The good news is that there are plugins that address this problem and improve the performance and user friendliness of our blogs. Since usability is an essential for maximum profitability these are well worth considering. Here are 10 plugins that will surely improve the usability of your WordPress blog.

1. Lightbox 2: Images can make or break a blog as you well know from your experience with your own blog and from your perusal of other blogosphere stops. This nifty plugin uses Colorbox to overlay images in a lightbox. One advantage is that your users can view larger images without being taken to another page, streamlining their experience which they will most definitely appreciate. With this plugin you also have the option of auto-lightboxing all the images.

2. WP-Print: While going paperless is a great idea, sometimes your visitors will simply want to print something for easier access later. This plugin allows them to hit print and then go on to other parts of your blog, saving them time and perhaps encouraging deeper interaction with your site that may lead to the kind of conversions you want. This plugin is a freebie.

3. Akismet: Spammers are the bane of bloggers. This plugin will banish them and garner greater trust from those who read your blog. It’s good for nothing in terms of cost.

4. Smart 404: When a user gets a 404 error he or she might think your site is old, down or otherwise problematic when all that happened was a URL was miss-typed. Prevent click-aways by nipping in the bud many of these error messages. This plugin uses keywords from the requested URL to automatically redirect visitors to a page that matches most closely. It offers a very high success rate and it is yours for the asking.

5. WordPress Popular Posts: This will increase page reads and put your best stuff before your visitors by featuring it at the side of each page. This free widget offers great customization and usability.

6. W3 Total Cache: W3 Total Cache is the fastest and most complete WordPress performance optimization plugin. This talented plugin creates a static html pages from your dynamic blog and dishes out that page to users. This functionality allows pages to load faster because a static page is much lighter than a dynamic page and less expensive. There’s lots more this plugin will do for you.

7. Post Teaser: Rather than having to scroll below the fold to see a post this plugin allows them to see a preview of the post and provides a link to the full post. It costs nothing but will save your visitors hassle and earn you their appreciation.

8. Search Everything: Keep things smooth and easy for your visitors and they will continue coming back for more. Search Everything delivers additional search capabilities so they can easily find the content they want. The plugin accomplishes this by ramping up the default search on your WordPress blog so users can search every non-password protected page, tag, post, comment, category, taxonomy and much more.

9. Outbound Links: Users won’t leave your site when they click on an outbound link because this plugin will open it in a new window leaving your blog window open and available. Its free and easy.

10. Subscribe to Comments: Build community around your blog by inviting readers to choose to be notified by email when someone adds a comment. It offers your commenters a tailored approach to staying in the discussion. Download it for nothing and gain quite a bit.

If you want to do 10 things today to give your blog visitors a better experience these deserve strong consideration. Each one will contribute to a more usable blog and all else being equal, that is what gives you a competitive edge. The price is right and the performance upgrade is outstanding.

Don’t forget to share your recommendations and check the must use WordPress plugins list to get more recommendation on WordPress plugins.

This guest post was written by James Adams who is a full time blogger and designer. He works with an ink cartridge store as a tech news reporter. He also analyses and reviews hardware like the CLT-K4092S as well as posting on their design blog.

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• WordPress Video Lightbox Plugin – Display Videos and Images in a Fancy Lightbox Overlay

Click on the image to see how the video pops over in a lightbox overlay.

Little Background

Previously I was using another plugin to display my Vimeo videos in a lightbox overlay but recently Vimeo changed their video embed code to use HTML5 in an effort to make the videos playable in iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, the other plugin wasn’t working with this change and I was getting the following error on all my embedded Vimeo videos:

Sorry, this video does not exist

To get around the problem I created this plugin and tweaked the prettyPhoto JQuery library so it works with the new Vimeo video embed code. When you use this plugin to embed video it will play your YouTube or Vimeo videos in iPhone and iPad!

Installation

1. Unzip and Upload the folder ‘wp-video-lightbox’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
3. Follow the instructions in the “Usage” section to start embedding your images, videos etc.

Usage

I have created a PDF file documenting the various ways to use this plugin.

• Download the WP Video Lightbox Plugin Usage Instructions.

Download Video Lightbox

Download the WP Video Lightbox Plugin from here.

Donation Option

Donation option can be found on my projects page.

If you need help with this plugin or want to suggest an enhancement/feature then please let me know by leaving a comment in the comment area below.

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The answer was simple… Yes, the WP eMember plugin uses the correct way of AWeber integration but I thought elaborating on this topic will add value to my other readers (specially to people who use AWeber).

The Problem (Using Wrong Integration Method)

Many 3rd party scripts use background posting to signup a visitor to AWeber’s list. It’s against AWeber’s TOS (Terms of Service) for a script to post the user data in the background. So if you use a script that is doing this then you are violating AWeber’s TOS and they have the right to suspend your account.

AWeber has the highest email delivery guarantee in the industry.  Email deliverability refers to whether emails sent to your customer lists make it through without being caught in their ISP’s spam filter. This is one of the major factors as to why people use an external autoresponder service. AWeber don’t want to loose this advantage by allowing scripts to do background manipulation.

The Solution (Use Correct Integration Method)

Now, it doesn’t mean that a 3rd party script cannot be integrated with AWeber without violating their TOS. AWeber lets you integrate 3rd party scripts by using “Email Parsers”.

What Are Email Parsers?

An email parser is a technology that allows you to integrate your campaign with services so that when a transaction is made with the service, a subscriber can be added to your campaign.

For example, you might use PayPal as a shopping cart for your products. You can use an email parser to automatically subscribe customers when they make a purchase from you.

How to Create an Email Parser?

You can create a custom email parser for your script from your AWeber account. To add a new custom email parser select “Email Parser” from the “My Lists” menu and choose “Add New” from the “Custom Parsers” section.

• My List -> Email Parser
• Custom Parsers -> Add New

The new email parser configuration will look similar to the following (Click to enlarge)

AWeber Custom Email Parser

You can specify the trigger rules using regular expression.

Here is a typical subscription flow that you can expect when you use this process:

1. User makes a payment for a product or service.
2. Your script sends out an email to “listname@aweber.com” with the name and email address of the user.
3. Since the email parser at AWeber is setup, it will now add the subscriber to the AWeber list “listname”.

In summary, use the AWeber form or an email parser to sign up your subscribers. If you are a developer please use the correct method so a user’s account does not get suspended because of your fault.

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Those who have never used PayPal may wonder why so many people use it as their only way to pay for online purchases. After you review the following seven advantages to using PayPal to buy online, you will likely want to start using PayPal yourself.

1. Credit card security: When you sign up for a PayPal account, you type in the credit cards and bank accounts you wish to use for purchases one time on the PayPal secure system. Once that is accomplished, you never again have to disclose your credit card information online. By paying with PayPal, you keep your credit card information private, meaning that you can shop without worrying about a hacker downloading your account data from your online merchant.

2. Flexibility: Relieve yourself of the embarrassment and hassle of trying to purchase goods and services online only to have your credit card declined. Because you can set up multiple bank accounts, debit cards, and credit cards to fund your PayPal account, you can rest assured that your PayPal purchases always go through the first time. PayPal will then look for funds from your sources based on the order you define.

3. Send money: Whether you need to send money to a child at college or a friend in trouble across the globe, PayPal users can instantly transfer money to them with just a click of the mouse. Save time and money over costly Western Union style transfers while getting money to where you wish to send it faster than ever.

4. The iPhone App: The PayPal iPhone application makes it easy to shop online and transfer money wherever you are. All you have to do is visit the Apple iTunes store and search for the PayPal app and you will be ready to transfer, send money, pay bills, review your transaction history, and make purchases right from the palm of your hand. Because PayPal will ask you to confirm transactions with a PIN, you can rest assured that your finances are safe should your iPhone be lost or stolen. If you meet someone you need to pay while out on the town, just bump iPhones and make your transfer.

5. Online Auctions: How could anyone talk about PayPal without mentioning eBay? Because PayPal is integrated with the online auction powerhouse, you can place bids and make purchases safely. Buyer protection and a structured complaint resolution process means that eBay bidders have more protection than most credit card holders when it comes to one of the most popular online shopping sites.

6. Cost: One of the best reasons for using PayPal is its cost: free. That’s right. No annual membership fees, no processing fees, no service charges. Shoppers using PayPal get all the powerful advantages associated with the service and do not have to pay one dime.

7. Discounts: PayPal sponsors special discounts for customers that shop with PayPal at selected retailers. Users who visit www.paypal-shopping.com can find the latest special offers from companies like HP, Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Nike, and more. The bottom line is that PayPal can save you money on the things you need at the places where you shop. To take advantage of the savings all you have to do is copy the special promo code from the PayPal shopping Web page and paste it into your order at your merchant’s site when you pay with PayPal.

These seven advantages to using PayPal to buy online are enough to make you want to give PayPal a try. If you have never opened a PayPal account, go ahead and create one today. If you have only used PayPal at eBay, the time is now to see the whole world of opportunity that PayPal opens up for you.

Employed at one of the bigger UK-based suppliers of ink cartridges as a full time writer, James spends his time writing on subjects as diverse as the HP 300XL to the arts and the latest hardware releases.

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1. Chose The Right Topic For Your Blog

There is usually a big debate on which path to go down when choosing the topic of your blog. Some will advice you to find a niche that people spend money in and focus purely on the profitability. Others will say don’t go for the money at first, focus on your passion because things that you personally enjoy and know about will be easy to create good content on and in the process you will make money. I will leave it up to you to decide but I can only suggest that you consider both sides of the story before making up your mind. Some people can remain motivated because of the process, not the topic but that doesn’t work for me. I need to enjoy the topic.

2. Challenge Yourself

You might be an expert on the topic that you cover but it can become boring if you write from the same angle all the time. Get out of your comfort zone a little, learn more about the complex areas of your topic and present some interesting facts of your discovery to your readers and they will respect your effort.

3. Create Your Own Style

When you write try to add your own opinion or flavor that will make your posts unique. If you write about something technical then think how you can make it easy for the average readers who are not very familiar with the technical terms. Why should visitors keep coming to your blog when other bloggers are also writing on the same topic? It is your unique styles that will help you stand out in the crowd and make your blog different than a regular one.

4. Show Your Passion And Credibility

Building your reputation is very important. You need to gain the trust of your readers before they listen to you. If you talk about Green Peace then you need to let your readers know how passionate you are about it. This is where choosing a blog topic that you are passionate about helps. Let your visitors know how involved you are and what you have achieved so far. Humans can smell bullshit very easily so don’t just lie to your readers as this will ruin your credibility. The visitors who will be coming to your blog are most likely passionate about your blog topic so if you are not seriously involved then why should they listen to you and read your blog?

5. Know Your Readers

If you have a good understanding of your reader’s motivation, passion, need then it will be a lot easier for you to write articles that your readers will appreciate. Visitors most likely come to your blog because they either want to learn something or they are looking for a solution so you need to provide them with what they are after. Try to put yourself in their shoe and be on the lookout as to how you can satisfy them.

6. Be Consistent

Consistency is one of the keys to be a successful blogger. Make a routine of how often you want to publish new posts on your blog and try to stick to this routine. Do not worry too much about profit when you are starting out. Think in terms of adding tons of value consistently and the money will come.

7. Be Clear, Short And To The Point

The trick is to get your readers’ attention quickly. Statistics show that on an average most readers will decide if they are going to read the full post or not in the first few seconds after they land on an article. Having a nicely formatted structured post with short paragraphs and bullet point does the job. Don’t make the post unnecessarily long, divide them into short paragraphs and use bullet points or numbered list for ease of reading. Also use sub-heading so the readers can easily find the information they are looking for and always stay on topic. If you fill up your post with irrelevant information, readers will loose interest and leave your blog.

8. Proofread Before Publishing

I used to get too excited to publish a post as soon as I was finished writing it when I first started blogging. I didn’t used to spend any time to find spelling and grammatical errors. Lots of grammatical and spelling mistakes on an article will turn off the readers. So proofread your article before you hit the publish button. If possible, ask a friend to proofread your article. This can help greatly when you are starting out as it’s hard to find your own mistakes at first.

9. Involve Your Readers

As I have mentioned before that a blog is more interactive than a traditional website which is the reason blogs are so popular. Through interaction you can create a good bonding with your readers. So try to get your readers involved in your blog by asking them to leave comments, participating in surveys etc.

10. Reply To Comments

Reply to the comments left by your blog visitors. If someone has taken the time and effort to leave a comment on your blog then the least you can do is reply with a simple “Thank You” or answer their question. If you have a really popular blog and you get tons of comments daily then it may not be practical to reply to every comment left on your blog but in general replying to a comment shows that you care about your visitors so try to do it.

11. No Shortcuts

You need to understand that there are no shortcuts to success and it’s definitely not going to come overnight. Try to add value to the community, be consistent, hard working and patient and blog success will follow.

Please share your tips on how to be a better blogger in the comment section below.

This guest post was written by Asif who is the owner of WP Handy Hints.

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• Hardware failures
• Viruses
• Incorrect use of UPDATE and DELETE statements
• Software bugs
• Disasters, such as fire or flood

To prevent data loss, you can implement a recovery strategy for your databases. This article explains the traditional database recovery techniques that are out there.

If you are only concerned about backing up your WordPress blog then simply use a database backup plugin explained in the Must Use Plugins List article.

Full Database Backups

A very common backup strategy is to back up the whole database in a predefined time series (once each night, for instance). With such a backup strategy, it is possible to recover a database to the state it had when the last backup occurred. This strategy is implemented by using full database backups. A full database backup contains all data and database Meta information needed to restore the whole database, including full-text catalogs. When you restore a full database backup, it restores all database files yielding data in a consistent state from the time the backup completed.

Using Differential Backups

The main advantage of a full database backup is that it contains all the data needed to rebuild the entire database. But this advantage can also be a disadvantage. Consider a database where full database backups are performed each night. If you need to recover the database, you always have to use the backup from the previous night, resulting in the loss of a whole day’s work. One way to reduce the potential period of time that can be lost would be to perform full database backups more often. But this itself can be a problem. Because all data and parts of the transaction log are written to the backup device, it can be very time-intensive to make a backup. Also, you need a lot of storage space to hold these backups, and a full backup can decrease the performance of your database as a result of the large amount of I/O it requires. Wouldn’t it be better to perform one full database backup at night and only take backups of data changes made during the day? This sort of functionality is provided by the differential backup.
The differential backup stores only the data changes that have occurred since the last full database backup. When the same data has changed many times since the last full database backup, a differential backup stores the most recent version of the changed data. Because it contains all changes since the last full backup, to restore a differential backup, you first need to restore the last full database backup and then apply only the last differential backup.

Performing Differential Backups

Performing a differential backup is very similar to performing full database backups. The only difference is that you state in the WITH option of the backup that you want to perform a differential backup. The syntax of the BACKUP DATABASE statement to perform a differential backup of AdventureWorks to a physical device, overwriting other existing backups on the backup device, is as follows:

USE master;
GO
BACKUP DATABASE AdventureWorks
TO DISK=’t:\adv_diff.bak’
WITH INIT, DIFFERENTIAL;


Using Transaction Log Backups

With the combination of full database and differential backups, it is possible to take snapshots of the data and recover them. But in some situations, it is also desirable to have backups of all events that have occurred in a database, like a record of every single statement executed. With such functionality, it would be possible to recover the database to any state required. Transaction log backups provide this functionality. As its name suggests, the transaction log backup is a backup of transaction log entries and contains all transactions that have happened to the database. The main advantages of transaction log backups are as follows:

• Transaction log backups allow you to recover the database to a specific point in time.
• Because transaction log backups are backups of log entries, it is even possible to perform a backup from a transaction log if the data files are destroyed. With this backup, it is possible to recover the database up to the last transaction that took place before the failure occurred. Thus, in the event of a failure, not a single committed transaction need be lost.

Combining Transaction Log and Differential Backups

Another possible backup strategy is to combine full database, differential, and transaction log backups. This is done when restoring all transaction log backups would take too much time. Because restoring from a transaction log backup means that all transactions have to be executed again, it can take a great deal of time to recover all the data, especially in large databases. Differential backups only apply data changes, which can be done faster than re-executing all transactions.
To recover a database when you have a combined backup strategy, you need to restore the last full database backup, the last differential backup, and then all subsequent transaction log backups.

The Full Recovery Model

As mentioned before, you need to tell SQL Server in advance which backup strategy you plan to implement. If only full database and differential backups are used, the database has to be set to the simple recovery model. If you also want to use transaction log backups, the recovery model must be set to FULL (or BULK_LOGGED). The full recovery model tells SQL Server that you want to perform transaction log backups. To make this possible, SQL Server keeps all transactions in a transaction log until a transaction log backup occurs. When the transaction log backup happens, SQL Server truncates the transaction log after the backup is written to the backup device. In simple mode, the transaction log is truncated after every checkpoint, which means that committed transactions (which are already written to the data files) are deleted from the transaction log. Thus, in simple mode, transaction log backups cannot be created.
To set the recovery model to FULL, use the ALTER DATABASE statement again. The following code sets the recovery mode of AdventureWorks database to FULL:

USE master;
GO
ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks
SET RECOVERY FULL;
GO
To set recovery model to SIMPLE, use the following command
USE master;
GO
ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks
SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;
GO

Basically, try to be prepared so you don’t get caught with your pants down like this

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The affiliate link manager plugin will revolutionize how you approach your affiliate marketing business by allowing you to automate the repetitive tasks (learn more on why use a link manager).

Affiliate Link Manager Features

Some key features of the WordPress Affiliate Link Manager Plugin include:

Documentation & Technical Support

• WP Affiliate Link Manager Documentation site (Contains all the documentation for this plugin)

If you are having any issue with this plugin then feel free to leave a comment in the comment area below or on the documentation site or post it on the support forum.

Minimum Requirements

• Please check the minimum requirements page

Get the WP Affiliate Link Manager Plugin

Affiliate Link Manager
Revolutionize your approach to your affiliate marketing business by automating the repetitive tasks.
Price: $27.00

Please see the Products page for packaged product deals.

Become an Affiliate

Like the WordPress Affiliate Link Manager plugin? Why not sign up for an affiliate account and promote it to make some money?

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any queries.

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Plugin Description

The bbCaptcha plugin adds reCAPTCHA to the registration page of your bbPress forum.

reCAPTCHA to bbPress registration

Installation & Usage

1. Unzip and Upload the folder ‘bb-captcha’ to the ‘my-plugins’ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in bbPress.
3. Go to Settings menu of bbCaptcha plugin and add the reCAPTCHA keys. You can get reCAPTCHA keys here if you don’t have it already for your site.

Activating bbCaptcha Plugin

bbCaptcha Settings

This Plugin in Action

You can see this plugin in action on the registration page of the Tips and Tricks HQ Forum.

Download Latest Version

Download the Plugin.

All the plugins developed by Tips and Tricks HQ are listed on the projects page. If you need help just leave a comment below.

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1. Keep a Tidy Workspace

If you have a messy workspace, then you can feel less motivated and more stressful. It’s important to have an area dedicated solely to work and to keep that area free from clutter.

2. Set Goals

If you know what you need to do every day, then you are much more likely to accomplish it. To-do lists are a must for the self-employed person. You might want a daily do-do list as well as a weekly to-do list.

3. Exercise

It’s tough to stay productive if you are always feeling tense and stressed. Exercise not only helps you get your mind off your work for a time, but it also keeps your brain in top shape to help you solve the important problems that come up in your work. By the time you get back to your desk, you will feel refreshed and ready to tackle anything.

4. Keep Busy

Even if you don’t have any current assignments, there is always something to be done. You could work on improving your website, on new ways of promoting yourself, or on sprucing up your resume. As a self-employed person, your work is never done. The last thing you want to find yourself doing is watching television all day.

5. Walk Away

If your work starts to become overwhelming, don’t hesitate to simply get up and walk away. Since you’re your own boss, you can decide for yourself anytime you need a break and whether you would be better off taking a walk or grabbing a cup of coffee. You’ll be much more productive when you decide to sit back down.

6. Treat it Like a Job

Treating your work like a job means that you should keep a strict schedule and stick to it. This may sound more rigid than you’d like, but doing so can help you to become much more productive in the long term.

7. Prioritize Income Activities

There are so many things you could be doing every day, so it is important to prioritize. You should focus first on those activities that generate the most income for you, then shift your attention to activities that generate less. You should seek to avoid activities that do nothing for your bottom line.

8. Keep a Daily Log

By keeping a daily log, you’ll be able to track where you are spending most of your time so that you know the areas in which you need to improve. Most self-employed persons overestimate the amount of time they actually spend in productive activities, so this will help you see if your results match your aspirations.

9. Limit Email Checking

Checking your email every 10 minutes can be devastating to your productivity. It can distract you from the tasks you ought to be doing, and it puts you into a response mode. It’s a good idea to set aside 2 or 3 times each day to check all your email at once.

10. Get Some Good Office Furniture

There’s a good chance that you’ll be spending an inordinate amount of time at your desk, so it’s a good idea to get some good furniture. A good chair is good for your back and will help you keep healthy.

Staying productive and organized when you are self-employed is a tough task and certainly takes a bit of self-discipline. If you follow some of the tips above, then you can make the process a lot easier.

During his employment as a staff writer at a leading supplier of ink cartridges, James has written on a diverse range of subjects from CLT-P4092C toner to the more interesting subjects of design and technology.

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Before I start, I would like to make one thing clear:

This article mainly covers the following topics:

• What affiliate marketing is and the different types of affiliate marketing
• The advantages of being an affiliate marketer
• Some tips and good practices to become a successful affiliate marketer

So, can you really make money from affiliate programs? Well yes and no; there is money in affiliate marketing but if YOU can make money from it or not depends on a lot of other factors such as your commitment, experience, site traffic etc.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

According to Wikipedia

Basically, you as a publisher will be rewarded when you help a business by promoting their products or services. So for example, if you sign up for Tips and Ticks HQ’s affiliate program and promote it’s products then you will get a commission when the visitor you send from your site makes a purchase.

Affiliate marketing is probably one of the quickest and cheapest (not the easiest) ways to start making money online as you don’t have to create any products yourself. You simply link up a buyer and a seller, and you take a commission on the sale that has been referred by you.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

When you join an Affiliate program and choose the products that you want to sell, sellers provide you with a unique affiliate code that you can use to refer traffic to the target site. Most affiliate programs will offer ready made text links, banners and other forms of creative copies whereby you only have to copy the code and place it on your website to start referring traffic. When interested visitors click on these links from your site they get redirected to the product site and if they purchase a product or subscribe to a service you as the referrer make a commission.

The sellers can track your performance through your affiliate ID and the affiliate softwares (eg. WP Affiliate Platform) that they use. You also have complete, real time access to all sales and commissions stats.

You don’t need to sell products all the time to make a commission. Different affiliate programs can use different payment terms such as:

• Pay per Sale: In this program a merchant pays you a percentage of the sale price when the purchase is completed.
• Pay per Click: In this program you get paid based on the number of visitors you redirect to the Merchant’s website from your affiliate site, whether or not a sale is made.
• Pay per Lead: You get paid once the referred visitors provide their contact information on the target site by filling out a simple contact form.

Why be an Affiliate Marketer?

Affiliate marketing is considered to be one of the world’s fastest growing and best internet marketing techniques to earn money online and I will explain why:

• Cost effective: Marketing on the internet is cheap and you don’t have to worry about the production cost as the product is already developed by the seller. You don’t need a physical business location or hire employees either.
• Global Market: Online marketing gives you the opportunity to reach people all over the world easily.
• No Fees: You don’t need to pay anything to join affiliate programs.
• No Storage No Shipping: You don’t need to worry about storage, packing or shipment of the product. They are all taken care of by the seller.
• No customer support: You don’t need to provide any customer support or deal with consumer complaints as the Seller does that for you.
• Passive income: A regular job can give you a fixed income as long as you continue to work. Depending on your marketing skill Affiliate marketing can create a steady flow of income even when you are not in front of your computer.
• Work from home: If you make enough money then you don’t have to worry about going to work at the same time every day or getting stuck in traffic. You can work in the comfort of your own home.

Tips on Becoming a Successful Affiliate Marketer

After reading all the benefits of affiliate marketing if you think you will be rich over night by selling affiliate products online then you are wrong. Affiliate marketing is definitely an excellent way to make money online but it’s highly competitive too. In order to be successful in Affiliate marketing you need to know the market needs, learn how to promote products, what works and what doesn’t. The following are a few tricks on becoming successful in affiliate marketing that I have learnt over time.

1. Only Choose a Handful of Good Products

The first mistake a lot of affiliate marketers make is that they register with too many different affiliate programs and try to promote everything. Pursuing affiliate marketing down this path can become very overwhelming and you won’t be able to promote any product properly. All you need in order to be successful is a handful of good products to promote. Try to understand the market needs and look for products that align correctly with the topic of your site.

2. Use Several Traffic Sources to Promote Products

Most affiliate marketers put up the ads only on their sites. There is nothing wrong with this approach but know that there are many other traffic sources that you can tap into and promote the products simultaneously. The more targeted traffic you can send to the sales page the more your chances are of making money.

Google Adwords can be used to drive targeted traffic to a sales page. You simply make an ad in your adwords account then use your affiliate link in the target page URL of the ad. Obviously, you will have to continuously measure the conversions and see if the campaign cost is less than the campaign profit in order to keep the campaign running but I am sure you get the idea.

3. Test, Measure and Track Your Affiliate Campaign

It is a very good idea to use different product promotion strategies so you can figure out what is working and what is not. Try to do split testing and measure the performance of each campaign then take actions accordingly. Changing a few things here and there can increase your profit dramatically. Make sure to place the banner ads on different areas of your site’s pages. Some positions will make the ads more noticeable than others.

Most affiliate programs will give you basic stats that you may need but there is nothing stopping you from using your own conversion tracking software too. There are many conversions tracking sofware out there that you can use to track your affiliate campaign.

4. Research the Demand of the Product

If you try to sell a product that is in low demand then chances are that you are not going to get many sales no matter how hard you try. So it is a good idea to spend a bit of time researching and finding out if a product that you are thinking of promoting is a product that your audience needs. If your site gets decent traffic then you can conduct an online survey and easily get input from your visitors.

5. Stay Current with New Methods and Techniques

Affiliate marketing is a very competitive field and people are always coming up with new techniques. Try to stay current with these new techniques and market trends otherwise you will fall behind.

6. Choose the Right Merchant

When you promote a product you also promote the person or the company who is behind the product so try to choose wisely. You don’t want your visitors to go and buy a product following your advice then come back unhappy. Do you think that this visitor will come back to your site and take your advice again? Most likely no; this can hurt your credibility in the long run. Usually, websites/company that offer good customer service will have better customer satisfaction so try to stick with promoting their products.

7. Use Helpful Tools

If you are serious about affiliate marketing then try to find tools that will help you be more efficient. There are many helpful tools out there. If you are using a WordPress powered site then consider getting a plugin similar to the Affiliate Link Manager.

Don’t just hope and pray that visitors will buy; setup everything correctly and make it happen! If you think that visitors will click on your affiliate links and buy just because you placed dozens of affiliate links on your website then you are wrong! You need to have a structured plan in place. Affiliate marketing is a business so you will have a much better chance of succeeding if you treat it like one.

I am sure I haven’t covered everything so please feel free to share your tips in the comment area below.

This guest post was written by Asif who is the owner of WP Handy Hints.

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