Affiliate programs are the best way for you to sell someone else’s products or service and get paid for it. Selling through an affiliate program is a great way to sell on the Internet without getting knee-deep in product.

You market the product or service online (that includes websites, emails, forums, blogs as well as paid advertising). The company then is responsible for the product; they process the payments, ship the merchandise, and handle any complaints. You provide the marketing and get the commission. Brilliant!

Say you own a website giving people information about Jazz Music. You could place links to products related to Jazz Music, CD’s, download sites, etc. on your website. When your visitors click on your links they will go to the website you are promoting. If they buy, you will be paid a commission. Not bad for providing information huh?

You can find affiliate programs just about everywhere these days. A good way to find programs you’d like to join is by doing a search on your chosen topic. See what your competition is doing for a place to start. The affiliate networks such as ClickBank and Commission Junction are great places to look as well.

Look everywhere you shop online. Check the web sites for the words affiliate or partners. You’ll soon see there are almost no merchants online today who don’t have some sort of affiliate program. If you’re going to have a website or blog, you should definitely have affiliate links.

When you register for your chosen affiliate program you will receive your own personal ID number. When you place your link to the website you’re promoting on your website, you will use a link address which includes your unique ID. Anyone who makes a purchase via your personal link racks up commissions for you. These commissions are paid based on the pay schedule of that particular program.

There are a number of products which show you the ins and outs of starting your affiliate business. Check the resource box of this article to get the two best and most economical products on the market today. Each of these products is guaranteed by the product owner and each has its strong points. The most important one being, you get the information you need without spending a fortune.

Easy as pie? Right? The truth is, you will probably need one of the resource products to get things set up; but I wouldn’t spend a lot of money on them. Check out the recommended products to get you started. Above all, get started. You won’t earn until you learn. Good luck!

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A website’s sitemap has a practical and essential use. It makes it easier for visitors to visit through and navigate the website. The navigational help ensures that they do not get lost and that they will not have to look futilely for the information or page that they need. A visitor who immediately finds the information that he needs quickly in a website has a higher chance of coming back for another visit.

Many website administrators, designers and webmasters do not fully exploit the uses and benefits of having a good sitemap. For most of them, merely providing a list of links that do not really give a good service to visitors to the website is more than adequate. For them, as long as spiders can find the pages in their website then they are content. But wouldn’t it better if you can design a sitemap page that is not only big help to your visitors but also adds value to your website?

The characteristic of a good sitemap is that each link has an accompanying description about the target page for each link. This helps visitors who go to your site and would rely on it in navigating through your webpages.

Let’s look at two examples:

Example 1

Link with no description

Rock music

Example 2

Link with description

Rock music, the history of British rock music, From the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Duran Duran, U2, The best British bands and rock acts in history. Trace how rock music in Britain evolved.

There is a definite difference between these two examples. From a mere cursory look at the two examples it is obviously apparent that the second example is far more effective in giving the proper information to visitors. Website visitors are more likely to appreciate the kind of listing illustrated in Example No. 2. This is because most people are more at home with a search engine style listing because it is easier to navigate. No one would like to visit a website and see a sitemap presented similarly to the first example because there is a complete lack of information.

There is also an added benefit to making a descriptive sitemap. It helps in raising your search engine ranking.

By building your sitemap in such a way that you put all the links to related pages on each sitemap page, you are making, in effect, a themed sitemap page. Let us say that you have 7 pages that all relate to British rock music, by putting it all together you make a British rock music themepage. This kind of page will have the element a search engine considers is essential for a high ranking web page: keyword rich text.

It pays to make a good sitemap. Making a conscious effort to make one will bring great benefits to your website.

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2. You don’t offer free software. Most people like to find good deals on software for their computers. If the software is free, that is even better.

3. You don’t offer a free contest or sweepstakes. It’s a fact, people like to win things. If you can fulfill that need, people will stop by to visit.

4. You don’t offer a free directory. Create a directory of web sites on a particular topic that is related to your target audience. People will visit because they will find what they’re looking for, all in one place.

5. You don’t offer a free e-zine. Most people love to get free information that they’re interested in emailed to them on a regular basis. This saves them time and money.

6. You don’t offer a free community. People like to have a place were they can have discussions with others on a particular subject. You could add a chat room or message board to your web site.

7. You don’t offer a free affiliate program. One of people’s basic needs to survive is money. When you offer them a free opportunity to make money they’ll line up to visit your web site.

8. You don’t offer a free online utility. When you offer a utility that can solve a problem, people will visit your web site. The utility could be a free autoresponder, e-mail account, search engine submission, etc.

9. You don’t offer free current information. Supply news stories related to your web site. People want up-to-date news on the topics they are interested in. They will also be interested in visiting your web site.

10. You don’t offer free samples of your product or service. Have you ever been to a store and you jumped at the chance to get a free sample of food? This same concept will also attract people to visit your web site.

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One of the better ways to get traffic for your site is to submit your site to the many directories that exist online. Online directories are similar to your phone book yellow pages: These directories are categorized (education, entertainment, health, etc.), and when you submit your website, you suggest a category for your website. Often, you will even be able to submit to a sub-category within a major category. For example, suppose your website is about aromatherapy.

In your submission request, you would suggest “Health” as your main category, “Alternative Medicine” as your sub-category, and “Aromatherapy” as a further sub-category.

Some of the leading online directories are Yahoo!, MSN Small Business, and the DMOZ directory. Unlike search engines, however, listings in online directories are usually not free. As of this writing, you can submit for free to the Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com), but there is not guarantee on how quickly your website will be reviewed for listing. If you need your site reviewed faster, you can pay Yahoo! $299 US for “expedited” service and they will review your site within seven days. However, this fee is a yearly recurring fee. Your website is subject to a yearly review, and is guaranteed neither initial inclusion or to remain listed year after year.

The MSN service is $49 US, and it functions more like a search engine submit service. Their submission service includes inclusion in their own small business directory. DMOZ, on the other hand, is free, but because it is operated by volunteers, it could be awhile before your site is included. Your best options are to submit to DMOZ and pay for the MSN and Yahoo! services.

But why should you spend money? Can’t you just optimize your site for the search engines? You can, but not everyone goes to a search engine for what they are looking for. For example, if someone is searching for gourmet dog treats, they may not use a search engine. Instead, they might go to one of the online directories and look at the listings, much like someone would use the yellow pages in their phone book. Your investment in gaining inclusion in the online directories will pay off for you in a multitude of ways.

1. You will increase traffic to your site. Your site will be included in the online directories, as well as the search engines, and this will help you gain traffic as people search directory listings and find your website.

2. You will increase the number of backlinks to your site. If the directory pages are listed in search engines, the link they provide for your site will be listed in the search engines. This benefits you by creating more ways for people to find your site. Ultimately, this will provide more traffic for you.

3. Submitting to directories is a quick way to gain links. Optimizing your site for the search engines is very difficult and time-consuming.
It can take a lot of time to learn how to write for the search engines. In the meantime, any links you can get will help you with the search engines, and submitting to directories will get you links.

4. Submitting to directories is relatively inexpensive, and a good investment. As stated earlier, you can submit to Yahoo! and MSN for less than $350. DMOZ is free. If you run a search for online directories, you will find many more where you could submit inexpensively, or even for free.

In short, submitting to online directories is one of the best ways for you to build traffic to your website. In the end, you need traffic to survive online. So get started!

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A blog is a website where members can discuss online their views on a particular topic. There are some blogs that are general in nature where people can discuss anything and there are blogs on which you can discuss only on a particular topic. However it is advisable that when you start a blog it should not be generalized but it should be opened on a particular topic. For example instead of starting a blog on the Information Technology you can start a blog only on Microsoft Technologies. There are a lot of blog softwares that you can use on your server and then run it independently.

Blogs are increasingly used for SEO marketing. Through blogs you can advertise your internet site on the blogs. Blog and ping is a process through which you can post a snippet of information from your site to a blog to increase your SEO. When you post snippets of your website information on the blog, search engine sites like Google and Yahoo will find it more easily. The search engine will be able to track your site more easily due to spidering and indexing. You can blog and ping only very important information from your site and not all information. You can also rent links to your site which makes the work of spidering easier for search engines. There were many aggressive marketers before who used to blog and ping all their web pages and that also repeatedly. As a result the search sites termed the individuals spammers and then banned their websites from ranking.

So how is blog and ping done successfully? The tasks can be easily done with the help of softwares like WordPress and RSS to Blog. Using these softwares you can submit your links to over 50 blog directories at a click of a button. You can download WordPress and RSS to Blog and then install them on your computer. Once you have installed the programs on your computer you should them customize them according to your needs. Then you should create a list of links from your site that will use in the blog sites. You can do this automatically using RSS to Blog. You can save these links for future use also so that you don’t have to enter the list of links all over again. You also have the ability to add more data to RSS to Blog from external sources. The list of blog entries are automatically modified when you make more entries.

Hence we see that blog and ping are one of the best methods to make your website more famous in the search engines. You can use them and also modify their configuration according to your needs.

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A second challenge is the time to blog. I run a $1 Billion dollar company so when I decided to blog I knew I needed to figure out how to do it efficiently. My blog is mostly about efficiency and time management; these are topics I study.

These two challenges can be solved with a simple concept. Copy.

Ideas to use when copying are:

1 – attribution. Give the credit together with the link to the original author.

2 – look for something you can add to. Blogs can be synergistic. Take a concept or part of a blog post and expend on it and give your opinions, insights or views. In many cases, this can start a flow of ideas that are enriched from the original post.

3 – You can use either the whole post or most usually just part of it and point people to the original.

4 – I usually ask for permission which has never been denied. After all copying helps the original author and garners them some readership. And of course never copy copy written material without permission (and most blogs are not copy written).

5 – The simplest place to find material to use to copy is by blog surfing although this can mean a lot of irrelevant material to filter. One source of free articles sorted by topic is www.isnare.com.

6 – In many cases the person you copy from will point a link back to you since it is flattering to them. Charles Caleb Colton said “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. These links to you can increase your traffic.

In summary, copying saves time and increases the quality of material on your site. It can even lead to traffic since in many cases you will get link backs from the original site.

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2. You won’t make any money. Again you will reap what you sow. your key to success is through consistency and persistency. If you are willing to learn and accept failures from time to time, learn from your mistakes and apply that knowledge – the money will come. Don’t give up. There are lots of people who truly do make money this way.

3. Anyone can do this. If you tell your self there is nothing to this, you will set yourself up for guaranteed failure. A profession such as this takes a lot of discipline and most of all the willingness to learn. It takes a lot of hard work and an open mind. You have to be willing to embrace new ideas as they come and take this seriously.

4. Not everyone can do this. This is also not true. As long as you free your mind to scepticism such as these, you have taken your first step. While this profession takes time to figure out, it is not hard to figure out. Remember the only person stopping you is you!

5. It is too hard. Look within your self. There is an online business in you. What do you know? What do you like? What do you need that has not been created yet? Answers to these questions and questions like them are the beginnings of you having the ability to set yourself apart from the crowd.

6. It will be easy. It will get easier, but you will have to do loads of studying. Spend many hours brainstorming. You will spend many hours reading, writing, and learning what works and what doesn’t. It will get tedious and hard to stick to. Persevere, your reward is coming.

7. It will only require 2-3 hours a day. At some point you will be able to automate most of your efforts. In the beginning, long hours are not unheard of. I have spent many 18 hour days in front of my computer.

8. This is not a real job. Yeah right! You will come across many sceptics. Or worse than that, people who do not reveal scepticism but merely look at you funny. Believe me this is a real job. You will be just as exhausted from working and researching all day as you would sling 50 pound sacks of flour all day. When you are mentally exhausted you will be physically exhausted. You work hard; don’t allow the people who minimize your efforts get to you.

9. The only good reason to do this is for the money. That could not be further from the truth. There is a lot to gain; the money is a plus of course. Learning will always make you a better person. If you are happy with your self, everyone else will be to. You can’t beat the hours.

10. It takes years to learn online business. Not true. The best suggestion is to study hard. Read your newsletters and the articles in them. Listen to those who are already successful. They are already telling you what to do and how to do it. Now you just need to listen and learn.

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1. You don’t have to make up any content. This is perhaps the single most important reason Master Resale Rights are a good web business decision. Every web business needs a product to sell, and with master resale rights, you do not have to create anything. All of the content is done for you. You now have a ready made product that you can sell for any price you want.**

**Please note: Most resale rights packages give you free control over pricing, however some packages have a minimum package price. This is necessary as to not undervalue the package itself. As a business owner, it is important to have a competitive price, but you do not want to make the price so low that it makes the package appear to be worthless. Placing minimum prices helps to keep the package value high so it does not become “just another junk eBook with resale rights.” Please try to adhere to the pricing set by the original content creators.

2. It can be completely automated with no warehousing. Because the products you are selling are electronic, there are no physical goods to move or store. This makes storage and delivery completely free, as everything can be delivered through email, or through a download on your website. You can even set your business on “autopilot”, so once a purchase is made, the customer is automatically delivered the link or email. This makes each transaction hands-free, and allows you to spend your time where it is needed most. (Like with your family/friends/dog/xbox.)

3. Most ebooks and software with Master Resale Rights have a pre-made sales page. This alone could save you hours of frustration. Every webmaster knows creating a good sales page is a difficult task, but most resale rights packages have already done this for you. Most of the sales pages are written by professionals and are very well done. Because of this, most do not require any changes however, you do have the option of editing the sales page to your liking if you feel it needs some touch ups to really shine.

4. You keep 100% of all profits earned. Unlike affiliate programs where you get only a percentage of each sale, with master resale rights you get to keep all of your profits. You only pay a one time fee to acquire the product and resale rights, then you will never have to pay another dime again. There are no royalties or other fees to pay either. Why join an affiliate program that gives only 30% commissions, when you can have 100% of all profits made by your site with the same amount of effort?

5. You can repackage your Master Resale Rights products. You can create an entirely unique, “brand new” package by combining 2 or more ebooks together to create a resale rights package that is exclusive to you and your site. This gives you an advantage over every other site selling similar products, by making your packages unique. This uniqueness gives your package more value, making the customer more likely to purchase from you.

As you can see, master resale rights are a very profitable business solution for any web business, or it can be a valuable addition to any existing web site looking to branch out to improve its bottom line. With billions of dollars in annual sales of ebooks, software, and information products, there is not an easier way to make money from an already popular trend in online marketing.

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Submit Freely. Much of the work posted online bearing my name is freely shared. I do not get paid for what I write. I look at article marketing as a joint partnership between me and the article directory. They get my articles for redistribution and I get healthy back links to my site. In addition, the article directory can make money off of ads that show up next to my articles such as Google AdSense or Yahoo! Publishing Network type ads. Furthermore, I get my name out there and can point potential customers to the article directories to show them how prolific a writer that I am.

Submit Jointly. Some of the articles I have posted online are for clients. They have my name on them as my name is more visible than their name. I write as a “contributing writer” but I am a freelancer, not an employer. I get paid for my work and they get some decent links.

Do Ghostwriting. The overwhelming number of articles I write are ghostwritten. In 2005, I submitted 450 articles to article directories, but another 1200 or so went directly to my clients. When I submit articles jointly, I retain the rights to having my name on the articles. When I ghost write, my customers get what I write and retain full rights to the articles. Guess who pays me more? Bring ‘em on!

Bill Immediately. You can write like crazy for paying customers but still end up broke. How? By not billing customers immediately. Whether you use direct billing, Paypal, or an “agent” such as Guru, you are penniless until the first invoice is paid. Come up with a plan to get your money as soon as possible too. You don’t want to have to wait for weeks unless you like being in the credit business!

Keep Marketing. I have busy times I have slow times. During the slow times, I catch up on my paperwork and I write. During slow times I submit many articles to the article directories to keep my name out there. Regular submissions keep me “front and center” and help build up SEO for my site. Yes, I have my own site at www.thearticlewriter.com where most of my best work is featured. Not every article, but those articles where I have full rights to them and ones I want my customers to look at when they review my portfolio.

So, that’s it. Five simple tips to help you make a living from article marketing. If you are good at it, you will make a decent living writing for others. I doubt you will get rich unless article marketing ends up being a stepping stone to something else — such as, writing your own Harry Potter style series of books!

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