The main question I get from my clients when coaching them on building content sites is wether they should use Adsense or affiliate programs. It’s a great question, and one that I haven’t seen addressed often. Hopefully this information will help you in making your decision.

My rule of thumb is always go where the money is, but in making the decision to use Adsense or affiliate programs, there are a few things you should look at. Let’s take a look at those things right now, so you know exactly what you should be putting on your site. Google Adsense or affiliate programs.

First, it will depend on your niche. If there is an affiliate program for your niche that converts well and pays well, then you should take the affiliate program route. I’m sure you would rather make dollars than you would cents, so using an affiliate program in this situation would be your best bet. However, if there isn’t an affiliate program, using a pay-per-click service such as Google Adsense will at least allow you to earn a little money from your content site.

This leads to another question though. How do you tell if the affiliate program you are looking at is a good one or not?

The answer to that question will take some research, but will be well worth your time. The first thing to do is to contact the site owner or affiliate manager and ask what the average conversion rate is for the affiliate program. You could also ask if they have any affiliates that would be willing to email you their experiences with the product. Once you have the answer to that question, visit a few affiliate marketing forums and ask if anyone has promoted the program before or if they have any experience with the owner or affiliate manager of the site. Usually if it’s a bad program, many people will tell you about it.

Now, if you don’t find any affiliate programs for your niche, then I would use Google Adsense or any of the other programs like it. Always check though to make sure you can’t make more money from something else. You don’t want to be making pennies on a site you could be making dollars from. Most of the time Google Adsense just pays pennies per click. So if you got 100 clicks on your Adsense ad, and made say $5, but you got 100 clicks on an affiliate link and made $50, wouldn’t it make more send to use the affiliate link on your site?

Using this as a guide will help you, but you still must test and track what works best for your site. You could put Adsense ads on your site for a few weeks, and then replace them with affiliate links for a few weeks. See what does better, and use the one that makes you more money. Just remember to keep testing and tracking!

Liz Tomey runs an affiliate marketing website that focuses on educating people about the different ways of making money through affiliate marketing.You can enjoy reading tips, tricks, and other information about affiliate marketing and finding the best affiliate marketing program on her site at http://www.TheAffiliateMarketingBlog.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Liz_Tomey

Business opportunities are found all around the Internet and even in the offline world. Everyone is telling you that you can make money this way and that way, but the real truth is that it’s very hard to make a living from having your own home business buying or selling business opportunities.

Don’t let that discourage you from having your own business though. There are several ways to make money with an online business without getting caught up in all the business opportunities.

For several years I bought into several business opportunities, and made some money, but lost a lot more than I made. I was determined to make money by having my own business. I also wanted my business to completely be run from the Internet. The regular brick and mortar stores off the offline store didn’t fit my startup budget, and they overhead of inventory that comes along with a regular offline business way exceeded my budget. The truth is, I didn’t have much of a budget when I first started my online business.

When I started looking for inexpensive ways to make money, I hit on the subject of residual income. I found that I could promote products and services, and be paid from each sale over and over again without having to make any other sales.

For instance, I first started promoting a web hosting company. I was designing web pages at the time so when I would get a web design client I would refer them to the web hosting company I was promoting and I got a percentage each month of the customer’s monthly hosting bill.

At the time, the hosting company I was promoting was charging $30 a month for hosting. So, each month I got 30% ($9) for each person that signed up for hosting with the hosting company I was promoting. Within six months, I had signed up 80 people for hosting services with this company and was making $720 promoting only this one hosting service each month.

$720 a month isn’t going to get you rich, but it paid my car payment and my wife’s car payment each month! Think what you could do with extra money each month by just having one product or service that you promote. It took me only 6 months to start making $720 a month, and in another 6 months, I had signed up 63 more people for hosting services with this hosting company I was promoting. I was making $1,287 a month within a year.

The great thing about residual income programs is that you can make one sale to someone, and can be paid ongoing payments from that one person. Multiply that by selling to others one time, and you will have a nice stream of residual income just like I did by promoting one time.

Isn’t that better than trying to promote a product or service you only get a one-time payment for? Of course it is because you don’t have to do as much work.

Having an online business is all about how you can make the most money on autopilot. You could even keep your regular job and use promoting residual income programs as a part time job. I’ve even known people who have built their own residual income streams up so well that they were able to quit their regular job and live nicely off their residual income streams. They didn’t even have to spend more time on their residual income streams because they already had their residual income streams built.

As you can see, if you really want to make money online, investing time into finding a residual income program to promote is the way to go. Forget all the tricks and tips you’ve heard or read, just do what works!

Liz Tomey runs an affiliate marketing website that focuses on educating people about the different ways of making money through affiliate marketing.You can enjoy reading tips, tricks, and other information about affiliate marketing and finding the best affiliate marketing program on her site at http://www.TheAffiliateMarketingBlog.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Liz_Tomey

Once you’ve gone through all your options to make money online, and then made the decision to become an affiliate marketer there’s one more thing you must do. That’s to test yourself to see if you have what it takes. You may think it’s going to be super easy, and that the checks will come rolling in. You may think all of this because as an affiliate marketer, there are no bosses to order you around. You may think there are no deadlines to meet and not much work to do. That’s all mainly true, and all you basically need are the right tools, and the right mindset.

Getting the right tools is the easy part, but the right mindset sometimes can be the hard part. There are a few things you must realize before getting into the affiliate marketing business. Once you can say yes to these few things, it’s time to grab your tools and get to work!

First, you must be willing to learn and try new things. Affiliate marketing is an ever changing business, so you have to constantly be educating yourself on different techniques and strategies to keep yourself making money. You can do this by reading affiliate marketing blogs and newsletter from other successful affiliate marketers. You can also continue educating yourself by buying information products that educate you on affiliate marketing. However you do it though, you need to know that affiliate marketing requires an on going education.

Another thing you must realize is the fact that making money with affiliate marketing does take time and effort. You can’t just pick a product, throw it out there, and expect the money to start coming in. It does take time to learn all the ins and outs, and also a lot of effort on your part. If you come into affiliate marketing with the mindset that you’ll be able to work 2-3 hours per week and make a good living, you need to find something else to do because you’ll never be successful with affiliate marketing.

Probably the most important thing you need to remember when deciding to become an affiliate marketer is self determination. As I said above, it does take time and effort to learn, and if you don’t have a “never give up” attitude and the willingness to push yourself even when things aren’t going your way, you will not be successful. You’ve got to push yourself to do better, come up with more ideas, and make more money!

Becoming an affiliate marketer means you’re not working for anyone but yourself. Yes, you are promoting other people’s products and/or services, but you’re still working for yourself. You must have self discipline when it comes to working for yourself. I know many times during the warm months I have a hard time sitting down at my desk to work. I’d much rather be vacationing or outside enjoying the weather, but because I have self discipline I am able to focus and keep working. This may be the hardest part of affiliate marketing, but it’s very important. If you can’t make yourself focus on what you’re supposed to be doing, you’ll never get anything done.

All of things things are just part of what it takes to become a successful affiliate marketer. There are a ton of resources online teaching about affiliate marketing, but they never cover the mindset part of it. All of these things are just as important as the tools you use and the strategies and techniques that you put into place with your business. Without the right mindset, nothing else will fall into place, and you’ll find yourself unsuccessful as an affiliate marketer.

So, before going any further in your affiliate marketing career, make sure to read this article one more time. It could save you a lot of stress and heartache on your journey to being a successful affiliate marketer.

Liz Tomey runs an affiliate marketing website that focuses on educating people about the different ways of making money through affiliate marketing.You can enjoy reading tips, tricks, and other information about affiliate marketing and finding the best affiliate marketing program on her site at http://www.TheAffiliateMarketingBlog.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Liz_Tomey

Affiliate marketing is a field that has become more and more attractive to people. It is a wonderful way to make money equivalent to a full-time job at home via the internet. It is beneficial to both merchants and marketers alike. However, there are strategies that should be employed to be successful. Unfortunately, too many jump in without knowing just what can cause them to fail.

The first problem many people run into is advertising. Many marketers believe that affiliate programs will help them to “get rich quick” and they fail to put in the effort required to succeed. Advertising, however, is the most important thing you can do in any business. You cannot rely on luck alone. Because of the competition in affiliate marketing, it is imperative that sites be appealing and informative to keep a visitor’s attention, eventually making the sale.

Another reason many people fail at affiliate marketing is a lack of preparation. Research is involved as the affiliate must be knowledgeable about the product he is trying to sell. It helps to be interested in the products you are trying to sell. This interest will help keep you focused during slower periods. It will also make it easier for you to spend the time on learning all you can about the product and keeping updated on changes related to the product and/or industry. Remember that you will be providing information to potential customers and must be as knowledgeable as possible.

Along with lack of preparation when it comes to product knowledge, many people fail to prepare for their website. Your website is the core of your affiliate marketing business. You need to plan the layout, domain, content, and ads that will be included. Remember that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Visitors may leave your site without even looking at your products if you do not have an attractive homepage. Also keep in mind that visitors are looking for information. Provide interesting, relevant content that includes plenty of keywords to help your search results. Finally, keep in mind that you are going to have to prepare to continually update your site to keep visitors coming back again and again.

Above everything else, do not close yourself to more learning. There is always something to learn in affiliate marketing. Whether you are studying up on techniques to increase visitor hits or ways to increase the attractiveness of your site, or simply increase your product knowledge, you are making an investment in yourself and your future. Those who are able to maintain success for the long haul are those who are willing to put in that time and energy.

Whatever happens, do not give up. It is not easy to find quick success with little work. This is no “get rich quick” plan. Keep trying and consider selecting a different program if the one you first doesn’t work for you. There’s no shame in that. Remember, with effort and perseverance, you are on your way to success!

Liz Tomey runs an affiliate marketing website that focuses on educating people about the different ways of making money through affiliate marketing.You can enjoy reading tips, tricks, and other information about affiliate marketing and finding the best http://www.TheAffiliateMarketingBlog.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Liz_Tomey

As affiliate marketers finding affiliate programs can be difficult. By following a few rules, you can find a good affiliate program that pays well, and fits your business. Before you decide on your affiliate program, I have a few things you need to look at before you commit to any one program.

The first thing you want to make sure of is that the affiliate program is reliable in paying you every time and on time. You can do research for yourself by searching the search engines for any information on the affiliate program, or by searching for affiliate program or affiliate marketing forums.

Speaking of money and getting paid, another thing you want to look at is the affiliate programs payment structure and their commission rate. You want to start by looking for high commissions items. However, some of the best affiliate programs are high ticket items that you get a small commission from. You just have to be the judge, and decide how much you want to get paid.

Another thing you want to look for before you decide on any one affiliate program is what kind of statistics that they offer you. Statistics show you how many clicks your link is getting, from where, and how many sales you have made. This is important because you want to know if you are making any money from promoting the affiliate program or not. These statistics can show you if you need to be promoting the product differently, or finding a new product all together.

Probably the most important thing you need to look for when deciding on an affiliate program is the actual product and the site that is selling the product. You need to study both. Make sure the product is a good product. You can do this by either buying it and using it, or searching for reviews of the product. Visit the site where the product is being sold, and make sure that the site does a good job of selling visitors on buying the product. If you feel like you wouldn’t buy the product, chances are that anyone you send wont buy it either.

When choosing your affiliate program, and your new to affiliate marketing, finding ones that offer some kind of affiliate marketing training could be good for you. A site that gives tips and information on making money through affiliate marketing would be perfect for a newbie because they could learn as they promoted the product. Some of these sites will even tell you what their top affiliates are doing to make sales. You can learn from successful affiliate marketers, and do the things they do so that you also could become successful with affiliate marketing. Now this shouldn’t be required, but it is a great benefit that some affiliate programs do offer.

Now I haven’t covered everything you should look at before joining an affiliate program, but these are some of the very important factors you should be looking for. You can’t make money with a bad affiliate program. One that doesn’t pay well, or doesn’t sell the visitors that you send them is something you want to stay away from. There are many affiliate programs online, you just have to do the research to find them, and find the ones that best suit your site or newsletter. Once you can find good affiliate programs, you’ll be on your way as a successful affiliate marketer.

Liz Tomey runs an affiliate marketing website that focuses on educating people about the different ways of making money through affiliate marketing.You can enjoy reading tips, tricks, and other information about affiliate marketing and finding the best affiliate marketing program on her site at http://www.TheAffiliateMarketingBlog.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Liz_Tomey

Many people are lead to believe that the only way to make money online is to have their own product or service. If you believe this, you have been misinformed! There is a wonderful way to make money online without having anything of your own to sell, and that’s via affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is when you are selling a product that belongs to another person or company and they pay you a certain commission for selling their product. There are basically two types of products that you can promote as an affiliate marketer. They are physical and digital products. A physical product will be one that will be shipped to the customer, and a digital product will be one that the customer will be able to download.

From my personal experience, I have made more money as an affiliate for digital products than I have from physical products. The commissions are usually higher (between 50-75%), and I make more sales. So, all around I am making much more money with digital products.

However, there are many affiliate marketers who make a lot of money as an affiliate for those selling physical products. The commissions are usually lower, but the price tags for the products are usually more expensive.

My advice is to look at both digital and physical products and decide what route you want to take. There’s also nothing wrong with being an affiliate for both physical and digital products. By doing this you can even test what makes you the most money, and focus your marketing on the one that makes you the most money.

If you are promoting digital products, there are some great places online to find products that you can instantly sign up to promote for free. Places like Click Bank and Pay Dot Com are the two best places to find digital products that you can promote. They have all products broken up into easy to search categories to help you find exactly what you are looking for.

You’ll never have trouble finding physical products to promote as an affiliate marketer. There are so many sites out there that need affiliates for their physical products, and there are just too many to list. You could try affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Share A Sale, or go to your favorite search engine and search for an affiliate program for a certain product you have in mind.

For instance, if I wanted to search for an affiliate program paying me commissions on computers, I could go to a search engine and type in “computer affiliate program”, and find several different sites with affiliate programs for selling computers. You can do this with anything you can possibly think of to sell.

My advice is to pick one thing to promote, and then focus on learning how to promote it and make the most money that you can. Once you learn the ropes of affiliate marketing, you can then start promoting other products and services to make even more money. That to me is the best part of affiliate marketing. I can add to my income whenever I want just by finding another product to promote.

Now it’s time for you to get started. Pick a topic, and find an affiliate program for that topic. Once you have your product picked, seek out resources that will help you make money from promoting the product. All it takes is you getting started today!

Liz Tomey runs an affiliate marketing website that focuses on educating people about the different ways of making money through affiliate marketing.You can enjoy reading tips, tricks, and other information about affiliate marketing and finding the best affiliate marketing program on her site at http://www.TheAffiliateMarketingBlog.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Liz_Tomey

Autoresponders and Ad Trackers are powerful tools with proper use and management. Without proper use and management they are absolutely Worthless.

They can be the key to a very effective online sales strategy. As with any advertising, there are three keys to success. They are:

1) Test

2) Test

3) Test

Your job as an online marketer is going to be to continually test various subject lines, different copy (the body of your letters) and different offers to see what works best with your particular market.

Why do we test?

The simple fact is whether you are using free advertising, paid advertising, or a combination of the two, my bet is that you don’t really want to waste time OR money on things that just are not working.

If you are running one ad, it is pretty easy to see whether or not that ad is working.

But if you are serious about making a living online, then you are most likely running several ad campaigns at one time. So when the time comes to renew an ad or run it again, how do you know if it is worth running again?

You may be running twenty different ad campaigns including search engines, banner ads, ffa pages, classified ads, discussion forums, and so on. If your sales stats show you that you made three new sales, you really need to know which of those twenty ad campaigns is pulling their weight.

Personally, I run 14 to 20 letters in my Autoresponder. I can tell you EXACTLY which letters produce the best results.

I advertise in a few different ezines and I know EXACTLY which ones will give me reasonable results for different offers.

I know this because I test and I track my results using my AdTracker. You can do the same, if your online business offers an Ad Tracking program. If not, you can get one of the best online Ad Tracking systems along with unlimited Autoresponders at: http://adtrack.trafficwave.net/t.pl/13176/86359

You will need to get into the habit of creating an AdTrack URL for each different ad campaign you are running. It takes just a minute or two and it can really save you a lot of time and money.

Instructions for creating AdTrack URL’s can be found in our members areaunder “Training Articles”.

Here is how I use mine: I like to promote my report page. So I use: http://www.trafficwave.net/members/profitwave/report.html.

But the viewer opens:

http://adtrack.trafficwave.net/t.pl/13176/84812 which counts every open or click through.

I use my Banner Ad, my FFA Page, Guaranteed Visitors, my Signature Files, various classified ads, ezine ads, etc… and they all point people back to my report.html page.

The reason I direct people to my report page is because I want to have names and email addresses that I can follow up with on a regular basis.(over 2,100 leads and growing ain’t half bad!).

But how do I know which of these ad resources gives me the best results?

My FFA Page uses AdTracker #1

My Banner Ad uses AdTracker #2

My Classified ads each use their own AdTracker.

My Ezine Ads each use theier own AdTracker.

I even use a different AdTracker URL for each of my Autoresponder letters so that when someone does click through to my order page, I know exactly which letter got them to respond.

Make sense?

What about ads that don’t produce results?

Personally, I try a few revisions on the ad itself. It could be that this particular ad isn’t appealing to the market that is seeing it. By testing different subject lines, different copy, etc… I can do some testing to see if that same market might respond better to a different approach.

If my testing just doesn’t get it done after a while, I drop that resource from my list.

This way, I can focus on the ad resources that I KNOW are working. AND… I can continue to seek out other ad resources along the way.

As you go along, you will begin to see what works best for your offer in various advertising areas and you will begin to build your own list of sites that just “click” for you (no pun intended) and ad copy that really gets you results.

THAT is when you are able to consistently send out offers and reasonably expect a solid return. It’s not a perfect science but it sure helps you narrow your focus and THAT is what makes you successful in this business.

Why not take a moment and enroll for a 30 Day Trial at No Cost.

http://adtrack.trafficwave.net/t.pl/13176/86359

Then, log in to your back office and create a new AdTrack URL for all your Business URLs?

When you go to the AdTracker section and click “Create New URL”, a new form comes up on the right of your screen.

Enter the URL you want people to go to when they click the link in your ad. If you are promoting your Business properly (and you should be), that URL will be a Website that allows the viewer to order something or request additional information. Here is my example as shown above:

http://adtrack.trafficwave.net./t.pl/13176/84812

Assign a “Nickname” call it “Capture Page”. This tells you that this AdTracker is tracking the results from your Website ad.

Leave the “Advertising Cost” empty. If you were paying for an ad in an Ezine or a Directory, you could enter the cost of that ad here and this would help you calculate your true cost per response on the ad. Click “Create My AdTracker URL”.

The screen will change and you will see your new AdTrack URL created there. It should look something like this:

http://adtrack.trafficwave.net/t.pl/13176/86376

Copy that AdTrack URL and go to your Promotion Letter or message and insert the Ad Tracker URL. Enter this new AdTracker URL where ever you have your URL in your ad.

Now, when someone clicks that link, the system will add a count of “1″ to your Adtracker stats and send them to your real URL.

This way, you can log in to your back office and see at any time exactly how many people have responded to your Ad message.

See how that works? You can use this same process to create and use an AdTrack URL for each of your Promotional letters and any other online advertising campaigns you are going to be running.

Just another Support tool from Action Marketing News.

Yours in success, …Take Action!

Dan Snow, Editor – Publisher

Action Marketing News Ezine

( with credit given to Mr. Brian Rooney, TrafficWave.net )

Affiliate marketing is a method by which an individual gets paid for successfully promoting another persons product or service. This method allows a new internet marketer to make money online with out the headaches of product development, website design, or customer service. The marketer is paid when a particular act such as a submission or purchase is made.

Many merchants are more than happy to split the profits with the internet marketer since the marketer is providing the necessary work and cost to promoting.

There are several e-commerce sites that the new and experienced marketer can join and begin promoting products and services immediately. Affliiate marketing has increased profit margins for some merchants by more than 15-20% and the trend shows no signs of slowing.

Why participate in an affiliate program?

It allows to to become a home based business owner on a part time basis while you get your feet wet. It allows anyone to build a substantial income as indicted by the many millionaires that claim to have found their fortune in affiliate marketing. These results were the product of motivation, prospecting, hard work, and training.

If you are seriously considering affiliate marketing, don’t be mistaken, your results will be directly related to what you are willing to put in it.

Here are the top 5 keys to consider when choosing an affiliate program to promote:

1. A product or service that you like and have interest in.

In other words, would you buy it? This is one of the best indicators of knowing whether this a a good program to promote. If it is a product or service you would purchase then chances are good others will be interested in purchasing it as well.

2. Look for a program that has a few known guru testimonials on it, these will most likely be of high quality.

Most gurus have a reputation they need to protect. Many multi-millionaire gurus got their start as affiliates and often create their own products. These comments give some assurance that the standards of the program are solid.

3. Do a little market research on the products first.

If you can track down a forum and ask the memebers their opinions on the product, do so. These user testimonials are helpful, but be sure to keep in mind that some people just buy to buy and may not give you a fair assessment. Ask a few people so you can get a good idea about the quality of the program or service.

4. The program is in high demand and its market is growing.

This will ensure that you will be able to make money in this program for many months and years to come. Most e-commerce sites track the data on each program offered, do your due diligence. Find those discussion boards and forums mentioned earlier.

5. Great commission splits.

Find a program where the affiliate gets the lion’s share of the profits. There are many programs offering the promoters great ratios. Keep on the lookout for these. Don’t waste your efforts promoting programs that aren’t willing to pay you what you deserve.

Be sure you research your product and use the 5 keys to consider as your guide. You must have the proper training necessary before you start promoting. Although millions can be made in affiliate marketing, only those with the proper skills are successful.

Choosing the right products and services will help you achieve the results you seek in affiliate marketing.

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Briana Scurry is a professional athlete and entrepreneur. Briana uses the same focus and drive that has brought her tremendous success on the soccer field to the internet marketing industry. For over 2 years she has researched the industry’s successes and failures, has personally invested in several affiliate marketing programs and today brings her knowledge and experience to you, the reader. Check out http://scubri.thebestbizreview.com