Totally Business

By Daryl Campbell

If you hang around any traffic exchange long enough, you see it. No matter what product or service is being offered, the vast majority of affiliate marketers are promoting the exact same website provided by whatever merchant they are affiliate advertising. By doing this they are violating the most important rule of affiliate internet marketing:

Not having their own website.

Using the same page as everyone else is the equivalent of betting on the roulette wheel in Vegas. You are hoping that visitors will select your affiliate site from among the other copycats.

Depending on how many affiliates are in your particular program the odds will increase against you.

That is not the only problem. By sending people straight to the main affiliate page without capturing their name and contact information, it is a good bet that you will never see them again. That can be a major blow to your affiliate business, especially if you have other products and services to promote which may have been of interest to your visitors.
Yes there are affiliates who have achieved success almost instantly just by sending visitors to the main sales page. This does not apply to the overwhelming majority. Affiliate business like any business requires patience, hard work and various other factors to numerous to mention. But one of the most important ingredients to online success is to get your own website. So how do you go about creating your affiliate internet marketing website?

1. Decide Beforehand the Affiliate Marketing Program You Want to Promote

Pretty basic right? You would be surprised at how many affiliates do not research their product and target market. Many do not even ask themselves are they really interested in the product or service. Beware of choosing an affiliate program just because it offers a big commission. If you cannot work up any enthusiasm about the product then your visitors will probably feel the same way.

2. Name that Host

Pick an appropriate domain name and title for your website. Do some keyword research using Overture. Now the tendency is to pick the keywords with the highest search results. Avoid this, particularly if you are just launching your affiliate site. High search volume means more competition.

For instance according to the latest Overture results, online dating is searched for 322,178 times per month. But the keyword web dating has only 6,135 searches per month. That means a lot less competition while still having the potential to draw steady web traffic to your affiliate site that can make you a nice profit.

As for your webhost, the requirements should be space (depending on how many affiliate sites you want), customer support, very little downtime and the extension; com, org, net or ws. Get a dotcom if possible. Since it is the most prominent, search engines tend to give dotcom more weight although some marketers are reporting equally good results using dotorg.

3. The Content Easy Site

This is what your affiliate site is all about. Not just a sales page but a content rich site that is easy to navigate. As you learn more about building affiliate sites you can add flash and other media but even then your number one priority will remain site content.

There is plenty of free software that will help you build web pages so you do not have to be an expert. Just start out with a basic design that has clearly readable text and an image of the product or service you are offering. The important thing is to fill your website or blog with tips, articles and news about your niche or related topics. Write as much of your own content as possible (however there is plenty of free information online you can use) and update your site on a regular basis. Turn your affiliate web pages into an authority site.

Make sure when you do build your affiliate site, you have a way to capture your visitors name and contact information. Offer a free ebook or instructional video to entice people. Also give them a promise that you will not spam them or sell their contact information to a third party. Build trust so people will be open to any future offers you may present to them.

No one can guarantee that just by creating your own affiliate site you will be successful. But you can go along way in separating yourself from the pack and exploding your affiliate business by getting your own website now.

Daryl Campbell is an online business owner and affiliate marketer. Get more free information including tips, articles, step by step video coaching and up to the minute news to help you grow your internet business the right way. Check it out now at Internet Marketing Guide

Written by A. Adams

First it was banner ads, then Google AdSense and now, the latest way to make money on your web site could very well be RSS feeds. Say what? I said: RSS is hot and you should be using it to drive eyeballs to your site. Here's how it works:
Depending upon who you ask, RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary". Regardless of what you call it, RSS is a way to automatically publish (syndicate) someone else's content on your web site. Now don't worry, that's not the same as stealing someone else's content.

There is nothing illegal about using RSS feeds. In fact, the publisher of the content wants you to have it show up on your site and that's why he or she makes it available as an RSS feed to begin with.

So what's in it for all parties concerned?

Using RSS is a win-win for both the publisher of the content, who gets their name out to potentially millions of sites and you, the web site owner who is pulling the content onto your site.
Content, by the way, means anything that a publisher decides it means. Typical content includes news headlines, new product update notices, blog summaries and lots of other stuff. It's the "content" portion of the equation that's good news for you.

Show me the money

One of the best features of hosting RSS feeds is that it gives your site an endless source of freshly updated and relevant content. This content acts as natural search engine spider bait which they will fill their little tummies on and come back for more every day. Their appetite for fresh content keep your rankings up.

Sticky Loyalty isn't a new Ben & Jerry's flavor, but it should be the goal of any serious webmaster who wants to create a web site that visitors return to over and over again. The use of carefully selected RSS feeds can make that happen by offering unique content which can't be found anywhere else.

Now please don't make the mistake of thinking "But they can get that same content at the publisher's site, why should they come to mine?". Just build it and they will come! Sorry, I couldn't resist saying that, but it's true. In addition to the RSS content, which they surely can get somewhere else, you are going to add your own sticky loyalty stuff that's all about whatever your site is all about to begin with. That combination of your own content and the RSS feed makes visiting you a purely unique experience that can't be found anywhere else.

You don't have to be a member of the Geek Squad to start showing RSS feeds on your site. Just visit any of the links below and get busy using RSS to make mo' money.

RSS Content Builder: http://shoppingontheweb.biz/RSSContentBuilder.html
RSS and Blogs Feeds Submit: http://shoppingontheweb.biz/RSSandBlogsFeeds.html