.

=> Personal Testimonials

A personal testimonial will result in more sales than a mere link or advertisement. So take the time and trouble to write a personal endorsement of the product or service you are promoting. And, of course, it goes without saying that in order to write a personal endorsement, you must know that of which you speak. NEVER promote a program you haven't first purchased yourself. If you don't think enough of your program to invest in it, how do you expect to persuade others to?

=> Promote With Your Sig File

Include a link to your site in the signature of every email you send.

=> Promote In Your Own Ezine

Finally, if you're not already publishing your own ezine or newsletter to stay in touch with your site visitors, start. It's a great way to promote not only your site but also the affiliate programs you promote from your site.

MAKING SERIOUS MONEY FROM AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

The only way of making SERIOUS money from affiliate programs is by creating your own product or service and recruiting affiliates to sell for YOU.

The affiliate program phenomenon is one of the Inteet's true success stories. It provides a toe-hold for the would-be inteet entrepreneur to begin a real, live business of his or her very own. But the real beauty of affiliate programs lies not in what they can do for you, as an affiliate, but what they can do for you, as a recruiter of affiliates for your own program. By all means jump on the bandwagon and start promoting other people's products to get your start. But don't wait too long to start developing your own product line. There is a ready-made salesforce numbering in the millions ready and waiting to sell it for you.

About The Author

Elena Fawkner is editor of the award-winning A Home-Based Business Online ... practical home business ideas, resources and strategies for the work-from-home entrepreneur.

http://www.fawkner.com/subscribe.html

Guide to Successful Affiliate Marketing

While studying the achievements of super affiliates that ea handsome money every month, we find that their attitude is fine tuned to get optimum results from their attempts. Apart from the attitude everything is the same. They sell the same products that everyone else sells, they sign up for the same advertising program and employ the same SEO tactics. What makes them different is their willingness to experiment more, think creatively and showing of better understanding of human nature.

1. Dare to Lead

Don�t just be a follower; you can set new standards in affiliate marketing. This statement does not mean you should lea the nice good qualities of successful Inteet affiliate marketers. You can take new ideas from the success of successful Inteet marketers. But you can think differently and creatively. Creativity is the first thing every successful affiliate marketer possesses. You can creatively design your website, plan a promotional campaign and generally play your cards correct. Set standards and be a leader, let others follow.

2. Lea the Basics

Lea the basics of closing a sale. Lea from the innumerable websites in the Inteet that sell products and services. Be a constant leaer of marketing. This way you will know what sells and what does not. Goal setting, planning and implementing of the plans correctly make you a successful Inteet marketer. Set daily, weekly and monthly targets, then lay down the plan and follow up with the implementation of the plans.

3. Set Priorities

Everything you plan to do to promote your new affiliate product may or may not be necessary or fruitful. Separate the tasks as immediately essential, moderately lesser and unessential. Cutting down on unessential tasks saves your efforts and gives you more energy to concentrate on highly essential tasks.

4. Lea the art of Giving Before Receiving

You can�t bind horse before the cart. To receive something you need to give something. Here what you give before you take is information, tips and strategies to maximize the use of products you sell. For example if you sell photography items, provide in your website useful information about the care of different photographic products and continuously update the information with whatever you lea. Thus you lea to give before you receive.

5. Network

Network with fellow affiliate marketers. Help someone if needed. Don�t shy away asking help if needed. Affiliate marketing is not a �I Win, You Lose game�. Everyone can benefit from combined strengths.

6. Widen your Horizon

Don�t put all your eggs in the same basket. Diversify your efforts. This advice is not a license to dilute your focus. If you are the affiliate of a company that sells digital camera, you will have a good idea about digital cameras, its components etc. Instead of setting your focus solely on digital camera for a specific company, become an affiliate of different companies that sell digital cameras. Also sell digital camera components like memory sticks, batteries, flash units � You simply give yourself more exposure to a variety of opportunities.

7. Never Quit

Last but not least. This one tip you need to bind to your heart. Early setbacks and losses are only natural. In such occasions, heartlessly dump the products or services that bring you low or no retus. Cut down costs. But never ever give up your career. You can find profitable products to sell that will give you profits. If you really want to become a successful affiliate marketer, you must see such setbacks as essential natural leaing points.

Jim is the owner of starting an online business website, where it is set up for helping people to make money with affiliate programs.

Best Make Money Fast Idea How To Find It

The best idea to help you make money fast online is hidden in your talent and special gifting as a person. To arrive at it, you will need to ask yourself a number of questions. Then you must also be able to arrive at the correct answers to those questions.

The first question you will need to ask yourself to arrive at your best make money fast online idea is what do you love to do most? What is almost second nature to you? The answer to this question will usually lead you directly to a special talent that you possess which the world out there is waiting for and which you can quickly tu into the best idea to make money fast online.

But this question by itself will lead to disaster because chances are that you will dive straight into an idea which has no does not have the best if any demand online or one which is so competitive that there is no way you will make money fast from it. If anything you will tend to lose money fast from it.

So the next question which is even more important is how can you convert that special skill, talent or knowledge that you have into the best make money fast online idea?

Lea more about the best home business opportunity from a blogger who rakes in thousands of dollars... and growing from their home business.

How to Grow Your Affiliate Commissions by Being Different

Remember high school?

I still shudder when I think about it. We all want to fit in. I know I did. If I could just fit in, maybe I could be popular too.

Now that I'm an adult, being different is more important. The reason why is that by being different, by being me, it has helped to improve my business.

You can use it to improve yours too.

It doesn't matter if you sell affiliate programs, MLM, or even your own product, how you will benefit is that by being different, you are offering your potential customers something no one else is offering.

This is especially true with affiliate programs and MLM programs.

How can you be different from thousands of others who may be promoting the same program you are?

A few tips:

1. Write articles about your industry, resources that relate to the product or service you are selling, and tips about how to use your product or service.

This is probably the most overlooked way to market affiliate programs and MLM. By providing valuable content, you are offering your readers something new, something different, that makes your product or service more valuable than others selling the same product or service.

2. Build a website and buy a domain.

This will really help you because not only can you offer your primary product, affiliate program, or MLM, but you can also write reviews about other products or services that compare, as well as complement your current offering.

This is another way of building content and getting buyers to trust you, as well as diversifying your streams of income.

Having your own website can also help you with the search engines.

3. Write a free report to get subscribers.

Offer potential visitors a free report. Again, you can do the same with this report that you do with articles: write about your industry, tips about your product, etc.

Give away your report in exchange for the subscriber's email and name. This allows you to build your own list so that you can recycle your traffic.

What makes the inteet so much different from traditional offline advertising is that buyers are looking for information. Traditional advertising doesn't provide the information the buyer needs.

By offering your potential buyers real information, you can build your business and increase your profits online.

Jinger Jarrett is a writer and inteet marketer living in Alpharetta, GA. You can get all of her best free inteet marketing resources, including freeware to help you market on the forums when you visit her site at http://www.askjinger.com

Dos And Don ts For Affiliates Part 3

Now that we've covered the "dos," here come the "don'ts." Although these questionable tactics have worked well in the past, the search engines absolutely hate them. If they catch you using any of these tricks, they may go so far as to drop you from their listings like a hot potato!

1. Beware irrelevant links!

Yes, it's a good idea to get a lot of different links pointing to your site, but the search engines only like RELEVANT links. If they find sites that have nothing in common with the content on your site linked to your web site, they'll lower your relevancy rating.

2. Beware irrelevant keywords!

Search engines hate finding irrelevant keywords on your site -- especially in your meta tags. If they catch you using keywords that have nothing to do with the actual content of your site, they'll penalize you for it.

3. Don't "keyword stuff" your meta tags!

In the past, people used to repeat their keywords in their meta tags over and over again. This used to get them a high ranking with the search engines -- but not any more! Search engines are on to this trick and will punish you for it by dropping your ranking.

4. Don't create "link farms"!

"Link farms" are the evil cousins of the "information pages" we discussed above.

In the past, some spammers used to build multiple "doorway" sites that existed only to multiply the number of links pointing to their sites. Unlike content-rich information pages,these doorway pages would usually only include a string of keyword terms that would ea them a high ranking with the search engines. The search engines have caught on to this tactic, however, and will drop you from their listings if they find you using it.

5. Avoid "free for all" link pages!

Don't bother placing links to your site on pages where everyone and their dog is invited to put up a link. Such sites have extremely low relevancy ratings and will cost you points with the search engines.

Essential tools and resources to optimize your site and stay n top of the search engine game There are a lot of great tools out there that can help you optimize your web site while ensuring that you stay on the good side of all the search engines. Here are a few of our favorites.

Tools:

Wordtracker: This great online tool helps you select specific keyword phrases that will direct more traffic to your site. Free and paid versions are available.

SitePromoter: This useful software program helps you create individualized submissions to the different search engines.

Optilink: A lot of search engine optimization experts swear by this software. It's a "link reputation analyzer" that helps you determine a site's reputation and why the search engines like it or dislike it. It certainly comes in handy when you're checking out the competition or looking for reputable sites to link to yours!

WebPosition Gold: This is a great piece of search engine placement software that generates Web pages designed to rank high on the major search engines. It also analyzes your existing Web pages, providing suggestions for improvement, and tracks your ranking on different search engines.

Resources:

Search Engine News: Planet Ocean's online resource, "The Unfair Advantage Book on Winning the Search Engine Wars" is updated monthly and provides excellent optimization tips and information on the Search Engine industry.

Search Engine Watch: This free site is another rich source of tips and information on the Search Engine industry. Paid memberships are available for more advanced content.

Search Engine Guide: This free site contains a lot of useful information about the smaller search engines on the Web, and who you should submit your site to in order to get a better ranking with the bigger search engines.

Final thoughts

Recent research by search engine optimization experts suggests that there is a surprising lack of overlap between the results produced by the major search engines. All too often, sites that are ranked high on Google get a much poorer listing with Yahoo! and vice versa.

This could mean that webmasters are focusing their optimization efforts solely on one search engine while neglecting to improve their ranking with the other. They might be using optimization tactics that work for Google on Yahoo!, without being aware that Yahoo! uses different criteria to index a site.

Either way, sites that aren't optimized for both Google and Yahoo! are missing out on a lot of potential visitors.

And don't forget, MSN will soon be throwing its hat into the ring and switching from Yahoo! to its own search engine technology. When that happens, you should be sure to submit your site to MSN as well.

No one really knows what the future holds for the search engine industry, but one thing's for sure: Businesses that don't stay on top of the changes are going to find themselves slipping behind. Don't let that happen to your business!

If you want to skip the failing actions and get a personal tour of REAL PEOPLE making REAL PROFITS on the Inteet, then go to...

http://advancedinteetwealth.50webs.com/index.html6.htm

... and take advantage of the invaluable tips and tricks that these Inteet successes reveal so that you can start applying them to your business today.

Getting Your Affiliate Site Mentioned in the Press

Not all affiliate sites are visited because of keywords or key phrases in a search engine. Some are found the �old fashioned� way, through offline methods. Try some other ways of getting noticed by your niche market: Public speaking, specially if you have a product or service provided in a limited geographic location. Put your website information in a handout, on the chalkboard, on your slides, and in the course catalog.

Chamber of Commerce, a place to make contacts, and come face-to-face with people interested in your niche, specialty or product. Your listing in their directory will include your website address.

Articles in the local press, both written by you imparting useful information, or a feature about you and your web-based or web-enhanced business. It�s worth a pitch letter to a reporter, and reprints (by permission) are great on your site.

Tell the press about your activities or special events you�re holding -- send releases to newspapers and local magazines. Always include a succinct description of your company and your website address.

National press takes more effort, but can be the bonanza your site needs. Make a list of highly targeted publications, using inteet research and such sources as The Writers Market, and ask for editorial calendars. In advance (weeks for papers and months for magazines) send a release about an event, special item, contest that showcases your business and website, without blatantly selling it. Even a few lines in national publication can make your site visits skyrocket!

Karen Kari's articles and more information on the affiliate business can be found at:
http://www.affiliatebandit.com
http://www.advertisingcellar.com
http://www.billionfreeads.com