AffiliatesLive.com Recent Posts

Three Ways to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:27:57 -0800

Search engines make it extremely easy for anyone to locate information on the Internet. A user types in a word or a phrase, and the search engine comes up with pages and pages of related Web sites. How many users look at all the results pages? Probably none. In fact, pages 4 and beyond are rarely viewed. In order for your Web site to achieve a ranking that lands it on the first three pages of a search, you need to make sure you follow a few simple rules.

Increase your Web site’s incoming links

Search engines use mechanisms called spiders to scan the Web. These spiders analyze the Web site information they find and rank the sites according to established algorithms. Spiders interpret incoming links as compliments to your Web site. Incoming links are one of the top priorities for spiders, and Web sites with more of these links are likely to win a higher search page rank that those with few links. Make sure your incoming links are from quality sites, though. Spiders will deduct ranking points if you’re linked to spam sites. Add your Web site address as part of your signature on industry and community blogs. Contact businesses you deal with and work out a “link swap:” you will add them as a link from your site and they will do the same for you. You can even link all the pages of your Web site to each other.

Do your research before choosing your site’s keywords and phrases

You will want to select keywords that Internet users will actually type into the search bar. Instead of using a keyword, try using a phrase. Many Web searches are conducted with a string of three or four words. You might also want to try using secondary keywords and phrases. You can find out the most popular keywords and phrases for Web searches by checking Google Trends . Avoid overusing your keywords and phrases in your site content because this can make the writing seem forced and awkward and will lower your search engine ranking.

List your Web site with online directories

These online directories are a great way for people to find out that your Web site exists. One of the most popular and reputable online directories is DMOZ Open Directory Project . This directory has sixteen categories, such as Sports, Business, and Computers, with numerous sub-heading for each category. Entries in Open Directory Project are screened before their approval for posting in the directory. If you’re a member of a professional organization, check to see if their Web site has an online directory. A link to your Web site from a nationally known organization will help improve your search engine ranking. You might be tempted to post your Web site on one of the many “link farm” directories, but don’t do this. These link farms are only Web site listing services and do not have much credibility with search engines. Being associated with one of these link farm directories will lower your search engine ranking.

Have any tips or tricks you’d like to share? Leave a comment!

9 High Paying Affiliate Programs

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:32:32 -0800

Internet affiliate programs are a popular way to earn money from your Web site. All you need to do is sign up and begin driving traffic to their links You can generate even more income through affiliate programs that work on a two- or three-tier format. Commissions for these programs are paid for your direct sales as well as sales from sites you recruit (two-tier) and sales from your referrals’ recruits (three-tier). Consider these top-paying affiliate programs.

Net Detective is software used to track down information about anyone you know or want to know about through criminal records and other public records information. For each Net Detective sale generated from your Web site, you will earn $20, or about 67% of the cost of the software. You earn 12.5% of the commissions earned by your recruited affiliates.

Affiliate Announcement helps businesses advertise their affiliate programs to Web site owners. Services include writing and distributing press releases, affiliate advertising, and submissions to affiliate directories. Affiliate Announcement pays $50 for direct sales from your Web site and a 25% secondary commission for sales from your recruited sites.

Internet Marketing Center offers a two-tier affiliate program for online business courses that teach business owners how to successfully market and manage their businesses on the Internet. Commissions for the sales of the business programs range from $35 to $165. Monthly recurring commissions for selected courses are from $6 to $35 each month.

VMC Satellite is a three-tier affiliate program for Dish Network Satellite Systems. Each time a satellite system is installed from your site’s referral, you are paid $50. Secondary commissions are $15, and installations from your second tier referrals pay $5. This affiliate program can be quite successful because the satellite systems are free and you receive commissions on three different levels.

AffiliateClassroom is an affiliate training program for Web site owners who want to learn how to make the most of an affiliate program. This is a two-tier affiliate program that pays $10 for every sale you make through your affiliate advertising and $5 for secondary commission sales

Marlon Sanders’ Amazing Formula is a complete set of reports, DVD’s, and other instructional materials that teaches business owners the most profitable ways to sell their products and services. You can expect commissions of 50 – 60% for each direct sale made from your affiliate advertising.

Internet service provider Fall Creek Technologies pays $15 for sales of Web hosting services made directly from your Web site.

Gift Baskets Place sells gift baskets for all occasions. As an affiliate program member, you will earn 10% commission on baskets sold from your site. Basket prices range from $35 to $300.

SmartDraw sells business graphics software and offers commissions of 15% on direct sales up to $1,000 and up to 30% on sales above this amount. This is a three-tier affiliate program, and you can earn commissions from your recruits’ sales and sales from your recruits’ referrals.

These are just some of the thousands of companies offering Affiliate Programs. Please feel free to share any other High Paying Affiliate Programs.

The Best Free Online SEO Tools

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:29:49 -0800

Driving traffic to your Web site could mean the difference between making it big or closing up shop. Search engine optimization (SEO) tools help you bring your Web site to the top of the list for search engine results, bringing more people to your site. The following are five online SEO tools that will help you increase your Web site’s search engine rank. The best part is they are free.

Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool will help you determine the best keywords to use for your site. The right keywords are critical in attracting customers. With this SEO tool, you enter your chosen words or phrases and get a list of related words and phrases that have proven to be popular for searches for your type of business.

Search engine spiders explore the Internet for Web site content and then rank sites according to their relevance. A spider simulation tool allows you to view your Web site in the same way a search engine spider does. You might have a colorful and attractive Web site, but if it doesn’t attract the attention of search engine spiders, you won’t have a good search engine page results (SERP) ranking.

The competition is tough when it comes to Web sites. Most businesses have a site, and they are all vying for the attention of potential customers. To make your Web site stand out, you can use Google Analytics . With this SEO tool, you can find out if your visitors come to you through search engine results or links and which parts of your Web site they’re interested in. If you have a Google AdWords ad, this SEO analytics tools reports the return on investment (ROI) for your chosen keywords. This SEO tool can help you redesign your site, improve your marketing techniques, and boost your search engine page rank.

Incoming links to your Web site play a large part in determining your ranking among other Web sites on search engine results pages. Search engine spiders usually see incoming links as a good indication that a site is legitimate and trustworthy. SEO Book’s SEO toolbar enables you to see how your link profile compares with other sites ranked on Yahoo! and Google. You can keep one step ahead of the competition by regularly checking how well your links are working for you. This SEO tool can also help you find Web pages you’ll want to link to for improved rank results.

Another valuable SEO tool from SEO Book is the Rank Checker. You can monitor how your Web site moves up and down on the search engine results pages of Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft. You can check other Web sites’ rankings, too, and get an idea of why other sites are ranked higher than yours are. This SEO tool gives you the ability to check your rank, make changes to your Web site, and then recheck your rank to determine if your changes made a positive or negative difference on how your Web site rates with other sites.

What do you think about these tools? Know of some better ones? Share your opinion!

7 Essential Firefox Extensions for Affiliate Marketing

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:32:23 -0800

Are you looking for Firefox extensions to save you time and sanity while boosting your productivity and workflow while Affiliate Marketing? Well you’ve come to the right place. Check out our top 7 Firefox extensions below.

1) SEOToolbar

Wow, what can I say? SEO Book packs so much into this extension. Want to know every intimate detail about your competition? Just visit any page to get the low down on it’s page rank, pages indexed in Google and Yahoo, Alexa.com rating, Compete.com rating, SEMRush.com traffic value, as well as the age of the domain and links to the wayback machine to see what the site looked like in it’s infancy. It also scours social bookmarking sites del.icio.us, digg, twitter and stumbleupon to see how many links are on each site accordingly.

2) Roboform

Do you sign up for new Affiliate Networks all the time? It’s a drag typing the same thing day after day. Let Roboform do all the heavy lifting. It’s also great at remembering login information for multiple accounts with one click logins.

3) Google Global

Do you travel a lot? Maybe you don’t live in the region that you are marketing to. Google Global allows you to view organic and paid traffic as they appear in different cities, regions, ip addresses and zip codes. This plugin is essential if you are using AdWords.

4) refspoof

Refspoof allows you to change the referring url that your browser passes on. It’s good if you want to cover your tracks or test out some of your own projects.

5) FireFTP

Need to make some quick changes to a landing page at 3 in the morning? I don’t think that your designer/developer will be happy with a phone call that early. No problem use FireFTP to access your website and make those minor changes yourself. Just make sure you know the HTML basics so you don’t break the layout of the page.

6) IE Tab

Is Firefox your default browser? If so sometimes you forget to check what your landing page or design looks like in Internet Explorer. Make sure there are no mistakes because the majority of the Internet still uses IE. If you’re on a mac you will need to either run bootcamp or windows inside of a virtual machine such as Parallels or VMWare.

7) User Agent Switcher

Switch between user agents within Firefox to see how web pages react. Useful for getting into areas that only allow Googlebot (naughty naughty) & a few other things.

If you know of any other good extensions please let us know in the comments section.

Multiple Income Streams Online for Everyone

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:45:17 -0800

A majority of people have been affected by the recession throughout the world. There is regular news of job-cuts, pay-cuts, employees being sacked and so on. Most people are hopelessly wondering from one company to another in search of work. The worst part is that they end up compromising and working for a lower wage than what they deserve. This is common in every society during economic crises.

What most people are ignoring is the fact that they can earn through multiple income streams, online, sitting at home, with only an Internet connection. Thousands of people in all parts of the world are making a living online with multiple income streams. You get paid for taking surveys, playing games, advertising products or services, making referrals, clicking on links and even by freelance work.

Most people have a closed approach to income generation and consider all job opportunities on the Internet as scams. In fact, you will find lot of scam sites, but there are indeed great sites that are legitimate and have been in business for several years.

Ignoring job opportunities available on the Internet is the prime reason for under-employment in most countries. The Internet is flooded with diverse income opportunities which you can catch up on with little bit of research by yourself. The best part is that you do not need any specific skill for most sites. You can check what the site requires through the FAQ section and accordingly act to start earnings.

My best piece of advice is to open your mind and research online for opportunities; the best place to start is on Google. There are many free sites with which you can begin and as you progress you can learn more about other streams of online income opportunities. You have nothing to lose if you join a free site and fail to make money. It will turn out to be a stepping stone towards good monthly residual income as a lot of Internet gurus made a beginning in a similar fashion. Most people give up after initial failures which are the primary reason for people claiming that you can’t earn a living through the Internet. The worst part is not realizing how close you were to succeeding before you gave up. If you don’t give up then you won’t lose and will certainly make money.

Optimizing Your PPC Campaigns

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 03:57:35 -0800

So, you’ve signed up to an Affiliate Network and joined an Advertising Program. You’ve also started your first campaign, hopefully selling something interesting. Now its time to optimize your campaign!

In this tutorial, we’ll assume you are using Google Adwords, but these techniques will work with any Advertising Program.

Bumping up your clickthrough-rate (CTR)

What’s my CTR? A clickthrough-rate is the ratio of how many people click your ad after viewing it. If 100 people view your ad, and 5 click it, you have a CTR of 5%. One of the easiest ways to get a higher CTR, is through proper wording of your ad. You’re trying to grab attention, so make your ad exciting — appeal to peoples needs, desires and fears.

Higher CTR through A-B Split Testing

A-B Split testing involves creating 2 ads with different wording but the same parameters (keyword, bid, url, etc.). Which ever ad does better stays, and the other ad is paused/deleted. Then create a new ad with fresh wording and the same parameters. Run both ads against each other, always eliminating the worst performer, and creating a new ad in its place.

Lower you Costs

Most Advertising Programs offer some kind of keyword tool. By using their tools, you can find keywords that are still performing well in terms of volume, yet have little competition. These ads cost less per click, however still get the necessary volume to attract enough clicks.

Another way to lower you costs is to choose only keywords that are very specific and targeted to what you are advertising. For example, if you are advertising credit cards, choosing keywords as broad as credit cards, credit card information, etc. will be very expensive and perhaps drive people who are looking for something other than applying for a credit card . Whereas, using keywords such as get a new credit card, apply for credit card, credit card application, etc will be less expensive and will drive people who are looking for specific information in regards to what you are advertising.

Getting Help

There are quite a few online forums with people willing to help you with your journey in the Affiliate Marketing world. Be patient, respectful, and you should be able to get some great tips! Check out the following forums for some friendly advice: WickedFire.com, DigitalPoint.com, ABestWeb.com and EWealth.com.

Five SEO Techniques to Kick Start Your Blog

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 19:11:13 -0800

You have set up your blog, and you’re ready to start generating some traffic. How do you make sure that people actually find your blog in the midst of all the blogs that are already out there? Blogs need to follow SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to secure a top spot on a SERP (search engine results page). Internet users rarely look past the first three pages of search results, and looking at only the first page of results is more common. The higher your results page rating, the more likely you’ll reach your intended audience and continue to bring in new visitors. The following five SEO techniques can help your blog get the recognition it deserves.

1) Choose and use your keywords wisely.

Make sure that your keywords selection is relevant to your blog. Choose keywords that viewers will use to search for the information your blog supplies. Don’t overuse the keywords. A good guideline is to use the keyword three times in a typical page of content. This is usually about 2% – 7% of the blog’s material. It’s a plus if your keywords are part of your domain name and blog title. Use words related to your keywords (secondary and tertiary keywords) in your blogs, and this will increase the chances that your blog will be near the top of the SERP.

2) Attract the search engine spiders.

Search engines send out spiders to search the Web for new and relevant material. Update your blog frequently so that it attracts search engine spiders. Your archives and site navigation selections should be easily accessible from any page of your blog. This makes the spider’s search easier and helps boost your blog to a premium spot on the search engine’s results page.

3) Use meta tags.

The two parts of a meta tag are the description and the keywords for your blog. Your description should be concise and meaningful and give the viewer a clear understanding of what can be found on your blog. Your meta tag description is sometimes listed under the title on a search page. This is your chance to grab the viewer’s attention, so make it count.

4) Accumulate those links.

Links to your blog from other Web sites are a big plus in the world of SEO. The search engine spiders can easily find your blog when it is linked to other Web sites. It’s also a good idea to include outgoing links on your blogs. Make sure the Web sites that link viewers to your blog and your blog links to other Web sites are for reputable sites. One way to start acquiring incoming links is to register with a blog directory.

5) Participate in Forums

You can present yourself as an expert in your field by taking part in forums on other Web sites and blogs. It’s not necessary to give a sales pitch for your blog. Just include your contact information, including your blog URL, in your signature, and write interesting and informative content . This is an easy way to start linking to other viewers and Web sites, making your blog more attractive to spiders and boosting your position on a SERP.

Making Internet Affiliate Marketing Work for You

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:11:29 -0800

Internet affiliate marketing can be a “win-win” situation for everyone involved. By placing advertisements for affiliates on your business Web site, you can generate more income for your business. Each time someone that clicks through to an affiliate from your site performs a revenue-generating action, you get a payment. Your affiliates reap the reward of attracting new customers. Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn more income, but make sure you follow these guidelines when you decide to try this marketing technique.

Choose your affiliates carefully.

Use affiliates that have as much integrity as you do. Signing on with any affiliate to generate more income will not be a wise decision in the long run. You have spent time, effort, and money building a good reputation, and you don’t want to ruin it by being associated with low quality affiliates. Your clients have come to know your business as a trustworthy and dependable one, and you want to make a good impression on potential clients. Screen you affiliates and resist the temptation to advertise for just anyone.

Make sure your affiliates are value added.

Your site attracts a particular targeted market group. You know the interests, concerns, and problems of this group and serve them by offering your product or service. Considering the characteristics of your clients, what other products and services would benefit them the most? Let your clients know that you are interested in making their lives easier by choosing affiliates that offer products and services that will enhance their lives. Advertising for products and services that will not be of any value to them sends the signal that you’re only interested in the money and not their well-being.

Carefully research affiliate marketing programs before choosing which one to use.

There are a number of affiliate marketing programs available. You will need to decide which one is the best fit for you and your clients. Know the specifics of any agreement you make with an affiliate program. You’ll want to know how long you are obligated to the program. There is no need for you to stay with an affiliate program that is not working for your business. As long as you’re not breaking your agreement, you can find another one. If there are certain products and services you want to promote that aren’t included in any of the affiliate programs, contact the vendors directly. You might be able to work out your own special affiliate program deal with them.

Monitor the effectiveness of your affiliate advertising.

Just like any other part of running a business, it’s essential that you keep up with how your affiliate marketing program is working for you. If your affiliate ads aren’t generating income or are generating less income, investigate to find out the reasons for this. Affiliate ads are not something you can set and forget. Check regularly for updates, additions, and changes to your affiliate program. You’ll want to take advantage of every benefit the program offers.

What is PPC , and Some Tools to Help You Get Started

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:00:27 -0800

PPC, or Pay per Click, is a popular method of advertising on the Internet. The three most popular PPC providers are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter. Advertising costs are incurred only when Internet users click on an ad. Advertisers sometimes bid for the use of keywords, with the most popular keywords commanding higher prices per click. In some instances, the host charges a set price for every ad click. PPC tools are available to help advertisers increase the effectiveness of their PPC advertising.

Start to Finish Guidance

The three big PPC providers have guides to help you create, maintain, and manage your PPC advertising. Google users can check out the Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool and the Google AdWords Learning Center. For Yahoo! advertisers, there is the Yahoo! Search Marketing Workbook and Microsoft users can find information at MSN AdCenter Labs.

Budget Estimation

Before you head out with your keywords and create an online ad, you’ll want to know how much all of this is going to cost. You can determine how well your selected keywords will generate traffic by testing them on Google’s Traffic Estimator. This will help you avoid sinking money into ads that won’t get much attention. SEO Tools offers two calculators that will help you stay within your advertising budget. The first is a Return on Investment Calculator, and the second is a Return on Ad Spend Calculator.

Editing Your Advertisements

You’ll want to edit your Internet advertisements to bring in the most traffic and clicks, resulting in higher sales. Google offers the Google AdWords Editor to help you create revenue-generating advertisements for Google AdWords. It provides editing tools, and you can let other AdWords Editor users view your ads and give you feedback. SEO Tools has several editing tools. Refine your keyword lists with a list generator and a keyword list cleaner. Learn which keywords are commonly misspelled and use this to your advantage by checking out SEOBook’s Typo Generator. If you want to construct advertisements for Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, take a look at The Big 3 Generator.

Managing Your PPC Bids

Managing and maintaining your PPC bids can take more time than you have to spare. Luckily, there are several good bid management tools that can help you through this aspect of PPC advertising. Google AdWords offers a free conversion optimizer. Yahoo! Search Marketing users will find this search engine’s index tools bid management site helpful. Several other tools can be used with Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter, as well as with other PPC providers. Some of these tools are Bid Rank, Click Tracks, Bix Max and Keyword Max.

Research Tools for Heavier Competition

For the more serious Internet advertiser, analytical research tools to help control your PPC advertising are available. Compete.com offers a comprehensive analytical tool at http://searchanalytics.compete.com/site_referrals/. Keep track of keywords your competitors are using with Key Complete and Keyword Spy.

5 Steps to Getting Started in Online Advertising

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:39:16 -0800

Online Advertising offers an easy way to start generating a passive income starting today. There are many avenues to Online Advertising, but in this article will will be focusing on Pay Per Click (PPC) model. The PPC model is the most basic form of online advertising after Cost Per Mille (CPM), which is a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of an advertising campaign for 1000 views of an ad. This tutorial will show you how to set up a simple direct link system using an Affiliate Network and an Advertising Program.

1. Gather your Information

In order to start you need 3 things:

An Email Address

Don’t Have One? You can sign up for a free email address with Google, Yahoo, or MSN Hotmail

A Credit Card

Don’t Have One? Apply for one online! Visa, MasterCard, American Express

Time and Perseverance

Don’t Have it? Don’t let anyone fool you. Most quick money scams are just that, scams. You might get lucky and be making $10,000 a week after 2 months, but most people have to refine their skills. Having realistic expectations will help you to not get discouraged. Perseverance is the key!

2. Join an Affiliate Network

What’s an Affiliate Network? An Affiliate Network is a broker between you and companies trying to sell products and services. They will provide you with ads, reporting tools, and are the people who send you the cheques. Joining a network is free and they also provide a great deal of help. Below is a list of some of the Affiliate Networks: Advaliant, Affiliate Fuel, Azoogle, Blue Lithium, Copeac, CPA Empire, Jar Media, Motive Interactive and Market Leverage

3. Join an Advertising Program

What’s an Advertising Program? Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN all offer advertising programs. Perform a search on any of these sites and you will see a “sponsored link”. People pay search engines a fee every time someone clicks on one of these ads. Prices can range anywhere from 1 cent a click, to over $100 a click. You will have to deposit money with the Advertising Program in order to purchase ad space. Below is a list of some Advertising Programs: Google Adwords, Yahoo Overture and Microsoft AdCenter

4. Start a Campaign

Now that you’ve joined an Affiliate Network, you will have access to hundreds, possibly thousands of Products and Services that you can begin advertising. Search your Affiliate Network for the best product or service you can find, and create a commission referral link. This is the link that potential customers will click, and if they purchase the product or service, you will get a commission.

Now go to your Advertising Program and create a new campaign. It will ask you for your link, a title and description for your ad, and keywords. The keywords determine when your ad will show. For example, if your keywords were diet, or fat loss, then when someone performs a search for those words, your ad will show as a “sponsored link”. How much you pay the search engine for your click determines what position you will receive relative to other ads. For example, if you are willing to pay 5 cents for a click, but someone else is willing to pay 6 cents, their ad will show above yours.

5. Sit back and wait for the cash to come rolling in

Not quite. Now that your ad is running, you should monitor it. Try optimizing your ad with a more enticing title and description or changing the keywords. Advertising is more of an art than a science, so you will have to refine your skill and keep a close eye on your different campaigns.

Thanks for reading this article and we hope that it has helped you on your way to a passive income through Online Advertising. Please leave any comments, questions or suggestions you might have below. Also please check back for our article on optimizing your campaign!

What is Passive Income? On Blogging and SEO Writing

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:29:53 -0800

Let’s get right to the point on exactly what passive income is. The internet is full of articles on the subject, so this piece is short and answers the most basic questions on passive income.

Mostly you hear about passive income either online or via authors. Passive income is the regular payment generated through an activity you’re not directly profiting from. Wikipedia often has the most basic of answers, but they offered a powerful quote from the IRS. Passive income is “any activity… in which the taxpayer does not materially participate.”

For bloggers, this is ad income. And it’s not entirely a pipe dream to make it a career. For writers, this is the standard royalty check. You’re regularly receiving payment for a product (a book), without clear activity on your part. In other words, you wrote the blog post, you wrote the eBook or novel, but you’re not knocking on doors to sell it.

Passive income is quite a popular buzz word for social media types. Some bloggers, actually, make more from passive income than from directly working with other companies. For instance, some blogging companies cut checks to bloggers for projects like writing posts or starting a brand new blog. This is direct income, and you’d think it would keep many bloggers interested; however, passive income is such a new, powerful reality that more and more bloggers are making it the core of their careers.

For writers, it’s not just novels or other books. It can mean a conversion of page views on a site. You get 1,000 page views for your published article, and you get $1.50 or more. If you want more money, SEO Writing itself is one of the hottest careers online.

AffiliatesLive.com Launches

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:16:11 -0800

Welcome everyone to AffiliatesLive.com. This blog will serve as a learning tool for those interested in affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, ppc and generally making money online as well as a platform to release company news.

Since the site is brand new and written from scratch by our developers, there may be some bugs lurking (browser incompatibilities, missing pages/images). If you notice anything out of the ordinary you can contact us using the contact us link in the header.

Check back regularly for interesting articles posted by the AffiliatesLive team. We have some great posts planned coming your way!