bestkharie

Ways To Get Traffic To Your Site For Free

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:51:19 +0000

Joint Ventures
Imagine working directly with Jim Daniels, Yanik Silver, Marty Foley, Neil Shearing, Phil Whiley, Peter Twist, Charlie Page or Lee Benson on YOUR projects! The quality of this group is what makes it so special, so members are only allowed in by invitation from another member.

Write Ezine Articles
If you don’t have much money to spend advertising your online business, writing ezine
articles is one of the most effective and least costly way to attract visitors to your site.
More people are using the Internet everyday to find information. To satisfy this growing quest,
ezine owners who don’t have time to write their own material are always looking for fresh
articles to publish in their newsletters.
You may be cringing at the idea of writing articles, or writing – period.
However, writing a short “how-to” or “tips” article on a topic relevant to your Web site theme is
no more difficult than writing a letter, or talking to a friend. Simply share good information that
demonstrates your enthusiasm for the subject and encourages the reader to learn more.
The most compelling reason to write articles for submission to ezines is the amount you save in
advertising. A single ezine ad can cost anywhere from a few dollars to thousands of dollars.

Free Directory Listings
Look for directories that include categories relevant to your site’s topic. Some may require areciprocal link in exchange for your listing, while those that are still building their databases may
list it for free. By all means, submit your site to the Open Directory Project, which bills itself as the largest ‘human-edited directory’ on the Web.
Search Engine & Crawler Listings
Search engine crawlers visit sites and automatically build listings, generally without the need to
submit your site. To get picked up by the crawlers, you need to have good links pointing to your
site. As mentioned earlier, the best link to get is a paid listing in the Yahoo! directory. Having
that Yahoo! link, will almost guarantee you a visit from Google’s spider, and a free Google
listing by result.
Getting found on the major engines is important. In order to do this, your pages must be
optimized and submitted individually. Page optimization and submissions are dealt with in more
detail in an earlier section.
Group and Forum Postings
Yahoo, Google, MSN and other major portal sites have discussion groups and clubs to which you can post messages.
Another way is this, just take a look in this video:

A Way to Get Traffic Fast

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:41:21 +0000

Google AdWords
The fastest way to get exposure online is by advertising with Google Adwords. Ads start
running within minutes after you submit your billing information.
With more than 150 million searches on Google each day and millions more on Google’s
partner sites, Google is the #1 search engine used by surfers, and more importantly – online
shoppers.
With that much market reach, you’d do well to take advantage of one of Google’s two
advertising options, Google AdWords. (The other option is Google’s Premium Sponsorships, which is covered in a later section.)
Google Adwords are the ads you see displayed in small rectangle boxes running down the right side of the Google search results page.
a quick and simple way to purchase highly targeted cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, regardless
of your budget.
To create a Google AdWords ad, you write a description, choose keywords that are relevant to the listing, and specify the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for each click. You only pay
when someone clicks on your ad.
To save money, the AdWords Discounter automatically reduces the actual cost-per-click you pay to the lowest cost needed to maintain your ad’s position on the results page.
Unlike Overture, there’s no minimum monthly charge for Google Adwords, just a $5 activation fee. You can easily keep track of your ad performance using the reports in your online
account Control Center. But AdWords Select’s best feature is how it rewards advertisers who draw clicks by giving them better positioning. Your ad’s position on the page depends in part on how often the ad is
clicked on by users. So, the better the ad, the higher up on the page it appears.
Google Adwords also drops underperformers. If an ad gets less than a 0.5 percentclickthrough rate, Google sends the advertiser an email suggesting that the ad’s wording be changed to improve its performance.
The Google Adwords campaign system is highly flexible. At the campaign level, you choose your daily budget, geo-targeting, syndication preference, and start and end dates.
For each campaign, there is the Ad Group level, at which you create ads and choose keywords.
You can create multiple ads in an Ad Group that will rotate evenly when users search on those keywords. You can select a maximum cost-per-click for the entire Ad Group or for individual keywords.
Therefore, it is highly recommend by adding Google Adwords to your pay-per-click/cost-per-click advertising arsenal.

Credibility Pays

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:39:26 +0000

Online merchants and their super affiliates anticipate their visitors’ concerns and address questions before they arise, and in return are rewarded with sales and conversion rates much higher than their
counterparts whose focus is elsewhere.
Here are 10 ways you can increase your conversion rates by building trust in your sites.
1. Honesty: Visitors should know exactly what to expect before they get to your site.
Dishonest advertising wastes their time and your money. They’ll leave without buying, and
won’t be returning any time soon.
2. Superior Knowledge: Affiliates with high conversion rates usually own the products they
sell. First-hand knowledge lends credibility to their personal reviews and sets them apart from the crowd.
3. Invite Feedback: Testimonials from happy customers are an excellent way to build trust in your product reviews.
4. Promote Only Quality Products: Complaints, refunds and charge-backs hurt yourreputation, as well as your revenue levels . Sell only high-quality products.
5. Keep Design Simple: Gratuitous animated graphics scream “Webmaster Kindergarten”. Focus on your products, not fancy gimmicks.
6. Show Respect: Broken links, graphics and forms are frustrating. Pop-ups, music and noise are maddening. Respect your visitors’ time and space. Make sure your site is free of errors and other annoyances.
7. Be Available: Make it easy for visitors to get in touch with you. A highly visible contact link on every page is usually enough to let visitors know that you are readily available.
8. Expose Yourself: It’s a psychological fact that trust increases with exposure. Stay in touch with your visitors by sending them useful information through your mailing list.
9. Go Beyond Expectations: Affiliates often receive emails better handled by the merchant partner. Don’t ignore those emails. Relaying the message promptly brands you as aprofessional with both the customer and your partner.

10. Give Something Away: Freebies are like samples at a chocolate shop. Few folks will turn them down, and your reputation goes up when they’re good.

9 Ways to Make Your Pages Search Engine Friendly

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:35:00 +0000

Keyword-Rich Pages
In the past you had to be extremely careful not to overuse your keyword phrases for fear that the
search engines would consider you an engine spammer and penalize you. Six per page was the
maximum number of repetitions suggested.
Keyword-Rich Page Names
Name your pages using keywords relevant to the product sold on that page, or the most relevant
content.
Site Map
Offer your visitors a site map with links that point to all the important pages and sections of your
site. If your site consists of one hundred or more pages, you may wish to break the site map up
into separate pages.
Relevant Content
Jill Whalen, a well-known search engine (SE) expert advises that you should work with at least
250 words on a page for search engine optimization purposes. More or less words will also work,
but she makes the point that you need at least 250 words so that you can repeat your keyword
phrases a number of times throughout the page without seeming ‘dopey’.
Eliminate Clutter
Search engines don’t read graphics or javascript, and they get confused when they encounter
nested tables. If all that stuff precedes the first most important keyword phrases on your page,
your ranking may be lowered as the SE considers that phrase less relevant, due to its low
placement on the page.
Meta Tags
The 2 Meta Tags that you need to be most concerned about are the Title and Description tags.
Title Tags – The title tag is perhaps one of the most crucial factors in how a search engine will
rank your site. The text you use in the title tag must include your most relevant keyword phrases.
It must also make sense, as the title tag text is the wording that appears in the reverse bar of your
browser. That’s the blue bar right across the top of your browser window. It is also what the text that most of the search engines will display as the title for your listing.
Description Tag – Some search engines will use the text contained in your meta description tag
as your listing description. The meta description tag also influences your site’s ranking in the
engines, so you should repeat your primary keyword phrase once or twice in the description.
ALT Tags – The ALT tag, which stands for ‘alternative text’, is primarily for use when the image
is not being displayed. They were intended to make your site more accessible to visually
impaired folks using text readers.
Dynamic Pages
Dynamic pages, which deliver content based on user input or other variables, can be more useful
and responsive to visitor needs than regular static HTML pages. However, if while indexing a
search engine encounters a dynamically generated page, as distinguished by a question mark (?)
in the URL, the SE stops indexing the site at that point. Here are a few tips to get your dynamic
pages indexed.
Avoid Tricks and Deception
Google makes similar site quality recommendations to those below to help you avoid having
your site removed from their index. Once a site has been removed, it won’t show up in
Google.com or on Google’s partner sites. The same suggestions hold true for all the major
engines.
• Don’t deceive your users by presenting different content to search engines than is
displayed on your pages. A common trick in the past was to include highly popular but
irrelevant keywords in meta tags to get ‘the click’. While that brought traffic to the site,
the visitor was disappointed by results that had nothing to do with their search, and the
engines appeared not to be able to produce relevant results. The search engines now pay
attention to such tactics and will remove those using deceptive practices from their index.
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. This includes using hidden
text or links, sneaky redirects; pages loaded with irrelevant keywords and the use of
‘doorway’ pages. Google also recommends against creating subdomains and domains with
essentially duplicate content.

factors you consider in developing a web site

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:25:05 +0000

Links Should Look Like Links
Unvisited links should conform to the standard colors and practice of being underlined.
Standard link colors are:
• Underlined Blue – unvisited
• Red – active or hover
• Purple – visited

‘cascading style sheets’ or ‘CSS’.http://www.youtube.com/v/3eHUwqeI0w0?hl=en_US&fs=1

Using CSS eliminates the need to hard code the font face, size and color every time I wish tomake a change to a word’s appearance. Instead, all the different parameters are listed within a
single file, or the cascading style sheet. Then each page on the site has a link that points to the style sheet and draws its information from that.
CSS has the additional benefit of reducing page size by eliminating all that font coding.
Color Scheme
Different colors have different meanings and connotations. What would you think of if you saw a
men’s’ site with pink as the primary color? Might it turn the average heterosexual guy off? You
bet it would! They’re terrified of pink.
I also can’t imagine a health and fitness site succeeding with watery lavender and sickly olive
green combination as well as it might with vibrant ‘standard’ colors.
Again, it’s good to stick with the tried and true.
White Space
White space, or negative space, describes open space between design elements.
White space is an important layout technique often overlooked by inexperienced designers.

Page Width
Having to scroll right to see all the text on a page is a symptom of poor design, or lack of
knowledge of standard display sizes.
Standard screen resolutions are 1024 X 768 pixels – for those with good eyesight. However,
many, many folks still use 800 X 600.
Given that knowledge, you have to design to the common denominator, which in this case is 800
X 600, and make your pages no more than 800 pixels wide. That means that the 800, 1024, 1152,
AND the 1280 pixel wide people can all see the whole page on their display.
You can also use percentage widths, i.e. width=”100%”, which then widens or narrows the page
according to each surfer’s screen resolution. However, this HTML coding technique leads to your
pages being viewed differently on different computer displays and in different browsers. It’s
better therefore to design your pages so that they are consistent across various platforms and
hard-code specific widths for your HTML pages.
Page Backgrounds

Consistent Navigation
It’s really easy to keep your site elements consistent when you use the same template for
every page on your site.

Essentially, consistency is about making it easy for your visitors to find what they want. That
means keeping your navigation, logo, ezine sign-up form, and all other elements that repeat
from page to page, in the same place on every page.
Each page should be clearly identified with a headline, and headline fonts should be consistent in
color and size from page to page.
As readers become accustomed to a consistent site layout, they can move more quickly and
easily through your site which makes their experience more enjoyable.
Bandwidth Hogs
Bandwidth is an electronic resource that gets used up every time characters of information are downloaded from, or uploaded to, your Web site. The more bandwidth resources used,
the slower the transmission of data and information.

Bandwidth hogs include large or animated graphics, Flash, and sound of any kind. If you need
graphics on your pages, make sure they are compressed to their smallest size without affecting
their appearance.
Keep your site as simple and fast loading as you possibly can.
Use of Pop-Ups

Music/Noise
Under no circumstances should a site broadcast noise and/or music without its visitors’
permission.

And Lastly,
Frames
Frames have one main page, and several ‘secondary’ pages. That feature saves the Web developer
from having to add navigation to every page on the site.

Web Site Essentials

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:15:42 +0000

Every page on your site should either display or have links to the following site elements.
Logo
You need a unique business logo.
Whether your logo is simply your URL done in a fancy font and neat color on a graphic image as

TAG line / Slogan
Develop a Tag line or slogan for your site to place directly beneath your site’s logo or name because it’s another way to make your site more memorable.The tag line should be short – no more than four or five words – and catchy. It should also say
exactly what your site is about.
People2People.com’s tag line is “Because two is always better than one”.

Privacy Statement
Every commercial web site should have a privacy/security statement. Inclusion of these
statements will achieve a number of things for you. They will differentiate you from your
competitors, instill user confidence and trust, reduce liability, and increase your web site’s
conversion rate.
A privacy and security statement explains what information is being collected by your site, how
it’s being collected and safeguarded, and how it will be used. It is a legal, binding document, an
explicit statement made on behalf of the site owner to the site user.

Contact Information
The number of affiliate webmasters who don’t provide onsite contact information and force their
visitors to look elsewhere for answers to their questions is appalling. Please don’t even consider
putting up an affiliate site that doesn’t allow your visitors to contact you directly.
The point of any ecommerce site should be to help the people that come to it, and if a webmaster
can’t take the time to answer a few questions from his or her site visitors every day, then they
shouldn’t be in business.
If someone has taken the time to email a question, that is a guarantees that they are interested in
one or another of the products on your site. Common courtesy demands that their question be
answered in a reasonable period of time. Extending the simple courtesy of a timely response will
probably result in a sale.
Instead of using clickable email links, I recommend that you use contact forms on your
site(s) for two reasons.
They eliminate a lot of the spam that you would otherwise get from those who use email address
harvesters, AND, your visitors email software won’t be popping open just when they least expect
it.

‘About Us’ Page
An ‘About Us’ page instills trust. People like to put a name and a face to what they are
reading. I can’t blame them. I do as well.
It’s a human trait. We like to know who we’re dealing with. If we feel that someone is hiding
their face, then we’re less likely to trust them.
Another thing to add to your ‘About Us’ page is your qualifications for creating your Web site.
When people read that you started your ‘Go Fishing’ site because you are a fishing guide in the
Adirondack Mountains, they’ll likely put more faith and trust in your site.
In that particular case, that information would probably be included elsewhere on the site, but
also be sure to include it in the ‘About Us’ section for those who might miss it elsewhere.
Ezine/Newsletter Sign-Up on Every Page
A signup form for your opt-in mailing list or newsletter should be placed on each and every page
of your site.

There you have the 6 essential Web site elements… Logo and a tag line, Privacy statement,
contact information link, an ezine signup form and an ‘About Us’ page. Those are the basic
elements that should be included on every Web site you build. Don’t do business without them.

Build Your Site

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:06:30 +0000

There are 4 Site Building Options
Building your Web site can be a quick, cheap and simple process. It can also be a timeconsuming, very expensive, and frustrating undertaking. It all depends on how much time,
money and energy you are willing to spend. From doing it all yourself to having it all done for you, each option has advantages and
disadvantages you should consider.
These are the 4 basic web site building options:
1. Do it Yourself
2. Pre-Made Web Site Templates
3. Complete Web Site / eCommerce Package Deals
4. Hire a Designer, Programmer, or Web Developer
Summaries of each option follows.
Do it Yourself
Building your own web site is usually the least expensive option.
On the other hand, the cost of designing and building your own site can become fairly hefty if you buy the most expensive graphic design programs and HTML editors. It can also be the most time-consuming way to build a site when you are new to the game.
However, once you learn a little HTML and have one or two pages under your belt, you’ll find that knocking pages off takes just a matter of minutes.
Use a Template
I am very impressed by the attractiveness, quality and value of Web site templates currently
available. For a very small fee, most template designers offer to make changes to their designs, or add information as per your instructions.
I highly recommend that you take a look at the templates at the following sites.

􀃎 4 Templates

http://4templates.com

􀃎 Dollar Templates

http://dollartemplates.com

Get A Web Site Package Deal
One web site building option that eliminates the need to learn HTML and incorporates
most of the features any Super Affiliate would ever need in a Web site, is Ken Evoy’s ‘Site
Build It!’ As a developer with reasonably good knowledge of HTML and graphic design, I personally find
the SBI! interface a little clunky and frustrating to use. However, I can overlook this downside to
take advantage of the amazing topic research and search engine optimization tools that SBI!
offers. Honestly, I have been amazed by the search engine rankings achieved by newbie webmasters
using SBI! And I do mean TOTAL newbies.
Without a penny paid for pay per click advertising (I love alliteration, don’t you?), these ecommerce neophytes are getting excellent traffic to their sites in a very short period of time, and
generating good sales results. Although the initial outlay may seem rather steep, when you look at all the features that SBI!
offers and start doing price comparisons, it’s easy to see that you couldn’t possibly buy all the components you need for an Internet business site separately for the amount that SBI! Sells for.
Its value gets even better in the second year when the price goes down. Even if you could arrange domain registration, Web hosting, autoresponders, HTML editors, etc., etc., to the tune of $25 or $30 per month, you still wouldn’t enjoy the benefits of having all
those utilities available through a single interface such as SBI! Offers.
More importantly, you wouldn’t be getting all the site research and analysis features that make SBI! the traffic building, sales generating machine that it is. Not only is an excellent business-building system for newcomers to affiliate marketing, but the
SBI ecommerce package will serve you well as you grow your business to include your own products.
Here’s what you get with SBI!
• Domain name registration
• Web site hosting
• Site topic brainstorming and researching
• Powerful graphic tools (LogoCreator and NavBar Maker)
• Point-and-click site-building
• Easy web logging
• Search engine optimization
• Automatic search engine submission and re-submission
• Pay-per-click search engine research and mass-bidding
• Traffic statistics and analysis
• Ezine subscription and delivery
• SpamCheck!
• Step-by-step action guide
• Site Build It! Newsletter
• The 4 traffic HQs
• Tips ‘n techniques
• Link exchange assistance
• SBI! e-goods
Site Build It! is the perfect option for someone who wants to save time and money by buying all
the website building necessities in a neatly packaged bundle.
Want to get the full “insider’s view?” I have arranged with SiteSell.com for you to download a
free PDF-formatted copy of “Make Your Content PREsell!” It’s the actual guide that SBI! owners use. You’ll get a clear picture of how quick-and-easy SBI! makes it to execute all the
profitable traffic-building and sales-generating strategies outlined in the guide… freeing you up
to focus on your business!Take advantage of the free download. See first-hand how the SBI! Total System works. Skim
through the Guide and then decide.
Zero downside, terrific upside. My kind of risk/reward ratio!
􀃎 Download the SBI! Action Guide

http://superaffiliatehandbook.com/SBI-AG.zip

􀃎 Site Build iT! Web Site

http://buildit.sitesell.com/webvista.html

Hire a Designer
Unless you personally know a Web site designer and are totally confident in his or her work, this option is mostly a crapshoot.

Develop a Site Plan

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:59:45 +0000

Success truly is ’90% planning and 10% execution’. Don’t you just love those sites that have a great looking homepage with links that look like theygo to interesting information, but in fact end up at ‘under construction’ pages?Those sites were built backwards, without a plan.
In their excitement to get online and start making money, many new webmasters omit the planning process as time-wasting, unnecessary work. They concentrate instead on designing
fancy navigation buttons and flashy banners for their homepage, and hope to entice visitors to return with a promise of more to come.
Unfortunately, these webmasters haven’t established a clear picture of how their site will bearranged, and the lack of focus and planning is sadly evident in the resulting product.

If you want to join the elite 2 percent of affiliate marketers who make very large incomes from their efforts, you simply MUST start with a plan or site outline.
A site outline breaks down the parts of your work into a clear hierarchy of doable tasks. It is helpful in organizing your thoughts and presenting the material in a logical form. If your outline
is good, your site content will be easier and much faster to write. To do the job right, a site map gets built before work begins on the first page.Here is a guide to help you understand the planning process. Even the planning process has a
plan!
• Theme: Be very clear about your site’s theme. You should be able to state it in 4 words or
less, e.g. “How to make wine”, “Dog training” or “Internet dating services reviewed”.
• Brainstorm: List all the ideas that you want to include in your site.
• Organize: Group related ideas together.
• Order: Arrange material in subsections from general to specific or from abstract to
concrete.
• Label: Create main and sub headings.

How to Choose a Domain Name

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:48:59 +0000

Your domain name is your business name on the web. It represents both you and your business, therefore think it through carefully.
Here are 6 things to consider when choosing your domain name.
• Make it DOT COM – Although there are a number of domain name extensions to
choose from, including .com, .net, and .biz amongst many others, choose .COM.
The ‘.com’ extension is the one people think of first when they think of web addresses, so
go with it. You wouldn’t want your potential customers to head off to
‘thepuppytrainer.com’ if your site is registered as ‘thepuppytrainer.net’, would you?
• Make it Relevant – The next rule of thumb is to include at least one, preferably two, of
your important ‘keywords’ in your name.
Let’s assume that your site is about dog training. So which keywords work best? Dog,
puppy, pooch? Train, training or trainer?
One way to decide, is to find out which of those keywords or keyword combinations is
searched for most often.
To do that, go to WordTracker.com. You can use their free trial to establish which of
your keywords is the most popular. Using the keywords we chose above, WordTracker
shows us that the keyword ‘dogs’ outstrips the word ‘puppy’ by about 34,000 searches in a
period of 60 days. Knowing that should make your decision just a little easier.
• Make it Memorable – Which of the following names will you remember a week from
now? DogTraining.com, DoggyU.com or DogCollege.com? Shorter names are also easier
to remember.
• Try to Avoid hyphens – One of the bigger mistakes I made when registering my first
domain, was to hyphenate the name. Sometime later I discovered a site using the nonhyphenated
(hmm… that LOOKS like an oxymoron) version of my domain name – and he
was promoting the same products as I had on my site.
This webmaster is STILL capitalizing on my oversight and selling to my visitors who
forget the hyphen in my domain name.
• Avoid a name that you need to spell out. – Take for example my site, byebye925.com.
The first time you hear it, you might think it is spelled ‘bybynine2five.com’,
‘byebyeninetofive.com’ or a number of other ways.
For that reason, I have to spell it out each and every time I say it. Adding numbers into the fray adds to the inconvenience. Imagine having to say, ‘B-Y-E-B-Y-E, number 9,
number 2, number 5 DOT COM’ several times a day.
• Take care not to infringe on a trademark – A trademark is a name or symbol is
officially registered to a third party, and unless otherwise specified, the trademark owner
is the only party that can legally make use of a trademarked name. As a result, when
purchasing a domain name, be forewarned that buying a domain containing a trademark
could result in a legal battle, and the registrar will likely side with the trademark owner.
VeriSign’s dispute policy, for example, reads: “It is your responsibility to determine whether your domain name registration infringes or violates someone else’s rights.” A
court order could have your site shut down quickly. So before buying that name, do some research to make sure you won’t run into trouble later.

How to Choose an Affiliate Program

kharen_302009 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:42:32 +0000

As you search for your own programs, try to ferret out answers to each of those questions. If you can’t find an answer on the merchant’s site, phone or email them. If contact information isn’t
readily apparent on their Web site, don’t waste more of your time on that merchant. Find another program. If you don’t get a response within a reasonable time frame, say 24 to 48 hours, I suggest that you
pass on the program. They may be more responsive to their customers or current affiliates, but how would you know? Finding out that they are LESS responsive when you have a real problem
is a bigger problem still. On the flip side, be sure that the answer to your question is NOT included in the affiliate package
before contacting the program manager. They’re busy people, and answering questions that have
been covered elsewhere, is a waste of their time. That makes for a lousy first impression
Here are some questions you should consider:
Is the Company Reputable?
Most merchants are reputable operators but just because someone has a Web site doesn’t mean that they’re legitimate and/or trustworthy. Obviously, you don’t have to ask Dell or eBay how long they’ve been in business. The concern here is about promoting an unknown merchant that may turn out to be a fly-by-night or dishonest operator.

Is there an Affiliate Agreement?
Most affiliate programs have agreements in place, primarily to cover their butts. However,
these agreements should also cover yours.
If the program you are considering doesn’t have an agreement published on the site, move on.
Without an agreement, it’s much too easy for them to shaft you for money you’ve earned.

What are the Conditions of the Agreement?
Affiliate agreements are usually lengthy and peppered with long-winded legalese.
It doesn’t matter. You should read them completely and carefully or you could be in for a
nasty surprise.

May I Terminate the Agreement? How?
Most agreements contain a ‘termination clause’ that outlines the terms under which either
you or the company can end the affiliation.
In most cases either the affiliate or the company may choose to cancel an agreement at any time
without written notice of cancellation to the other. As an affiliate, you’d simply take down your
links and that would be that.

Is My Site Eligible for this Program?
Pay particular attention to any criteria that have been set for affiliate acceptance into the
program.
For example, the following excerpt is from the advertiser detail section at Commission Junction
for its own recruiter program:
Publishers will be accepted into the program based on the following criteria:
- Quality and appropriateness of site(s)
- Volume of traffic
- At least a one-dollar sign ranking in the Commission Junction network
- Own domain name
- Compliant with the Commission Junction publisher service agreement
- Directly related to performance marketing

Is there a Fee to Join the Program?
Ninety-nine point nine percent (99.9%) of merchants don’t charge a fee to join their
affiliate programs. If they do, watch out! It’s not an affiliate program – it’s MLM, or a
Multi-Level Marketing scheme.

Does the Program Require Exclusivity?
An exclusivity clause is one that says you can only sell the products of a particular
merchant and cannot partner with merchants selling similar products.

What is the Program Type?
There are essentially three types of affiliate programs: pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, and payper-
click.
Pay-Per-Sale programs are also known as Partnership and Percentage Partners programs.
These programs pay either a fixed dollar amount or a percentage of sales generated by your
links.
In Pay-Per-Lead programs, you earn a set amount whenever your customer fills out a survey or
requests a quote or some information.
Pay-Per-Click affiliate programs are similar to Pay-Per-Lead. Essentially you are paid each time
one of your visitors clicks on the link through to that program’s site.
As Pay-Per-Lead and Pay-Per-Click programs require huge volumes of traffic to generate serious
revenue, I prefer Pay-Per-Sale programs because they are performance based. I believe that
doing business as an affiliate is about adding value, and I see little value in generating tons of
traffic to a merchant’s site so that they can collect email addresses to spam large groups of
people.
On the other hand, if you target a market effectively and give them what they want, you’ll be
rewarded handsomely!

How Much is the Commission?
It’s absolutely essential that you understand commission structures and compare the payout rates
between the affiliate programs that you plan join. This will affect how and to what extent you
promote individual products.

Do I Get Credit for Recurring Sales?
What would happen if you stopped promoting your affiliate links?
In most cases, you’d simply stop earning. Your income would stop…. and the checks would stop
coming. Your income is limited by the number of customers you bring to the merchant in a given
month.
That means you have to keep marketing your site to bring in new customers. Over, and over, and
over again.

Does the Program Pay Lifetime Commissions?
I make a distinction between ‘recurring’ or ‘residual’ commissions, and ‘lifetime’
commissions.
An affiliate program paying residual commissions pays you every time the customer renews
their subscription to a specific product, not just for the first purchase.
An affiliate program paying lifetime commissions pays the affiliate a commission for each and
every product that the customer buys from that merchant, including residual commissions, if
applicable.

Is the Program 2-Tier?
Another way to increase your affiliate income is to take advantage of ‘2-tier’ affiliate
programs.
A “two-tier” program is one that offers two sources of income, the first for bringing in business,
and the second for recommending new affiliates. Some programs pay a fee for each new affiliate
that joins the program, while some others pay a percentage of the 2nd tier affiliate’s earnings.
Other programs pay in both situations.
When the subject of 2-tier programs comes up, the question often arises as to whether two-tier
affiliate programs are MLM – multi-level marketing schemes.

Are Cookies Used to Track Sales?
A cookie is coded piece of information, stored on a computer that identifies that computer
during the current and subsequent visits to a web site.

You’ve may have heard that it takes 7 exposures to a product before people feel comfortable to
buy that product. So what happens if a visitor from your site clicks through to your affiliated
merchant site today but doesn’t buy anything until a week later? Will you still get credit for the
sale?
Well, that depends on the duration of the ‘cookies’.
Cookies are text files that cannot be used in any way to harm you or your computer. Some
people worry about viruses and such, while there is no need with cookies!

How does a cookie affect whether or not you get credit for a sale?
Well, cookies are coded to expire after a set amount of time. So, if the merchant gives cookies
that last for 90 days, you get credit if a visitor from your site returns to the merchant and makes
the purchase within 90 days.
Are Sales Statistics Reported in Real Time?
Real-time sales reporting is another good reason to affiliate with merchants in affiliate
networks like Commission Junction.
To be competitive, most of the affiliate networks provide real-time reporting to their merchants
and affiliates. Being part of the network means you don’t have to hunt around to find out whether
real-time reporting is a feature of the program that you want to join.

Are Sales Tools Offered?
Many, if not most, merchants offer their affiliates advertising copy and banner ads for
placement on their sites.
In many cases, you will have a selection of advertising graphics and text to choose from and the
code will be automatically generated with the click of a button. Then you will just have to paste
it on your Web site or in your e-mail, wherever you plan to use it.
Many merchants also host the banners from their own sites, saving you the trouble of
downloading and saving the graphic to your computer, and uploading it to your server.

Is Co-Branding Available?
Co-branding is a form of customization, whereby the affiliate program permits you, their
affiliate, to “brand” a copy of the landing page on their site, with your logo and/or your
site’s “look and feel”.
This method gives your visitors the impression that they are still on your Web site which can
improve visitor trust in ‘your’ products and result in increased sales.

When Do I Get Paid?
Compensation plans vary from merchant to merchant and program to program. Be sure
you know what the payment plan is, or you could be in for a nasty surprise!
Payment schedules vary depending on the program. I’m affiliated with programs that pay
weekly, biweekly, monthly and quarterly.
How Do I Get Paid? In Cash? Credit? Food Stamps?
Payments are usually by check or direct deposit, although some companies pay in
merchandise or service credits.

Does the Merchant use Third Party Billing?
One of the nice things about associating with merchants that are part of bigger affiliate
networks is that you can count on the affiliate network to make sure that the merchant has
put enough money on account to pay your commissions.

Is There a Minimum Payout Amount?
Many programs require that you earn a minimum amount before they will issue you a
check.