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Where to position your free reports in your site to promote your affiliate products

There are so many ways to promote products in the marketing affiliate world. Some marketers have even gone to the extent of establishing ridiculous and weird promotional strategies for their products. Although it might be true that these strategies work, for the better part, to successfully promote in the affiliate marketing world need not be that extreme. All you need are to establish the right kinds of non-extremist strategies of promoting, push through with them, and you will soon have success at the tips of your fingers.

It is an established fact that affiliate marketers do not sell as much by trying to convince prospective buyers to purchase your product just once. Affiliate marketing finds its success in follow-ups and consistent promotions, and what better way to do this than free reports?

Prospects subscribe to your free reports due to the following reasons: first, is that before subscribing, they aren’t exactly sure if they want the product just yet, however, they might consider buying if they found something about the product that would be of benefit to them; and second, is that they are planning to buy the product, however, they want to know more about it before they do. Either way, your free reports have goals, and those are to promote your product and convince your prospects to buy them.

This might lead you to think that by making your free reports, you should focus on the content and nothing more. However, the positions of your free reports on your affiliate marketing sites are just as important as the content. Of what use would the content of your free reports be if your prospects have no means of getting to them? The strategies you employ in positioning your free reports should be as extensive as the strategies you employ in making them. This article will guide you through the most strategic places for you to position your free reports on your affiliate marketing site.

POSITION YOUR FREE REPORTS AT THE UPPER PART OF YOUR PAGE

Prospects have the tendency to be impatient, and if they have to get to the bottom of a page before they could have access to your free reports, you might as well say goodbye to future profits. Place your reports where your prospect buyers can easily see them. Anywhere on the upper part of the page is fine, however, many would suggest that placing free reports on the upper left part of a page is more conspicuous. Place your free reports where they can easily be seen, but aren’t too distracting (too much distraction might make your prospects hate your site and lead them to never come back).

POSITION YOUR FREE REPORTS AT STRATEGIC LOCATIONS IN YOUR ARTICLES

Take note of the word “strategic.” Strategic does not include placing links to your free reports at every end of your sentences. Placing 3-5 links to your free reports throughout a 500-word article should be good enough. Make sure your links also fit well. It would be such a waste of a good article and good free reports if you don’t know how to position them. Position links to your free reports in a consistent but not bothersome manner. Consistency is good for the impatient prospective buyers, however too much of it might just piss him or her off.

PROVIDE LINKS TO YOUR FREE REPORTS ON YOUR CONTACT US PAGE

Some would say “no” to this, but if you do this correctly, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. The main objective of a “contact us” page is to contact the affiliate marketer. However, it wouldn’t do any harm to place a little link that would provide means for the affiliate marketer to contact the prospective buyers through free reports. If you do decide to place links to your free reports in your Contact Us page, remember what the page is made for. Never ever forget, or you might risk chasing prospective buyers away.

Positioning your free reports throughout your affiliate marketing site is all about strategy. Location, location, location. Too little of those powerful links might lead to your prospect buyers to simply overlook them, and too much might lead them to simply run away and never come back. So strategize, and strategize well.

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Free reports are the best follow-ups invented by the affiliate marketing world. Rare are the instances wherein you get to establish a sale just by a few convincing words on your pre-seller site, and so follow-ups are crucial. Some prospects need a little more courting before they finally make a decision of buying your product, and this is where free reports come in.

Free reports can contain everything and anything under the sun about your products, however, doing just that might spoil your chances of ever closing sales with your ever choosy prospects. In order for your free reports to bring you the results you want, and that is to increase your sales, you must focus on highlights instead of on complete information regarding the products your prospects might either already know or aren’t interested to know. Highlighting the right things will eventually make your prospects say “yes” to your products.

We like to buy products that are beneficial to us, therefore, you should HIGHLIGHT THE BENEFITS YOUR PRODUCT OFFERS in your free reports. The chances that your prospects already know of the advantages of buying your product are high. It is more likely that these benefits are the reason behind their subscribing to your free reports.

But it wouldn’t hurt to constantly remind them of what they are missing out on, and what they can gain if they buy your product. Just remember to repackage the benefits you highlight once in a while, for no one likes reading the same things over and over again. Lastly, remember that although more benefits mean increased sales, don’t overdo and exaggerate.

Next, you might want to INCLUDE TESTIMONIALS in your free reports. Your prospects need to be reminded that your products can make real people happy, and that it can make them happy, too. Highlight testimonials you feel your prospects can relate most to. Again, no one likes to read the same things over and over again, and so vary the testimonials you place on your free reports. Another mistake affiliate marketers do with their free reports is that they bombard it with too many testimonials, especially if the product is worth testifying for. Highlighting 3-5 testimonials per free report is good enough.

Prospects sign up for free reports because they want to know more about the product, so HIGHLIGHT ANY DEVELOPMENTS ON YOUR PRODUCT in your free reports. Highlight any upgrades your products might have recently experienced, recent findings regarding the features and benefits of the products, and reviews reputable people, groups, and organizations have made on your product. Again, be varied. You’ll never know what developments will catch the eye of your prospects, and bring you the increase in sales you have always wanted.

However, knowing what to put in your free reports is not enough. Your reports should contain certain characteristics that would turn your prospective buyers into buyers. If you want more sales than just a meager month’s worth of groceries and bills, then you should also take note of the following characteristics your reports should have in order to optimize sales.

USE AN ACTIVE VOICE. Tell your prospects what to do, not what they can do. Instead of saying “If you buy this product now, (benefits here),” say “Buy this product now and (benefits here).” This little change can make a lot of difference in your sales. Just make sure you place your commands at the right places.

ADD A LITTLE “SPUNK.” Make your prospects love the things you put in your free reports. Make them laugh, cry, or think. A lot of the right attitude can go a long way, and your prospects are smart enough to determine attitude, even if it’s written. If you make them feel good enough about reading about your product, you might finally get that increased sales you have been longing for.

BE FOCUSED. Do not write about search-engine optimization when you are promoting your products. That also goes for writing about multiple products in one report. Focus on one product only, and make your free reports in such a way that would make your prospects focus on buying your product.

Free reports, again, are one of the best ways to increase your sales, that is, if done correctly. Remember that the goal of free reports is to convince your prospects that your products are what they need or want. If you have to, put yourself in your prospects’ shoes, and focus on what they might like to see in the free reports. Combine that with the tips named in this article, and voila! You have your own recipe for increased sales through free reports.

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How to choose the products to promote.

Affiliate Marketing has become a relatively easy and convenient way of earning money, thus, attracting quite a number of followers. For those who are new to the business, they have quite a lot to learn before they get to reap the bigger fruits of affiliate marketing. In fact, there’s so much to learn, it is quite difficult to focus on where and how to start on your own affiliate marketing venture.

The focal point of affiliate marketing, or of any business enterprise for that matter, is the product. No exchange ever happens if there is no product involved. For those who are new to affiliate marketing, choosing a product to promote might make their head spin like crazy.

The following tips regarding what kinds of products an affiliate marketer should promote are perfect for beginners. For those who are more experience in affiliate marketing, however, do not fret. You might also get a few tips from this article (or this article might just confirm what you already know, which isn’t all that bad, either).

The first step in choosing a product to promote using affiliate marketing is not being too specific just yet. Focus on a certain group of products you might find interesting enough to sell, and soon, we’ll get to the part where you choose the specifics of what you’ll be promoting.

For starters, CHOOSE A TYPE OF PRODUCT YOU BELIEVE IN. Promoting in itself is a great task, perhaps, the main focus of all your affiliate marketing activities. For those who aren’t exactly experts at promoting just yet, you might have to rely on your belief of the product above anything else-the more you believe in the benefits your products have to offer, the easier it would be to promote them. Anyway, if you, a real human being, find your product good enough, you might discover that other human beings find it good enough, too.

For those who are simply starting out, you might find it easier to PROMOTE A PRODUCT THAT IS ALREADY POPULAR. Promote those with brand names that stand out. Competition might be fierce, but since your product has already been able to establish a name on the market, it would be much easier to sell. A few newbie affiliate marketers think that promoting lesser known products would be easier due to the smaller competition.

They can’t be any more wrong. The fact that they are newbies promoting unknown products makes for the worst combination of all. Yes, competition might be fierce, but if you are just as fierce with your marketing strategies and promotions, you will eventually find yourself earning just as well as more experienced counterparts.

DO A “MARKET RESEARCH.” It sounds like an expensive activity to undertake, but it isn’t. All you have to do is be observant. Try to observe people around you: family members, friends, strangers passing you by on the streets, and people you ride with on the public transit. What products are they using?

Put yourself in their shoes and try to think what kinds of products they might like to purchase. Ask them, if you have to. Try to observe how they react to certain product names, and how they do not when it comes to others. You might find yourself flashing a light bulb once in a while. Take advantage of what you have learned. They might come in handy as soon as you gain the information, or at a much later time.

Once you know what kinds of products you would want to promote, it is time to narrow down the list. This might be, initially, a tad confusing, but once you have established the categories of products you would like to promote, this part becomes much easier to undertake.

If you were lucky enough to know the specific product to promote given the tips above, then you might want to try SEARCHING FOR YOUR PRODUCT THROUGH YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SEARCH ENGINES. If you have already set your heart and mind on promoting a certain product, look for it, and try to find out whether the product can be promoted through affiliate marketing.

However, if you are like the rest of affiliate marketers just starting out, and, well, still confused on the specifics of the product you would promote, you might want to JOIN AFFILIATE MARKETING NETWORKS. In this case, search engines are as much your friends as the first case. Find marketing networks that have large product databases, and preferably, do not have any membership fees.

Once you know what products to promote, there should be no turning back. Everything else will fall into place. Though the next steps to finalizing your affiliate marketing venture aren’t exactly walks in a park, at least they are now focused towards a single goal, and that it to successfully promote the products you have just chosen.

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…if you want to increase your sales, that is

The past few decades have bore witness to the internet being one of the best ways to earn money. Improved communication and safer money transfers make it easier for both the sellers and the buyers to indulge themselves in the act of buying online. Thus, the boom of Affiliate Marketing. The main reason why affiliate marketing has become so popular lies on the simple fact that all you have to do is apply for an affiliate program, pay for the program’s fees (if there are any), establish your pre-seller site, and write away. Simple, isn’t it?

Not quite. A number of affiliate marketers do not witness success (or any sales at all) because of the part where they “write away.” Writing for your affiliate marketing site does not require the skills of a Pulitzer Prize winner, but those of a smart affiliate marketer. Your articles need to have certain qualities that would utilize online resources best, and, of course, turn prospects into closed sales. This article brings you five types of articles your affiliate marketing site should have, if you want to increase your sales (which I know you do!).

REVIEWS

People want information. Small is the probability of having a person enter your site and establishing a sale the first time around. They probably didn’t even notice the “sales pitches” you have placed all over your site in the first place-the main thing that must have been going through their minds is that they need the product, and fast! Generally, people hate hard core sales pitches.

They want to know more about the product. So give your prospects what they want. Give them honest and sincere information on your affiliate marketing site in the form of reviews. Be honest with your reviews. Place any cons that might come in buying the product. And since this is an affiliate marketing program, market your product as well. Do so in a way that “promotes” the product and not “sell” it.

BENEFITS

Prospects want to know the features of a product the first time they get around to wanting to buy it. If the features of your products are to their liking, they would want to know more about the products. Let them know more of the benefits, instead of features, that come in buying your product. Your product is not the only one in the market, and it probably has other competition out there that have as good, or even better, features than the one you’re selling. But if you can provide your prospects with more benefits than the competition can, the more likely will these register as sales increase.

COMPARE

If you are confident of your product’s ability to sell in the market, do product comparisons. Also, do so in the fairest way possible. Do not highlight all the cons of the competition while highlighting your own product’s benefits. Highlight the benefits of the other product, then compare in such a way that your product comes out on top. Be smart in selecting which benefits of the competitor’s product you are going to highlight.

If the competitor’s product has qualities that yours can’t beat, then opt to ‘overlook’ that quality, and focus instead on the other product’s benefits which your product can beat. Make sure sales come your way, and not the competitor’s.

TESTIMONIALS

Your prospects need to know that real people are using your products. Find people who can attest to the benefits of your products in the real word. You might want to keep the contact information from previous sales. It would be good if your previous customers can provide you with photos of themselves, alongside the products if possible. Once you can convince your prospects that your products are good enough for real people, your sales have nothing else to do but increase.

NEWS BRIEFS

Keep your affiliate marketing site fresh with news briefs. You might want to include promos, developments, and previously unknown information regarding the product (such as “studies show that this product (benefits of the product)” or “Top Marketing groups regard this product as one of the most revolutionary products of the 21st century”). Keep your news briefs concise-do not bombard it with too much information. If you happen to have a dozen new information regarding your product, post them on your affiliate marketing site as a week’s worth of news briefs.

These types of articles can be used all at once, or in a combination. Choose what best works for your affiliate marketing program, or product, and you can be on your way to claim sales commissions that just keep on increasing.

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Variety is a good thing but when there are so many choices for a single purpose, it can be very confusing. Such is often the case when prospective affiliates try to make their decisions regarding the best affiliate marketing program to use. Since the choice of an affiliate marketing program is critical to your success, find out which among the hundreds now available is the best program to use. Here are some criteria to look for:

The affiliate marketing program is top quality

Always go for the affiliate marketing program that is backed up by a reliable and trustworthy team with the appropriate and sufficient knowledge about the industry. Check the affiliate product and services as well. Are they for real, offer good value and are saleable? Remember that you will be putting your own credibility on the line when you sign up for that program. If it’s trustworthy, then you will be viewed as such as well.

The affiliate product is ‘hot’ or getting there

Stay current on market demands and about the ‘hottest’ and ‘to watch out for’ products. A simple search online will help you find out the kind of things that people are looking for and are willing to buy. There’s a good chance an affiliate marketing program is selling that product. When a product has a high market demand, it’s much easier to sell.

This is good news for you as an affiliate of that program since there won’t be any backbreaking work to do just to get the product off the ground. It will sell on its own or for minimal effort.

The affiliate marketing program pays high commissions

Ultimately, the affiliate’s goal in signing up for an affiliate marketing program is to earn money. In affiliate marketing, earnings come in the form of commissions – usually a percentage off the sale of a product. Why settle for a low-paying program when there are others from which you can benefit more from given the same amount of efforts on your part?

When considering what affiliate marketing program to use, choose those that offer higher commission rates. Good rates range from about 50 percent to 75 percent. If the program pays lower than that, you might want to reconsider. It may not be worth your effort at all.

The affiliate marketing program has a higher than usual conversion rate

Conversion rate refers to the period it takes for a prospect who clicks on an affiliate site to become a paying customer. In affiliate marketing, this can be notoriously fickle, with leads taking as much as 60 days before ever purchasing anything.

A good indication that a particular affiliate marketing program is the best one to use is its high conversion rate. This means that more visitors to an affiliate’s site become buyers. When there are more buyers, an affiliate’s earnings increase.

To find out about their conversion rate, you can check an affiliate marketing program’s website. Some of them publish this information. If not, you will have to test the product yourself using targeted visitors to see how well it performs.

The affiliate marketing program offers full support.
This is an especially important criteria to look for when deciding what affiliate marketing program to use if you’re a beginner. There are many programs that will offer their system and leave you to your own devices without checking in on your progress.

If you’re not a self-starter or are wary of affiliate marketing programs that don’t assist their affiliates, avoid these types. Use affiliate marketing programs that provide sufficient information, training and affiliate support. You will appreciate this extra feature in case you run into a bit of trouble later.

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Another Way to Boost Your Online Income

If one of your goals of being online is to earn an income, still one of the best methods to consider is signing up for one or two affiliate programs. Experienced affiliates are some of the Web’s highest earners and with enough training, support and willingness on your part, becoming involved in an affiliate program may just be one of the best decisions you’ll ever make. And now, here’s another way to boost your income online: web hosting affiliate programs.

What are web hosting affiliate programs?

These are programs that sell web hosting services through members, called affiliates. The market for website hosting is one of the fastest growing industries today, thanks to a robust Web economy and the continuous appearance of numerous websites, both corporate and personal.

How do web hosting affiliate programs work?

They pretty much work in a similar manner to the average affiliate program with the exception that the products they are promoting are web hosting plans. An affiliate earns when his referral purchases a plan from the program.

A good step for a web hosting affiliate would be to create a standalone site or blog that promotes web hosting and attract traffic to that site. However, posting affiliate links consisting of banner ads and text links from an unrelated website could also work.

Who can benefit from web hosting affiliate programs?

From the customer’s side, virtually anyone who has a website or is planning to build one will find web hosting services useful. From the affiliate’s side, it varies greatly – beginner and experienced affiliates, internet marketers, webmasters, web consultants and bloggers will find this opportunity very promising.

How much commission can I expect from web hosting affiliate programs?

Web hosting affiliate programs offer some of the best wallet-friendly commissions in the industry. Commission rates are great, ranging from around $50 to $100+ per successful business referral. That’s considerably larger than other commissions paid through affiliate programs selling more traditional products.

What’s the success rate for affiliates in web hosting programs?

This is a very competitive segment of the industry, which means that once you sign up, you better have a good strategy to back you up. If your idea of earning from these programs is posting an affiliate link on your website and leaving everything to chance, you won’t earn much. If you have a strong game plan, however, a web hosting affiliate program will work well to your advantage.

Some of the web hosting affiliate programs available today include:

Yahoo!

Yahoo’s web hosting affiliate program rewards you for the volume of referrals you bring in. Earnings can range from $60 to about $70 for every successful web hosting customer you refer, although you can also make as much as $100 for each referral if you bring them in by volume.

And here’s more: Yahoo! will pay about 20 percent out of the total sales generated from every domains customer you refer.

LunarPages

If you have your own website, you can set up an affiliate link to LunarPages’ web hosting program site. You’ll earn $65 each time you refer a new customer. You can earn more by referring advertisers to the program. Each new customer referred by these advertisers will bring in an additional $5 per.

Web.com

Web.com is another excellent web hosting affiliate program, offering $80 in commission. If your sales reach over 25 in one month, you can add 12.5%. Over 50, that increases to 50%.

DreamHost

DreamHost offers you two choices for the type of commission you’ll earn: one-time credit for every referral you bring to their web hosting affiliate program or you could choose to earn recurring credits for payments made by your referrals to DreamHost. One-time payments will earn you up to $97 while recurring payments give you 10% off the payment amount of your referrals.

DreamHost is also one of the web hosting affiliate programs that offers a two-tier payment scheme. If your referral brings in their own referrals, you’ll earn a one-time payment of $5 or 5% of these referrals’ payments to DreamHost.

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