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When two websites start sharing revenue to sell a product or service, it is known as affiliate marketing. Amazon was the world’s first to start large-scale affiliate marketing. Most of the affiliates get paid around 25-50% for sales generated through their websites. Payment is made on the number of clicks, registrations, leads, sales etc or as agreed between the two parties.
When a person clicks on the advertisement on a website the cookie is saved in the person’s computer, which is tracked and if a sale is done then the person gets paid the amount of commission agreed. Anybody having a website which has good number of visitors can join an affiliate program.
There are many affiliate marketing websites through which you can choose the products you would like to promote through your website. Commission Junction, Click bank and Linkshare are some of the well-known affiliate marketing websites. Thousands of publishers join affiliate marketing daily. They want to promote other products or services and start making money. The affiliates get their daily statistics and reports on the number of clicks, sales, leads etc. Affiliate marketing connects buyers and sellers. This is how online marketing works. The amount of money spent online is increasing day by day. E-commerce is picking up at a very fast rate worldwide.
Paul has been providing answers to lots of queries through his website on a wide variety of subjects ranging from satellite phones to acne. To learn more visit http://www.askaquery.com/Answers/qn462.html and http://www.askaquery.com
The truth of the matter is that if you want to be a successful internet entrepreneur, the chances of achieving this with a sub standard website are pretty minimal.
I am sure you’ll agree that the standard of your online business’ web presence is of paramount importance and this includes, but is not limited to, the look, feel, usability and functionality of your website as well as its search engine ranking.
However, do not let your online business dreams and aspirations die just because you feel overwhelmed by the above.
Do not worry there are solutions, some that cost oodles of money, but there are cheap ones that not only take care of your website problems but also harnesses the power of 3 internet heavyweights into a ready made website for you.
Below are the 3 key internet partners that you need to have incorporated into your website which also needs to be designed by a qualified web designer or by a degreed computer based systems-engineer.
1. Google
Your site needs to be loaded with Google’s adsense Ads encoded with your affiliate ID so that every time someone clicks one your Google Ads on your site you get paid an amount.
This amount can be anything form $0.01 to more than $10.00 a click depending on how much the Google Adwords advertisers have paid etc..
Also the amount you are paid is only a portion of the amount the advertiser will have paid Google for the click.
Google pays affiliate commissions monthly or as soon as there is a balance of $100.00 or more in the affiliate’s account.
2. Clickbank
Clickbank products are a great earner for affiliates.
Not only are they popular and sell fairly easily but there are so many that whatever your interest or field you should be able to find a product that complements your site and interest or area of expertise.
All of the products on your site need to be encoded with your Clickbank affiliate ID so that every time a sale is generated from one of your site’s links you will be credited with the commission.
Typical Clickbank commissions are in the range of $25.00 to $35.00 per sale.
Clickbank sends out checks every two weeks so you can always look forward to finding one in your postbox.
3. eBay
Your Website ideally will feature real, live eBay auctions in all categories and the links are embedded with your eBay affiliate ID.
So, when someone clicks an eBay link on your site and buys something you make money.
How easy is that?
Whilst there are many other aspects that go into developing a successful online business, the internet heavyweights are key to the success of your internet business and should be exploited to maximize your business’ profitability and longevity.
So just to recap, you need a Ready Made Income Generating Website that harnesses the power of Google Adsense, eBay and Clickbank - designed by a degreed computer-based systems engineer.
Furthermore you need, embedded into the code of the website,your affiliate tracking ID’s which will ensure that all site visitors’ activities, whether it’s clicking on a Google Ad or making an eBay purchase, will be credited to your account.
All that’s left for you to do is choose a domain name and your website, with the right service, can be operational within a few days.
The author, Mark Bellinger is a university graduate, successful businessman and creator of the following websites:
http://www.income.za.net - http://www.internetbusiness.co.za - http://www.onlinesynergy.net
Whether you are talking about customer support software or you are talking about those employees that answer the phones, what does your customer support say about you? It should portray to the customer that you are dedicated to them and that you will do whatever it may take to make their experience the best it can be.
What should customer support be, then? Here are some things to consider about the amount of customer support you may or may not have.
• First of all, in ecommerce, you still have to supply a solid customer support base. You can do this by making sure that your website is customer friendly, answers questions and allows for them to ask you questions as well. By doing this, your customers are less likely to go somewhere else for their needs.
• In all arenas, customers will appreciate being able to have all the information that they need at their fingertips. So, take the time you need to take to make sure that they get just that. You can offer pricing and availability information as well as a number of descriptions, consumer reviews and price reductions as well.
• Also, make sure to provide a way for your customers to provide you with feedback. For example, they could tell you they had a hard time finding xyz. Then, you’ll know that maybe something could be done better to help that customer. They may also provide you with good feedback which is simply wonderful to hear.
No matter if we are talking about a software program to place on your website or methods to be placed in a retail setting of the local area, there are a number of great ways that you can provide your customers with great customer support. Happy customers come back!
For more information please see http://www.customer-support-info.co.uk.
If you run an affiliate program, be alert! There’s a new scam around that could cost you not only lost revenue, but also your merchant account.
Let me start from the beginning of this sad and sorry tale …
I’ve had an affiliate program for the past two years to sell my writing courses. It’s been puttering along quite nicely with more than 100 affiliates. And while only a few are making significant sales, that’s the way most programs work, isn’t it? Twenty percent of your affiliates bring in 80% of your sales.
Recently, one of my newer affiliates started putting through regular sales; at first two or three a week, then four or five, then one every day. I was delighted!
Wow! I thought, if I could find out how to encourage all my other affiliates to make these sales, the sky’s the limit! And off I went into a little fantasy world where I multiplied the number of affiliates by the number of sales a day and the profit I was making and after a year I’d have … Well, I’m sure you’ve indulged in the same daydreams, haven’t you?
Fast forward to the Friday before Christmas, when the postie arrived and left two letters from my bank … Muttering to myself about the waste and why couldn’t they put both letters into one envelope, I opened the first expecting to find a bank statement, only to discover to my horror, one of those “please explain” letters.
It appeared that one of my credit card transactions had been queried. I’ve had my merchant account since 1998 and in all that time, have had only two previous letters like this (and both were resolved when we found that the queries were the result of buyers not being aware of my business name).
Feeling somewhat less than Christmassy, I opened the second letter to find that it was yet another “please explain.” Two in one day after two in seven years was a real shock!
Some quick investigating unearthed the culprit: my active new affiliate was running a scam using stolen credit card numbers! He’d put an order through using his affiliate link and the stolen credit card. My automatic program sent out the download instructions to the email address he entered, and I received notification of another sale by an affiliate. There was no reason to be suspicious or concerned, so I paid him his commission at the end of the first month.
And I not only lost that money, I now also risk losing my merchant account.
I’ve had a number of conversations with my bank, and it seems that if 5% of any month’s transactions are queried for any merchant, alarm bells go off for the credit card companies and they make life difficult for the banks. And we poor merchants are at the bottom of this food chain.
Be Suspicious If:
1. The order is placed through an affiliate from any of these countries:
• Romania
• Indonesia
• Singapore
• Ghana
• Ukraine
• Uganda
• Nigeria
• Hungary
• Belarus
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Slovak Republic
• Russia
• Yugoslavia
• Macedonia
• Phillipines
• Thailand
• Malaysia
2. The shipping address is different from the billing address
3. The email address is from a free account
4. Email to the “customer” bounces
5. You receive orders for multiple copies of one product (especially a digital product)
6. The shopper isn’t concerned about what it costs to ship the product or how long it will take to ship
STEPS TO AVOID PROBLEMS
1. Always send a confirmation email to the address given. A fraudulent account will either bounce, or you won’t get a response because the fraudster will know you’re on to the scam.
You can also use this reverse email tool to check that details given tally: http://www.freeality.com/finde.htm
2. If you do get a response, ask for additional details (perhaps the expiry date or bank name on the card). Honest customers won’t be concerned, but fraudsters will realise you suspect them and won’t respond. Tear up those orders!
3. If there’s a phone number on your order form, call the number to confirm the order.
4. Record the IP address of all orders placed and check them here: http://www.arin.net/whois/ Beware of any that are placed through the “Asia Pacific Network Information Center.”
5. Check the Bank Identification Number (BIN) to determine if the credit card holder and the issuing bank for the credit card are located in the same country: http://all-nettools.com/toolbox,financial Enter the first six digits on the card and you’ll see the bank name, card type and a 3-character code for the country.
LESSONS
This is what I’ve learnt from my experience:
1. Don’t trust anyone! I was naive in thinking that just because I’d spent seven years dealing with honest people on the Internet that everyone would be honest. They’re not. I know I’ve been incredibly lucky up to this point, and I mourn the loss of trust.
2. Make sure you get lots of personal details from your affiliates and don’t have a program that lets them sign up automatically. You can usually set your program to have affiliates pending until you’ve done a thorough check on them.
Beware of email addresses at free accounts. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on anyone here, but the ones I’ll be suspicious of in future are any netzero.net, netzero.com, walla.com or juno.com accounts. In fact, I think it would be sensible to require all affiliates to have their own domains.
3. Be prepared to have to convince your bank that you’ve done all these background checks on your affiliates. Apparently, the Big Boys at the pointy end of town have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to have accountants audit their merchant accounts for them, and the banks expect nothing less from their smaller customers.
4. Again, I don’t mean to generalise, but in your own interests, don’t accept any affiliates using an address from any of the countries in the list above without doing very thorough checks. According to my source in the bank, many current credit card scams and frauds are originating from these places.
Mine was an expensive lesson, but one I won’t forget!
Jennifer Stewart is a freelance editor and writer. Visit her site now and read why thousands of businesses closed their doors last year and how you can avoid becoming a statistic: http://www.write101.com/websiteresources.htm
Further, spyware programs delete the banner advertisements that belong to a legitimate ad agency and substitute them with certain ads that fund the spyware operator. Thus, the spyware operators get lump sum amount from that legitimate ad websites. Keyloggers are usually very simple to install setup and use and require no special skills from the user.
Cyber criminals are online waiting for you and will take advantage of you and your unawareness of them. Don’t be a victim. Find and use the information that you have as a resource to stop criminals from taking your security blanket away from you. Find the right malware now and if you are having issues doing this then I have some quick and easy listed information below for you to find what you need. Data loggers, key loggers are just a few programs which harvest info from your computer. Winclear is the only program created specially to auto remove such spywares. Spector is able to record information such as passwords credit cards social security numbers and other sensitive information. That is why every computer owner needs winclear.
Protect With Winclear :Clear Dogpil Search History
There are Trojans keyloggers that monitors Internet Explorer windows until a user visits the e-gold login page: e-gold.com/acct/login.html. Once the user is logged in, the Trojan opens a hidden Internet Explorer window in which it accesses the user’s account balance: e-gold.com/acct/balance.asp. Winclear is the only software which is capable of removing keylogger programs. Did you know that many people got fired from their job jailed and even separated from their loved ones because of their own mistake and ignorance? Every move you make on the Web leaves footprints which consume valuable disk space and put your privacy and identity at risk. Winclear has been the industry leader in fighting keyloggers and cleaning internet history for the last 8 years.
Winclear:
Spyware like Spector enables cyber criminals to easily gain access to sensitive information such as banking usernames and passwords credit card information social security numbers and more. That is the reason why you need Winclear installed onto your computer. The site also recommends using a browser other than Internet Explorer as IE is generally more vulnerable to attacks than other browsers. Protect your computer security by using Winclear! Some users of spyware infected system call technical professionals to correct the system or else they buy a new computer as the previous computer works very slow. More about Winclear here: Winclear Reviews.
A day in the life of a business person can be filled with joy and satisfaction or it can be frustrating and stressful. When things go wrong, some people lose control. Holding emotions in check and reacting professionally under fire are not always easy. It is particularly difficult to be nice to people who are not being nice to you.
So what do you do to keep your cool when the customer is chewing you out? Most of the time, it is not even your fault. It could be that the problem was with a product or a service delivered by someone else in your organization. You’re getting the blame because the unhappy person found you first, and it’s not pleasant. When faced with angry people, there are four key steps that will help diffuse the situation.
Step one is to apologize. “But,” you say, “it’s not my fault.” It doesn’t matter who’s to blame; apologize anyway. As a representative of your company you have a responsibility to see that things go well. Your willingness to be accountable will have a positive effect. After all, it takes two to have an argument. If one of you refuses to be disagreeable you can’t have a disagreement. You are not accepting blame-you are simply saying, “I’m sorry about the problem.” You are wasting your breath unless you apologize with complete sincerity so be sure that your tone of voice matches your words.
Step two is to sympathize with the irate customer. Let the person know that you can identify with his feelings. Say that you understand the frustration of receiving a faulty product or poor service. The angry person begins to feel better as soon as his reaction is validated.
Step three is to accept responsibility for the situation. Be accountable to the customer. Let him know that you intend to do whatever it takes to make things right. You can’t help what has already happened, but you will come up with a solution to the problem or you will find someone who can.
The last step is to take action. Decide what you can do and tell the customer. You will replace the defective or incorrect product as quickly as possible. If the issue was poor service deliver better service. Whenever you can offer a bonus of some sort or waive fees, the tiger before you is transformed into a pussycat.
Use the acronym “ASAP” to remember these four steps for calming upset customers. Each letter stands for part of the process.
A is “apologize.”
S represents “sympathize.”
A stands for “accept responsibility.”
P means “prepare to take action.”
Nothing will be solved by becoming argumentative and reactionary. Instead, diffuse the client’s anger by being apologetic and sympathetic and focus on positive steps that will resolve the situation. Before you know it, your adversaries will become your allies.
Oh yes, remember to smile. It will make everyone feel better and behave better.
(c) 2005, Lydia Ramsey. All rights in all media reserved. Please reprint article with by-line intact and all links made live.
Lydia Ramsey is a business etiquette expert, professional speaker, corporate trainer and author of MANNERS THAT SELL - ADDING THE POLISH THAT BUILDS PROFITS. She has been quoted or featured in The New York Times, Investors’ Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Inc., Real Simple and Woman’s Day. For more information about her programs, products and services, e-mail her at lydia@mannersthatsell.com or visit her web site www.mannersthatsell.com
The average person has to be exposed to a product seven times before he makes a decision to buy. What does that mean to you as an affiliate marketer? You need to be able to get the product you are offering in front of your visitors repeatedly. One of the best ways to do this is by getting the visitors of your website to sign up for a newsletter.
By capturing their email address and getting them on your newsletter list, you can keep bringing them back to your site. You will also be able to repeat your offer several times in your newsletter, and if you can’t get them to buy the first product, you move on to something else. Sooner or later they will start buying and you will get your commission from the sale.
A newsletter is also a great relationship-building tool. Think about it, who are you more likely to buy from? A complete stranger or someone that has already provided you with great content on the subject you are interested in. You’d probably buy from someone that has given you great information already.
The same goes for your visitors. To turn them into customers, allow them to get to know you, show them that you know what you are doing and provide them with good content in your newsletter. Then offer them your affiliate product.
The biggest mistake I see new affiliate marketers make when it comes to newsletters, is to try to use their personal email client (like Microsoft Outlook) to run a newsletter. It is very time consuming to manually add and remove subscribers from your list. You also run the risk of being shut down by your webhost if you send to many emails at once.
I recommend you use an autoreponder service like aweber right from the start. You will be able to create signup forms for your website. Adding and removing of subscribers is done automatically, and you can schedule messages to go out at a certain date and time.
You can use the actual autoresponder feature to your advantage by creating a series of newsletters that are not time sensitive. Each new subscriber will receive the newsletter editions you have written in sequence starting with message 1. All you have to do is add a new message each week, or month. Of course you can also send time sensitive messages - like a holiday promotion - to your entire list right away.
To encourage visitors to your site to subscribe to the newsletter, add a signup form on each page of your site. It also helps to offer them something free for subscribing. Create a report, or even an ebook related to the topic of your newsletter and use the autoreponder feature to automatically send it to them when they sign up.
Try to stay in touch with your subscriber list at least once per month; preferably twice per month or even weekly. You could see the first sales coming in within a few weeks. I encourage you to give it a try. Newsletters are one of the most powerful affiliate tools and they are easy to implement.
For more information about newsletters go to www.mommysplace.net and for more information about affiliate marketing go to www.nellnews.com
In what was originally a form of online journal keeping by
stay-at-home moms and college students, it has now become a
national phenomenon with its presence felt as a legitimate
business booster. For the novices, blogs are online journals
that are periodically updated with articles in the form of
posts. It can serve as an informative vehicle between business
and consumer. The possibilities are endless when it comes to its
ability to draw customers. If your blog is full of valuable
information, you will earn more traffic by retaining them. How?
1) Suppose your blog is based entirely on uncovering
conspiracies from the JFK assassination. By creating a daily
blog, you label yourself as an expert to the subject, which
makes it easier to promote yourself all over the net. This
builds more of a personal relationship between yourself and your
site visitors, since it can come equipped with message boards
and comment boxes where they can voice their opinion about
anything you write. A sense of community is established, and
people will want to visit again and again.
2) Search engines will give you a boost in the rankings if you
have a blog added to your site. This is because blogs are
frequently updated, and any fresh content will automatically
trigger the search engine mechanisms to classify your site
higher - generating more traffic. All it takes is 5 to 10
minutes of your daily time and search engine spide bots will
keep reverting back to your site.
3) By adding a blog to your arsenal, you can submit it to the
myriad of blog directories posted on the Internet. Some of them
include Blog Catalog at blogcatalog.com, Blogarama
(blogarama.com) and BlogsCanada.com which has a whopping
selection of over 10,000 blogs.
Some of the better blog sites on the Internet include
wordpress.com, blogger.com, and blogista.com. They have full
HTML capabilities which allow you oto insert the page into your
own website or direct to it if needed. I recommend using Blogger
the most of all, since it costs absolutely nothing to get
started with free hosting and you don’t have to learn any fancy
HTML or FrontPage to publish content to your site. Just write,
and publish it to the Web for all to see.
Blogging is an excellent traffic booster because 1) it keeps
customers coming back again and again, 2) the search engines
love updated content, and 3) it has a wide range of promotion
tools, like blog directories. Watch traffic explode by using
blogs today.