Affiliate marketing has taken a high for the past few years and is a major source of income for a plethora of webmasters. Various websites have their affiliate programs running and they usually pay off a decent commission per sale.

However, just as every game has a few rules, Affiliate marketers should adhere to a few of them as well. We shall check out a few mistakes which an entry level affiliate marker usually makes;

• Not dedicating yourself to one before starting another – Many Affiliate marketers tend to start affiliating for several different websites to make easy money from each of them. But this is not an advisable practice especially when you are a beginner. You should try to first learn the basics of Affiliate Marketing and concentrate and grow your business. In order to understand what Affiliate marketing can offer you should first dedicate yourself to one program before starting another.

• Not concentrating on the pre-sale – An Affiliate marketer’s job is not to just sell the product but to concentrate on the pre-sale activity as well. Providing too much information on your website about your client will leave your client nothing to describe about his product. Alongside, providing too little information about your client’s product would end up visitor leaving the page without a deal. An Affiliates job is to describe the client’s product in such a manner that he feels inquisitive to click on your client’s link.

• Not using the product – Whenever you are selling a product you should be confident about it. “People buy from people you and not from the company”. You should have at least tried the product before you to sell it; this would give you a higher degree of confidence while selling the same.

• Not understanding pay-per-click – One should have a sound understanding of the pay per click if you want to become a successful Affiliate marketer. Pay per click advertisers use search engines to place their ads, but they pay only when the user finds their ad compelling and clicks on the ads to visit the advertisers web page. By using keywords, each advertiser can actually customize his/her pay per click advertising for a specific market of potential clients.

• Not choosing the right product for you - Very often Affiliate marketers choose the highest paying program which may not be right for them. While choosing the right program 3 things should be kept in mind: Time, Payout and Usability. Before deciding an affiliate program, it is important to understand how much time you will dedicate on it to make yourself successful.

• Not believing in yourself – If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right! You may feel a bit of apprehension in the beginning but later on once you understand the basics of Affiliate marketing and master them, you will become more confident and you could make it a successful business. Your excitement needs to translate confidence in yourself.

• Not committing yourself for affiliate marketing program – There are many affiliate programs out there out of which some are very popular and some are not . You need to do a lot of research in finding out the best one’s for you. You need to be committed and focused towards building your affiliate program.

Affiliate marketing is all about building a strong consumer base, finding the niche products and their prospective consumers and marketing the product efficiently over the web. Let’s hope these pointers do some good for you as an affiliate marketer.

Image courtesy: DoobyBrain

All you need to do is use the widget, and it will automatically display some of my best-selling products which are literally guaranteed to get you affiliate sales in no time. Assuming of course you have some level of traffic to your blog

Anytime we add a new product they are automatically added to the widget and you don’t need to lift a finger..

Now you can download the Profit Blogger Affiliate Widget version 2.0, which takes everything one step further. Now you can select the type of ads you want to display – 125px ads, 250px ads, or product covers in 3 different sizes. You can also use custom CSS to match everything to your blog.

For more information, refer to the affiliate program page and download the widget there.

Promoting your affiliate system

The obvious question for affiliates marketers is – how do we promote our affiliate programs to generate more revenue? The answer lays in Social Media circles. Social Media has outgrown almost every possible source of digital advertising and promotion in today’s world. The fact that has helped social media experts is that consumers have turned a blind eye towards traditional forms of advertising.

Social media helps in creating the much required monetizing buzz for the affiliates to be successful. Successful affiliates have been implementing social media strategies from the initial days when the term was not even coined. It is the ability to create a buzz about a new product or a service in the market by a commission generating option that competes for one’s time, money and attention. Affiliates have used social media in its traditional forms such as the news groups, bulletin boards and emails. With the new trends such as PPC, SMO, etc. the chances of generating significant revenues have grown leaps and bounds.

Selecting the correct strategy

The key consideration lies in selecting the right social media strategy to boost your affiliate websites. It is thus advisable to select and implement the right strategy which sounds more significant to your work instead of playing trial and error with everything that can be implemented. Affiliates should thus focus more on the trusted channels of social media such as blogging, social bookmarking and social networks. The outreach can be extended to locating the niche audience in forums, communities, facebook pages and groups, etc.

Few reasons why affiliates should use social media for promotion include;

• The monopoly of merchants and their restrictions to discontinue using certain sites and advertising channels compels one to look for social media to do the job in a better and cheaper way.
• With a plethora of affiliates in the same competitive arena which focus more on the traditional means, it is always a smart option to choose social media as it brings in an added freshness in the approach.
• Google is playing the spoil-sport by introducing PPC and SEO squeezes which has various restrictions and are not in the interest of affiliate marketing community. Social media herein comes handy and acts as an answer to the strict laws and regulations being laid down by Google.
• The traditional methods have started sounding suspecting because of its monotonous nature. Consumers always look out for something new and Social Media has the potential to deliver and come up to the customer’s expectations. Today people spend a lo of time on Facebook, Twitter and other similar networks. Tapping them at places where they love to be would fetch better results.
• Social media is dirt cheap to dirty your hands with. With time, one can learn the basics of the game. The simplicity of social media measures such as blogging, tweeting and creating fan pages allows you to get get going within minutes.
• Social media doesn’t need you to be a journalist or a big shot in the internet space. Efficient practices can help you do wonders with your affiliate programmes.

Innovation is the key in social media strategies. If the innovation is right and it strikes the right chord, the affiliate rewards are more than one’s expectations.

Image credits: Gary Hayes and sean dreilinger

Photo Credit: Affiliate Bob

For affiliate marketing programs to be successful, it is important to increase the brand loyalty of internet users to your website. Building up user loyalty and creating a positive outlook towards your blog is one of the stepping stones to make big bucks online. Here comes the role of Affinity Targeting which aims at creating an affinity towards your website and the affiliate programs running on it.

The sense of affinity is a great medium to increase the traffic onto your website and hence increasing the conversion ratio. This is only possible when a website can command a competitive advantage over its competing websites by implementing pay per clicks, SEO to increase affiliates and creating a positive attitude towards online advertising enabling a wider audience reach.

Few steps to create affinity towards your affiliate marketing programs include;

• Building up visitor trust by publishing unique content and showcasing its benefits.
• Regular posting and increasing the site’s visibility on the web are the harbingers of sustained user loyalty.
• Usability should be the main focus as a site which is easily navigable and not at all cluttered builds up an enjoying experience for the user.

It is also significantly important for a brand/site to command loyalty and have the potential to emerge as one of the best names on the web. Professionals are hence on a lookout for innovative techniques to boost up their affiliate sales. Therefore, it is important to create Brand Affinity and work in tandem with your partners or affiliates to enhance the customer value.

Marketing Service Talk explains this further by mentioning four ways to work with brands;

1. Brand Affinity – working with other brands to change perception and generate awareness for your brand;
2. Partnership Marketing – tactical short term marketing initiatives, consisting of promotional or third party tie-ups;
3. Affinity Marketing – Adding value to your brand via a complementary service from another brand e.g affinity credit cards;
4. Affiliate Marketing – white labeling your product or service to others to sell for commissions such as Moneysupermarket, U Switch.

In the early days of affiliate marketing, it was looked upon as an unprofitable source of income. But with newer business models coming in, such as pay per performance and other affiliate business models by creating an online partnership with firms and thus determining their revenue sharing allotments, the internet marketing environment has evolved. Websites such as PepperJam have become one of the best in the business. Alanna Richter, VP – Marketing of NY based Bluefly says,

“Affiliate marketing is one of the company’s least expensive acquisition tools and we are always on the lookout for high-traffic sites touting visitors with relevant demographics and psychographics”.

For websites to increase online revenue generation, it is good to know that affiliate marketing is here to stay and grow. The key lies in understanding the nuances involved and implementing them successfully. For an affiliate marketing program to be successful, it is important to know the advantages and disadvantages of the same.

Few advantages;

• Brand Images can be changed and new perceptions formed.
• Affiliates help launch new products and services often exploring into new target audiences with the help of Affinity Targeting.
• Online partnerships with relevant partners/sites increase the visibility helping more money to come in.
• Marketing costs are shared and profits increase.

Few disadvantages;

• It is difficult to find good online partners to indulge into online advertising.
• Profit sharing and responsibility sharing in various deals is always a debatable issue.
• Control over the communiqué is one of the major decision factors.

Affinity towards affiliate marketing programs is here to stay big time and its potential and profitability is still unleashed.

Photo Credit: Wink

The increasing number of WAP users who prefer quick solutions to their problems presents a scope for affiliates to tap into three major mobile channels. Namely,

• Mobile Messaging – Advertising opportunities via SMS or MMS for text advertisements, splash pages and animated images.
• Mobile Web – Advertising opportunities on the mobile web involves banner advertising, text ads and branded mobile websites which work on a CPC or CPM approach.
• Mobile Video – Mobile video includes specifically branded videos which are live, podcasts or downloaded. The advertisements here can be on the basis of pre-, post- or mid-roll adverts.

There is a major opportunity for affiliates to build on the mobile version of their successful sites in order to guarantee newer audiences and increasing the market potential. But, the pace with which the mobile browsing has been adopted by affiliates is disheartening as companies such as Commission Junction and LinkShare have been very slow in adopting it. On the contrary, Las Vegas based  XY7 Network has made an innovative move by announcing that they are the only affiliates which possess dedicated division of WAP deals and other mobile-ad inventory for their mobile phone portal-owners and publishers.

The future success of affiliate’s lies in recognizing the fact that increase in number of mobile internet users will help develop affiliate marketing in an innovative way. Bango, a mobile payments and services company states that the mobile web will soon become the key medium of generating sale and earning revenue for mobile services and applications.

The challenge here lies in creating and implementing successful mobile affiliate marketing platforms which would change the way affiliate marketing is implemented in the mobile space. Companies such as Mobpartner and Jamster proudly boast of one of the best mobile platforms today by focusing on a particular niche of mobile payment settlements with merchants and mobile casino respectively. Belboon and MediaPlazza are also big players in the mobile browsing market offering scope to thousands of affiliates via the mobile web. Affiliates can also look into various adult affiliate marketing programs on the mobile which are also worth giving a shot, but are never safe as they most often get caught in filters. Admob is another very famous site which specializes in serving ads on the mobile version of sites and blogs.

The tremendous innovation in the mobile browsing has helped mobiles become something more than a fundamental communication device. Affiliate marketing programs on the mobile web have emerged as the next most viable mobile business model which for sure is here to stay. These mobile affiliate platforms can be further used as a particular functional strategy among broad marketing strategies such as CRM, Branding, Direct Sales and Direct Marketing implemented by companies.  The projected forecasts suggesting increment in adoption rates are indicative enough for smart affiliates to know the fact that neglecting the mobile arena as part of broader internet marketing strategies will have a negative impact on their business model and revenues.

Making money online is still a dream for a lot of internet sapiens, most of them are not even close to the correct way of doing things. We at ProfitBlogger laid out an interesting programme, featuring several suggestions and advices about the probable ways to earn money through affiliate marketing programs.

The art of making building relationships

The reasons why WordPress empowers a huge potential to become a money minting machine if used effectively are in plenty. The presence of numerous plugins allow almost anything one can think of while playing with a blog layout, configuration, features, etc. Effective use of plugins have resulted in some of the best CMS based on WordPress. It is pretty much evident that world’s top blogs mostly run on WordPress.

The other advantage that WordPress users have is the flexibility in design as compared to other platforms. As, BlogForProfit writes,

Instead of having to settle for a web yellow page, where you throw something up and pray someone will stop by. You get a site that is interactive and proactive. A site where you can build relationships with your visitors and turn them into return visitors and readers.

Talking about ways to make money using blogs, I would lay out 3 basic techniques to get things done;

• Google Adsense is one of the most easiest methods of drawing money from a high traffic blog. Getting your blog traffic is another important step, on which we have talked a lot many times and will continue to do that! For a quick step, choosing a few high rank keywords, catering to their usage and thus enabling you to come up in the top searches of google will help more traffic onto your blog page. The probability of making money through adsense if directly proportional to the number of people coming onto your blog. It is indeed a long term, stable income technique and most bloggers use it to pay off their bills!
• If you’re not a very established blogger but have a confidence in your writing, getting registered with good blogs by contacting their owners, who have a pay-per-post strategy is also a pretty decent way to make a start. This shall leverage you name and money, both. A slow but steady way of making money for good amateurs.
• Affiliate Marketing Programs are the most fruitful of all the methods used by people on the internet to earn money. Though the technique appears to be complex to most amateur bloggers and does involve a good monitoring of the traffic and conversion rates, deals, etc., people who know how to use it efficiently make millions. There are a lot of blogs which run only on affiliate marketing.

In the times of recession, when people are talking about the benefits of blogging and online business, internet marketing strategies and newer business models will definitely help WordPress bloggers earn money and involve themselves into profitblogging!

Although I have made at least $300-$400 a month promoting Brian Gardner’s themes in the past, that’s really an exception because (1) he had the quality and the quantity (2) I used rather “creative” affiliate marketing methods.

While Brian can be credited with starting this whole premium theme craze, his predecessors have done a much shabbier job. Here’s my 3 biggest complaints of premium WordPress themes affiliate programs:

• They Suck at Selling – A lot of themes out there are great, but they do not let visitors know exactly what they would get, and exactly how their offer is different from the huge amount of “premium” themes being regurgitated in the market. Their product pages focus one the demo of the theme, but that’s as far as it gets. You don’t need a 12-page long salespage, but the selling point and the USP just has to be there of they are wasting my time and yours.
• They Pay Peanuts – 20% commissions for your hard work? Come on it has to be a joke. Some theme creators to their credit offer up to 40% commissions, but even that is much lower to some of the good, high-converting products you can find in ClickBank. The fact is, they are selling a digital product with zero delivery cost and no substantial increment cost. The low commissions is just a lack of recognition to the power of affiliates.
• They Provide Almost No Marketing Help – Most of them provide no banners, no email templates, and close to zero marketing help. Could this be because they pretty much don’t get what this “marketing” thing is all about?

It’s almost sad to see the amount of hard-working affiliates working their asses off to make money with these affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing is simple:

Good Product + Converting Salespage + High Commissions / Sale

Leaving out any part of the formula simply results in a waste of time, space and effort for you, as an affiliate. Look around, find better offers. That space on your blog and that small AdWords ad could be making you a lot richer than you are now.

So, the question springs up, what is the best business to be in now? Bet me on this, the answer is Affiliate Marketing.

This is the time where affiliate marketers actually can earn as much as they desire just because the payment depends on the performance. Also, the products being promoted can be ordered via online shopping which is actually a booming business presently.

The best of the reasons for online shopping catching pace is because it is a cost effective way and a competitive one as well. There have also been various polls being conducted which have emphasized the importance of affiliate marketing through SEO during the recession. There are various internet marketing strategies which can also be followed successfully.

Aojon describes it in one of his posts as -

When the market goes up, spend more on advertising.

When the market goes down, spend as much as you possibly can on advertising.

Few other strategies which affiliates should implement in times of recession to come out successful:

• Target the niche users always helps as there increases the chance of a focused search by a prospective customer who is desperate and has the drive to generate sales for him/her and profits for you.
• Increase in conversions and traffic also plays an important role and there comes in effect the role of proper promotional efforts for your product. It is worth remembering that this is a ‘numbers game’ and the more efforts you put in, the more numbers you get.
• Focus more on PPC because there could be a decrease in the final sales of a product, but there would always be focused searches. So, the scope of earning money through pay per click should be well grasped upon.
• Improve networking in these times with fellow bloggers, websites, community forums etc. as these people would be of help when the recession ends. On the recovery, you could be in a good position to capitalize on the surge in spending. Nevertheless, always keep in mind the target market of yours while interacting and making friends.

All said and done, it could also be the right time to change the design of your site and make it more attractive. Always remember, “Looks do Sell”. Also essential is to understand the fact that there cannot be a mercurial rise in the market conditions in the near future, thus it is time to focus and strategize in a better and effective way. Stress more on the volume which can be generated and keep a close eye on the present rends with the decline in spending all across the globe.

Implement these and I hope to see you smiling all through the recession.

Internet Marketing is the process of using the interactive technologies available via the Internet to further create a dialog with potential customers by connecting with them with good educational content about your company’s products or service offerings.

“Change” is the keyword of every practice and Internet Marketing has also evolved over the years. There has been a sudden burst of click only companies and the success shows that there are a lot of revenues that people have generated. The future of online marketing has been a hot debate topic for quite some time now, but nevertheless, it seems bright.

The online marketing business has grown by leaps and bounds and as this digital revolution keeps growing, the motive behind it has not changed one bit from consumer marketing. The motive has and will remain the same i.e. increasing awareness about your product or service, tracking potential customers and creating value for them. But without doubt, the approach has seen a sea change; be it the way we do business, the way we market, service , sell, communicate, distribute, and work.

The future of online marketing may have the following implementations;

• There will be a transformation from static sites to personalized and dynamic sites which would more effectively enable actual e-commerce. Investment worth millions of dollars in an online business would not raise eye-brows.
• Search Personalization, SEO, rankings and search results will have specially devised internet marketing strategies which will generate more revenue for both the client and the company. This would obviously mean new advertising methods being implemented for the success of the same. This would further result in diversification of strategies and focus on a combination of strategies and advertising models. The concept of 4C’s of Internet Marketing will actually be implemented.
• The corporate citizens across the globe will operate in new digital marketplace wherein almost all e-commerce applications such as shopping, paying bills, entertainment, and banking everywhere will be dealt online. The harbingers of some of these applications have already been implemented in some developed continents.
• The problems of spam, frauds, phishing scams and identity theft concerns will continue, but strict measures will be implemented. This would lead to a reduction in display of banner ads, PPC methods, click frauds etc. Another important concept will be the upsurge in information publishing and copyright of free copyright articles.
• The achievement of Marketing ROI will become more difficult as there would be a plethora of similar services being offered by many sites. This would further result in increased competition which may go the unethical way at times.

The future might also have many surprises in store when it comes to internet marketing strategies, promotional activities, functional specifications etc. but one thing is for sure, there seems to be very less saturation in the online marketing sphere in the few decades to come. Making money online would not remain a secret anymore and internet marketing would evolve to be something more than just another business tool. The internet and internet marketing would probably become more than “OUR LIVES”.

Here, I would like to share a list of top blogs on affiliate marketing;

1. Revenews

This is one of the oldest, most talked about and most successful blogs on affiliate marketing. The prominently discussed topics on this blog are online marketing, security issues, analytics, spyware, blogging, search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, contextual advertising and next generation marketing. There are relevant links which shows their partnerships and writers across the globe. After its successful launch in 1998, the site has undergone a few design changes and has made an attempt to provide articles which make a tremendous read to  industry gurus, top-level executives and CEO’s, plus many of the industry’s top netepreneurs.

2. Problogger

Problogger is a Darren Rowse venture who had made a success in the field of blogging with the help of affiliate marketing. This site is actually targeted at bloggers to add income streams and generate fabulous revenues out of their blog. It can be called a blog consulting site which offers a one stop solution to all issues related to blogging. This site has a well maintained homepage displaying top posts on blogging, relevant ads and partners and also has a mention about their sponsors.

3. Pepperjam Blog

This is one of the most successful online marketing agencies in the US. It has grown leaps and bounds in the last couple of years and has got many rewards and recognitions for their work. Their work is run from their own marketing agency whose main work is extensive professional consultation and management services across various fields like search engine marketing, affiliate marketing, online media planning and management.

4. Aojon

This blog operates under the user name Super Affiliate Marketing Blog and is a venture by and the title header actually shows a no nonsensical approach by the author. Primarily focused on the art and business of affiliate marketing, search engine optimization and viral marketing, this is one of the most read blogs across the affiliate marketing community.

5. 5 Star Affiliate Programs

Five Star Affiliate Program Blog is actually a blog which features various online programs and the potential revenue earning capacity out of every program. It actually focuses mainly on programs based in the US and has various partnerships with them. It also has blog articles which focus mainly on categories such as affiliate managers, blog contextual revenue, legal issues, niche marketing, search engine optimization and other web 2.0 applications.

6. ShoeMoney

Jeremy Schoemaker’s radical transformation from being a nerd to the owners of one of the most famous sites on affiliate marketing is an inspiring story. He basically focuses primarily on embracing new trends, new business opportunities, a keen eye on small changes and big revenue potential. This blog has a young feel to it with all latest albums, sponsors, ads and partnerships being displayed on an electric blue colored homepage. The blog posts are mostly about online marketing, advertising, affiliate marketing programs and videos about them.

7. Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

This blog by Shawn Collins is another top affiliate marketing blog. The posts are basically centered on the major theme affiliate marketing and its sub domains such as affiliate news, affiliate resources, affiliate managers etc. This is one of the few neat blogs with not much hyperlinks on the home page and the ‘about’ section shows the true credentials of the blog owner.

All of these blogs help thousands of affiliate marketers on a daily basis. If you’re planning your future into affiliate marketing niche, get them to your RSS reader and keep a watch for some good posts.