It is a known fact that the web and the internet fraternity is the largest in the world.Almost every corner on planet earth boasts of an internet user.There are millions of activities and stuff on the web which is hardly known to more then half of internet users.You have services and products you would want to sell and there is someone who needs it badly yet the two of you cannot patch up-reason-lack of communication or unaware of each other's presence.It is here that an Affiliate comes to play.An Affiliate is a person who recommends your products and services online to people who need them,and if a deal is struck the Affiliate is paid a commission in return.Commissions do vary from merchant to merchant.Some times a percentage is fixed as the commission rate or some times a share is provided.Many people term an Affiliate as an online vendor,which is practically incorrect.A vendor is termed as someone who exchanges goods or services for money. One that sells or vends: a street vendor; a vendor of software products on the Web. Simply put, this is the seller of any number of goods of any possible type. From topsoil to cars, new homes to pets, the person doing the selling is the vendor. Traditionally, he/she is selling goods that they may or may not have produced or manufactured themselves.Where as an Affiliate are people having an agreement with a seller (vendor) to represent (sell) his or her product within the terms that the seller has dictated in exchange for remuneration (payment) of some type, normally a percentage of the sale.”
An Affiliate program's prospects solely depends on quality affiliates.If your Affiliates are witty enough to convince your clients your products and services sale like hot pancakes.Where as a dumb Affiliate will never get you a client no matter how good your product or service may be.It is generally advisable for any newbie who would want to start of as an Affiliate to join a small time program.Never mind the pay,gather the experience initially.As with any occupation, you must study hard and learn constantly. The initial learning curve is tough. Start with some of the other
SEO related occupations and trycovering them over the next week or so. Work in web design and development while you start to learn as they are critical skills to
SEO. Consulting and making decisions from working theories is generally a good next step. Experiment and read often. Find some good merchants, and build around what you know to start.Study other affiliate programs. Datafeeds, page creators, hosting, specials generators, and more can all be useful to affiliates. Get your name out there, and let folks know about you and your program, this is a good way to start off.If you have an existing program, join another that offers a little higher percentage that passes link popularity.
Once you become well aquainted with the trade you could move along smoothly.There are contemporaries you might come across who calim to be "SUPER AFFILIATES".Initially when they started off,these super affiliates were guys who never posted on forums, never sold any ebooks or products, never really spoke to anyone outside of their inner circles, never had a blog, never let anyone know who they were either.They had an aura about themselves and never interacted with the common struggler.
Suddenly, in the last year or less, there are like a million of them popping out and coming out of the woodwork claiming to be a super affiliate, and are willing to sell their ideas of how to become one in exchange of a hefty amount.They either do it by releasing e-books or by trading with acclaimed webmasters.So a year ago, there were a very few bunch of people that were called super affiliates. But now there are tons of them.The old standard was if you make at least $25k a month in affiliate revenues, then you’re considered a super affiliate. I don’t think that’s true at all anymore. Because we are an internet industry, things change and move pretty damn fast, and so should the minimum requirements or earning platforms for affiliates.They may all do well in their own right, not bashing most of them, but they are by no means super affiliates.All I’m saying and pointing out is that their monthly and annual income levels are nowhere near what super affiliates are doing, not to mention very few of them actually do any real affiliate marketing.
Now the main point-BREAD AND BUTTER-YOUR COMMISSIONS.Occasionally would you find news concerning Affiliates being robbed or denied their commissions missing.It happens every now and then.Affiliates keep crying and lamenting about being deprived of their share.And this sort of denial to pay comes from the biggest programs.Hence I pointed out that it would be better you joined a small time program as long as you were paid so that you didn't get disheartened right from the word go.In the world of Affiliate Marketing you would have to battle it out to get your pay.Once you carve a niche out of your self as a promising Affiliate (not a super affiliate)things get relatively easier and the end results are extremely rewarding.The problem doesn't lie only with the merchants solely,even the payment processors are there to blame.Recently an acclaimed payment processing unit had come under heavy scrutiny and crticism alike for failing to provide the required payments.
Following are some suggestible methods for affiliates as to how they could boost their commissions:
1. Learn how to PRE-sell your visitors instead of hard-selling them. Using this technique will put your visitors in the right frame of mind to visit the merchant’s website and have a look at the product offerings.
2. Focus on one or two products and put all of your your effort into promoting them. Your visitors aren’t looking for a shopping mall, but rather a website that has great information on their area of interest.
3. Purchase the products you are promoting. This will enable you to know first-hand if the product is of high-enough quality to deserve your efforts, and will give you the ability to provide an honest recommendation based on your own experience with the product.
4. Create an email course and include your affiliate link in each email with a recommendation on how that product will help your visitors. Setup an autoresponder to put this idea on autopilot
5. Write articles and submit them to newsletter authors and article directories. You can either include a recommendation for the product within the article, or at the end in your author’s resource box.
6. Add a few lines promoting an affiliate product in your signature that goes out in all of your emails. Every email you send will have your advertisement with your affiliate link in it.
7. Purchase a domain name strictly for the purpose of promoting your favorite affiliate program. Use a forwarding service to redirect the domain name to your favorite affiliate program.
8. Create a mini site that focuses on only one affiliate program. Spend your time promoting this site through search engine positioning, pay-per-click search engines, ezine ads, etc.
9. Create an ebook with useful information on your chosen topic and give it away. In your ebook you will have links to different affiliate products and if any sales are made through them you will get the commissions.Make sure you let other webmasters know they are free to give away your ebook as well so you can get as many copies as possible out there.
10. And last but not least is to create your OWN product! Satisfied customers will gladly purchase from you again in the future. If you don’t have other products to sell them, make recommendations of products that you can earn a commission from through affiliate programs.
Last part of the step is to create VOLUME.I’m a strong believer that when you do something correct, and it makes you money, then you should keep plugging away and doing it over and over and over. Use the notes from this post to create your own little network.
SEO your sites correctly, and you’ll build up longterm streams of traffic.
Alright, enough writing. Go do it's high time to start making money for the future.
Affiliates And Their Commissions. -
08-24-2007
