Three Fatal Affiliate Marketing Mistakes

By Alec Olive

Affiliate marketing gives you the opportunity to make money online automatically, once you have setup your website successfully. It is considered to be a very simple and a very easy way to earn a good income with affiliate marketing. But it is not as easy as it is thought. Not all persons entering in this field become successful affiliate marketers. Those who are lucky enough to get real success in this business are few.

Here we will discuss the three major mistakes of affiliate marketers that usually make their business collapse. This will help you in earning a steady income. If you will avoid these mistakes then you can sit back and enjoy your steady and monthly "free" income.

In affiliate marketing, you get your commissions for promoting products and services of a merchant. It is the Merchant who is bound to pay you the sales commission. The duty of the affiliate marketer is to promote the products of the merchant. The merchant is the investor, who pays commissions to the affiliate marketers, when any of his products are sold.

Now take a look at the three fatal mistakes of affiliate marketers:

1. Do not send your prospects directly to an affiliate website

Do not send your prospect directly to the website without offering any free benefit to the visitor because there is a possibility that the consumer will not like the product and close the website without even buying a single product. Now you have lost this consumer forever because it is obvious that the next time he will choose to visit another site.

If you want your visitors to visit the website again and again, offer them some kind of free benefit like free gifts, software or e-books. You can send them a free newsletter or weekly horoscope at their email address. If you are successful in grabbing their email address, then you can send them advertisements on their email address on a regular basis too.

2. Do not create a website full of affiliate links, flashy banners and ads

If your website is full of affiliate links, lots of flashy banners and other advertisements then your visitor may become confused and he may simply leave your website. People like to see the clear and easy to understand websites. Just put an honest product review to get the visitors attention. Try to put text ads instead of flashy and graphical ads. Researches have proved that text links are more successful than flashy banners. People like to see what they want and not the fancy graphics. Also the load time of simple websites is much faster in comparison to full graphics, loaded websites. People like to visit the sites that opens in seconds. So be simple and be focused.

3. Commission theft

Commission theft is one of the biggest drawbacks in this field. Although, it is not possible to eliminate it completely, you can use some tricks to minimize it. Cloaking and redirecting of affiliate links are the options for you in this situation.

Usually the affiliate links contain the affiliate id of affiliates at the end of merchant websites URL. An example is: aff_id=your_affiliate_id

This is not a good style. Any person can easily drop your "aff_id" part from the above link and can visit the merchant website to make sales. In this case the sales are made but you are not credited. The solution of this problem is "cloaking". After cloaking your affiliate link will be like: /affiliate_site

Conclusion

In conclusion, an affiliate marketer should try to avoid the common fatal mistakes to become successful in this field. Always try to collect the email addresses of your website visitors by offering them some free gifts like newsletters etc. Then use their email addresses to start your advertisement campaigns.

Try to design your website really simple and easy to understand for the visitors. People do not like the fancy graphics when they are searching for something to buy. And do not forget to cloak your affiliate links to get the maximum benefit. By avoiding these main mistakes you can start earning sooner.

Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com

Alec Olive is an Affiliate Marketer. Find out how you can start your online business at www.AffiliateCashSecretsOnline.com

Would an Online Presence Benefit Your Business?

By Andy West

There's no argument that an online presence is valuable for technical companies, savvy, youth-centered ventures and global markets, but what about more traditional established bricks and mortar businesses? Is there really any reason for your business to have an online presence if it's been doing just fine since your father or grandfather started it in the 1950's?

The simple answer is, "yes." In today's world, if you aren't building a new client base, you're actually losing customers, and the Internet is the new corner store and water cooler, where casual conversation has been replaced by Internet search engines. You need to be a part of the online chat if you want others to find you.

There are lots of ways that having on online presence can benefit you as a business owner. Just imagine owning an auto body shop in a medium-sized town in the mid-West. Sure, you probably have a pretty good stream of steady clientele, but what about all of the people you're missing? How do you find them?

A yellow pages ad won't do it anymore; not even a four-color ad. Why not? Because today most people turn to their personal computers to look up businesses online instead of thumbing through the yellow pages. After all, the online yellow pages give them more information and can even link them to maps that will lead them directly to a business's front door.

So if you're going to take out an ad in the yellow pages, be sure you don't skip the online yellow pages as well. You'll get more traffic, more inquiries and pull in new business from farther away.

Even if you have a physical location for your business, consider building at least a basic website for it. Regular customers will appreciate having a site they can log into to double-check your business hours and see if you're running any specials.

If you update it once a month with information about specials, offer printable coupons and mention sales or upcoming events, you'll find that more and more people visit your site. Consider creating a blog where you answer visitor questions or just provide information and interesting facts for visitors.

Using the auto body shop example again, if you have a blog with car care tips, you could have suggestions on how to winterize your car, how to check the air pressure in your tires, when to consider repairs vs. replacement, etc.

If you post new content regularly, you'll soon see a rise in site visitors that will translate into new customers at your business. Be sure that you include clear directions to your business location, a map or both on your site for the best possible return on your website investment.

Remember that websites are visual, and a picture is worth a thousand words. If your body shop excels at restorations, include a few pages of "before and after" shots of cars that you've restored to their former glory.

A photograph of an old, junked 1966 Mustang convertible that was destined for the scrap heap that your team restored to pristine condition with gleaming chrome and a candy-apple red gloss-coat paint job with racing stripes will have car enthusiasts drooling and your phone will be ringing off the hook. Without that website, those classic car buffs would have had a hard time finding you.

Whether you have a simple listing on your town's community website, a listing in the yellow pages or a full-blown website, it's essential for all businesses to have some kind of Internet presence these days.

Almost everyone has tried to locate a business or service by typing in the name of the business or the type of service needed on his or her computer's web browser to find what they're looking for. You don't want to be the one business they couldn't find.

Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com

Andy West is a writer for Online Business Primer and Practice Real Profits.