How to Use Two Tier Affiliate Programs to Your Advantage

To those who are not familiar with affiliate marketing, two-tier could be a new term to you but to those who are involved in this kind of money-making experience; it could mean a stream of income. Two-tier is an enticing feature of a particular affiliate program wherein, affiliates are allowed to sign-up additional affiliates below them. So that when the sub-affiliates otherwise known as second tier affiliates, earns a commission, the affiliate above receives a commission too.

 

In two-tier system, the first tier of commission is just like in the usual affiliate program. The sole difference is that it has an additional tier/s or sub-affiliates, whereby marketers also gain a commission once the people that the additional tiers referred to the program generate sales. Theoretically, affiliate programs can have multi-tier program with infinite number of tiers, however, there are practical limitations. As tiers increase, the affiliate program draws more webmasters who are mostly interested in gaining profit from other's work and effort.

 

Two-Tier affiliate program is also recognized as Multi-Level Marketing. When you sign-up for an affiliate program, you are identified as the first tier and the person that you have recruited or encouraged to sign up is the second tier. If there are additional tiers, then the system can now be regarded as multi-level marketing (MLM). But today, MLM isn't as effective and successful as it was several years ago. It is because at present, affiliates can freely select from thousands of affiliate programs and they can quickly switch from one program to another.

 

You could probably go wrong if you're thinking that you can depend on your second tier to do the job for you. So if you want to use two-tier affiliate program to your advantage and generate more income by encouraging sub-affiliates to sign-up below you, make sure that you carefully choose your affiliate merchant. Pick those merchants who generate stable stream of high quality products, give high or just commissions, offers real time tracking, furnishes you with a proven and tested advertising arsenal and treat their affiliates very well. You can also sign-up for the merchant who gives high visitors-to-sales conversion rate.

 

It is also advisable if you engage yourself with a web merchant that has a user-friendly website which you can access anytime so that you can monitor your statistics including visits and sales. And if possible, choose the one with powerful marketing tools which you can use in promoting their products.

 

You're just wasting much of your time and effort and worse, damaging your integrity once you promote poor affiliate program because your visitor will surely presume that the product or service you are reselling must be dreadful too. That's the reason why it is important to pick first-rate affiliate programs. Through these, you can not only build up a good relationship with your visitor, but also, you can easily get more tiers to sign-up under you. You should also be cautious of some affiliate programs that give more importance on the profits to be earned in taking on other affiliates than on the income from sales, because you'll just eventually find out that someone has already close those sales without informing you. Usually, this kind of affiliate program offers a very low first-tier payment but a sky-scraping second-tier commission.

 

If you want to start an affiliate program of your own, you surely have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program. Who am I to say which of these two programs are better? But let me tell you the benefits you could get out of two-tier affiliate program.

 

First, your profit will increase due to increased sales from the customers that your second tier has referred. Second, you have a much broader customer base to which you can sell your products and services. Then, you gain more and stable income because the customers referred by your affiliate and sub-affiliates could probably develop a lifetime loyalty on your site and your products. Plus, you have an army of sub-affiliates who will promote and resell your products and services to their visitors and subscribers.

 

Two-tier program has been a proven winner and should be the number one choice for the budding affiliates as well as for the affiliate program managers. When you start gaining profits from your site as well as your tiers, this is now the right time to say that you have used two-tier affiliate program to your advantage.

Top Seven Ways Writing Articles Can Explode Your Business

In today's highly competitive internet universe, the importance of attracting highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be overemphasized. Routing web traffic to your site can be your only means of survival, especially in the cutthroat world of ecommerce. Getting a high search engine ranking can be very difficult. Fortunately, there is plethora of website promotion strategies you can use to drive traffic to your website.

 

There is a wide variety of strategies you can adapt, from paid advertising to affiliate marketing. However, most of these techniques require payment. Nevertheless, there are ways to promote your website and increase your web traffic without spending anything. Writing articles is one of the best web site promotion strategies you can use, and they can be very effective. How, you may ask, can writing articles help improve your web traffic? Here are the top seven ways in which it can help explode your business.

 

1.Reach more people

 

When you write good articles, it would be a shame not to share them with other people. You can post your articles in your website or you can submit them to other sites such as e-zines and online publishers. By submitting your articles to these sites, you give exposure not only to your ideas but also to your website. Simply include a link back to your site or include your information in the resource box. With this, you get exposure and free advertising as well. Submit your articles to popular e-zines and take advantage of their popularity. Other sites who find your article relevant may also link back to you. Thus, you increase your link popularity, which is one of the most important strategies in the internet world. Remember that most people are looking for information online and by filling this need with your quality article; you may reap the benefit of more exposure and higher web traffic.

 

2.Free Advertising

 

Submitting your articles to other websites presents an opportunity to advertise your website without paying exorbitant fees. Although you should avoid marketing language in your articles and make it informative and useful to your readers, you can always include your site's link in the resource box. In addition, by making your article relevant and helpful to your readers, you are making a good impression for your website, which could ultimately lead to a visit and hopefully a purchase. Good quality content in an article is far better and more effective than a few lines of ad space. You have a very special opportunity to presell your product or service to your prospective customer.

 

3.Gain High Search Engine Ranking

 

Create a new web page for your article in your website. Optimize your article to make it search-engine friendly. Use top-ranked keywords and Meta tags that can give your website a high search engine ranking. As soon as you upload your new webpage to your server, search engines will spider through it and you can gain an increase in search engine ranking. Remember that search engine optimized content is a very effective strategy to gain a high ranking in search results.

 

4.Increases Link Popularity

 

Instead of looking for other sites who would want to establish reciprocal links with your site, you can simply submit an article to other sites. Just do not forget to include a link to your site in your resource box. When these websites pick up and publishes your article, you automatically get a link partner. Try to get as many link partners as you can. Link popularity is one of the factors used by search engines in determining search engine rankings. Make your article especially useful and appealing, so that more websites will be encouraged to publish it.

 

5.Optimizes your site for improved search engine ranking

 

By making your site keyword rich, you can greatly improve the search engine ranking of your site. Remember that keyword density is one of the most important factors that search engines use when determining the search engine ranking of site. However, you should always provide relevant, useful and pertinent information. Avoid the temptation of overusing keywords just to gain a high ranking as this may turn off most web surfers. Relevance and quality is still the most important things to consider when writing articles and it will be doubly useful to your site if you make these articles search-engine optimized.

 

6.Establishes a Good Impression and Reputation

 

By writing excellent, original and relevant articles, you not only give your site exposure, you are also creating a good impression on your prospects. Encourage more people to visit your site and do business with you by establishing an impressive reputation through your articles. Be seen as an expert in the field and your will ultimately gain more customers eager to do business with you.

 

7.Enhances your credibility through references and testimonies

 

Certainly, your articles are going to receive feedbacks and testimonies when you publish them in e-zines and free article sites. Record these positive feedbacks and comments and use them as promotional material in your website or in any of your advertising efforts. Your credibility will be greatly enhanced by these feedbacks, as it will create a good impression on your prospects as well as your existing customers. In this highly competitive world, excellent credibility and trust may be the only things you need to attract new customers or make loyal patrons out of your existing customers. Original, relevant, useful and pertinent articles are important tools you should utilize to improve and explode your business

How To Continually Grow Your Affiliate Checks

The promise of earning profits without really doing much of anything has enticed a lot of people towards affiliate marketing.  But does affiliate marketing really work this way?

 

As an affiliate, all that is required of you is to simply place the merchant's ad on your website.  Then after that, you virtually do nothing but wait for anyone to click on the merchant's ad and later collect your profits.  Easy, right?  Well, not quite often.  Many affiliates earn almost nothing from their affiliate programs simply because they do nothing.  Remember that affiliate marketing is but another form of marketing, and you'll definitely need to market your merchant's product for you to earn something.

 

Successful affiliates in any affiliate program simply don't sit there and wait for money to come.  Why?  Because there is no money in simply sitting and waiting.  If you want to be successful in affiliate marketing and if you want to continually grow your affiliate checks, you've got to do something.  Think of ways on how to promote your merchant's business and products better.  Think of ways on how to induce other people to click on the link or ad provided to you by your merchant.  Think of ways on how to make your affiliate sales increase!

 

So if you're new in affiliate marketing and you try to follow the easy go lucky pit that most unsuccessful affiliate marketers follow, then you're definitely on the wrong track.  But we're not advising you to stop right there.  No.  Rather, we want you to take some steps to make your affiliate program work better and gain more commissions for you.  How?  Here are a few guidelines that may help you to continually grow your affiliate checks:

 

* Become an expert on your affiliate product.

 

You can promote your merchant's product better if you know a lot of things about it.  To become an expert, the best thing you can do is purchase your merchant's product yourself.  This way, you can tell your customers about your first-hand experience using the product.  You can even write a testimonial or a personal endorsement ad about it.  But if any condition does not permit you to purchase the product, you can at least make a thorough research about it.

 

* Host your own website.

 

Or at least have a domain name that is short and easy to remember.  You certainly wouldn't expect a visitor to remember a very long and incomprehensible URL.  And if that's so, you also wouldn't expect him to visit your website any time soon.  That means less traffic for your page and the less chance for your affiliate ads and links to be clicked.

 

It is also a good idea to create a private website and offer access to it to anybody who clicks on any of your affiliate ads.  Visitors usually get interested with these private websites.  Private websites also gives you a venue to promote your back-end affiliate products.

 

* Write your own affiliate ads.

 

Many merchants usually wouldn't mind if you write and design your own ads for their products, for as long as you ask permission from them and present them your ad before posting it on your site.  This gives you a greater advantage over a lot of other affiliates who must be advertising the same affiliate products.

 

* Participate in chat rooms, discussion boards, and forums related to your product.

 

If you use to ignore them before, then it is time for you to start focusing your attention on them.  You can start your own chat or join an existing chat related to your product.  You don't have to promote your affiliate product at once, but find the chance to advertise and promote it as you go along.  The same would be true for message boards, discussion boards and forums.

 

* Create a free ezine or newsletter.

 

Ezines and newsletters are periodical publications whose aim is to inform a group of people about a certain subject.  In your ezines and newsletters, you don't always have to promote your merchant's product for this may greatly annoy your subscribers.  Rather, find a way to insert your affiliate ads and links on some portions of the letter.  Also, don't forget to promote your ezine or newsletter on your website.

 

These are but a few guidelines on how you can increase your affiliate sales and continually grow your affiliate checks.  Sure there can be a lot of other tips that out there, and if you think they would work, we won't discourage you from following them.  What's important is that you be able to find a way to: attract more traffic to your site, induce your visitors to click on the ads on your site, and be able to promote your merchant's products even outside the boundary of your website.  If you can do these, there's no reason for you to fail in affiliate marketing.

Making Money Selling Other People's Products

A lot of people are now getting into online businesses and online marketing either to supplement their "real world" income or for it to become their primary source of income.  Why?  Because online marketing just provides them a lot of benefits!

 

First, you can reach just about anybody in the world who has Internet access if you market your products online.  That means a wider market for you, which can translate to larger profits.  Second, setting up an online business requires only a fraction of the cost required to set up an actual business establishment, which means a lot of savings for the business owner.

 

Another aspect that has attracted a lot of people towards online marketing is the fact that one doesn't have to have his own products to get started.  In online marketing, one can start making a lot of money just by selling, or even by just trying to sell, other people's products.  And getting started with this kind of marketing strategy is actually quite easy.  All that one needs to do is to set up an agreement with an online retailer or merchant, and after everything is settled, one can immediately start making money by selling the merchant's or the retailer's products.
 
Incidentally, the most popular and the fastest growing method of selling other people's products online is affiliate marketing.  Affiliate marketing, in its simplest definition, is a relationship between an online merchant or retailer, who has products to sell, and his affiliates, who are willing to promote the merchant's product on their website.

 

In a typical affiliate marketing set up, the merchant provides his affiliates with banners and text ads that links to his site.  The affiliates will then get these ads posted on their website and they get paid whenever traffic or sales is directed to the merchant's website.  Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other online merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee for the affiliate's compensation.
 
Starting to make money online with affiliate marketing is relatively quick and easy.  All that one has to do is to sign up as an affiliate for an online company that offers affiliate programs.  An alternative method, and usually an easier one, is to sign up as a member of an affiliate network—a network that hosts a variety of affiliate programs for different online merchants or retailers.  Signing up is usually free, although other companies and networks may require you to pay a particular fee.  Such fees, however, are made as payment for additional services that the company may render, like providing you with tools and assistance to jumpstart your online business.

 

When you sign up with an affiliate marketing program, you are usually required to fill out a form containing information about yourself.  Some affiliate programs may also require you to present the URL of your website and describe its contents.  This will allow the retailers to verify that you actually have a website with contents that are relevant to their products.  Some affiliate programs, however, won't require you to have a website.  After filling out the form and all, you are then allowed to choose the affiliate programs you want to promote.

 

After signing up with an affiliate program and being an actual affiliate, you are now ready to start making a lot of money by selling other people's product online.  How do you make money?  There are actually a number of ways for you to earn money as an affiliate, and most of these ways depends on the type of affiliate marketing program you've gotten into.

 

Many affiliate marketing programs compensate their affiliates in either of three ways: pay-per-click (PPC), pay-per-sale (PPS), or pay-per-lead (PPL).  In pay-per-click affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever he directs traffic to the merchant's site.  PPS and PPL affiliate marketing programs work rather differently.  In PPS, the affiliate only gets paid when his referral converts into an actual sale.  In typical PPS affiliate programs, the affiliate would usually get 15% to 20% commission for each conversion.  PPL affiliate programs work the same way, although affiliates are paid a fixed fee whenever his referral converts into a lead for the company.

 

Some affiliate marketing programs are two-tier programs, wherein the affiliate is also allowed to recommend other affiliates to the merchant.  In such affiliate programs, the affiliate would not only be paid for the traffic or sales that he would direct to the merchant's site but also for the traffic or sales directed by the affiliates who signed up with the program through his recommendation.

 

Yet another way of earning more profits with affiliate marketing is through residual affiliate programs.  Residual affiliate programs are affiliate programs where the affiliate gets paid a number of times for as long as the merchant keeps the customer the affiliate has referred to his site.  One form of residual program gets the affiliate paid a commission every time the referred customer purchases something on the merchant's site.  Another form of residual affiliate program gets the affiliate paid a percentage every month for as long as the company keeps the referred customer.

 

With a lot of options available and a lot of ways to earn money, affiliate marketing is undoubtedly the most popular and the easiest way to make money by selling other people's products online.  As to how much money one can get from affiliate marketing actually depends on the affiliate.  A dedicated and hardworking affiliate would certainly get more from the program compared to those affiliates who would simply sign up and forget about the program later.

are affiliates in demand?

Is there a demand for affiliate marketers today? Yes, there is a huge demand. One of the challenges faced in the affiliate marketing industry is that it sometimes sounds too good to be true: advertising that's guaranteed to work or it's free! Newcomers wonder if it's possible, and skeptics claim that the cost effective prices of affiliate marketing lower the bar for online advertising. But there is a good reason that affiliate marketing has experienced steady growth throughout the ups and downs of online advertising—it works. And affiliate marketing has evolved to become a reliable source of sales for a wide range of marketers.

 

Affiliate marketing has evolved from the early years when some touted it as the future of online advertising, and others claimed it was the downfall of the medium. It's now a sophisticated channel that generates anywhere from five to 25% of online sales for many of the world's biggest brands.

 

Almost all major multi-channel marketers have an affiliate program of some kind. The important thing to remember is that affiliate programs now come in all shapes and sizes. The concept of a wide-open affiliate program with an unlimited and uncontrolled number of affiliates is a thing of the past. Nearly all marketers agree that affiliates add value to an online marketing effort, but the program must be tailored to meet the marketer's objectives.

 

Affiliate marketing did not bring an end to other, higher priced forms of online media advertising.  The success of the affiliate marketing in delivering sales cost effectively by way of a pay-for-performance model paved the way for other forms of performance-based advertising, such as CPA-based search and portal advertising, to create acceptance among direct marketers. Affiliate marketing has evolved, with affiliates and marketers becoming more sophisticated and programs more integrated with other forms of online marketing.

 

 

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what is affiliate marketing?

What exactly is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is the single fastest growth industry on the Internet. It's also true that affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and most creative ways to make money and have a career on the Internet.

 

Simply put, affiliate marketing is selling products on a commission basis. You own a business that advertises and sells products for other companies. You may have a product of your own to begin with or not. The things that a successful affiliate marketer must have are:

 

1. Your website is the jumping off point of all your marketing efforts. So the first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. You must build a user-friendly website, which will attract your prospects and motivate them to click on the links to the products and services you are promoting and make a purchase. There are companies whose business is building websites that you can hire to build one for you.

 

2. You must find products to sell, you must be able to determine whether there is a demand for those products and if people will actually buy them.  You may either have your own original product or products that are made by others. Which ever way you go, you must believe in the products.

 

3. It will be necessary for you to become an adept advertiser and be able to tell whether the advertising you are paying for is producing more income for you than the advertising is costing you.

 

4. It is necessary that you have good mathematical skills. You will need to be able to track your sales and determine profit, as well as, see to it that your suppliers are paid in full and on time.

 

5. You need the full and unwavering support of your family so that you can devote the time and energy necessary to launch your affiliate marketing business.

 

 

 

 

Which Affiliate Networks To Look Out For When Promoting

There are many horror stories about affiliate programs and networks. People have heard them over and over again, that some are even wary of joining one. The stories they may have heard are those related to illegal programs or pyramid schemes. Basically, this kind of market does not have real, worthy product.

 

You do not want to be associated with these schemes. It is obvious you want to be with a program that offers high quality product that you will readily endorse. The growing number of those who have joined already and are succeeding immensely is proof enough that there are reliable and quality affiliate programs out there.

 

Why participate in an affiliate program?

 

It allows you to work part-time. It gives you the opportunity to build a generous residual income. And it makes you an owner of a small business. Affiliate programs have already created lots of millionaires. They are the living testimony of how hard work; continuous prospecting, motivating and training others pay off.

 

If ever you are deciding to join one, you must take note that you are getting into something that is patterned to what you are capable of. This will be an assurance that you are capable of doing anything to come out successful.

 

How do you choose a good affiliate program to promote? Here are some tips you may want to look over before choosing one:

 

1. A program that you like and have interest in. One of the best ways of knowing if that is the kind of program you wish to promote is if you are interested in purchasing the product yourself. If that is the case, chances are, there are many others who are also interested in the same program and products.

 

2. Look for a program that is of high quality. For instance, look for one that is associated with many experts in that particular industry. This way, you are assured that of the standard of the program you will be joining into.

 

3. Join in the ones that offer real and viable products. How do you know this? Do some initial research. If possible, track down some of the members and customers to give you testimonial on the credibility of the program.

 

4. The program that is catering to a growing target market. This will ensure you that there will be more and continuous demands for your referrals. Make inquiries. There are forums and discussions you can participate in to get good and reliable feedbacks.

 

5. A program with a compensation plan that pays out a residual income and a payout of 30% or more would be a great choice. There are some programs offering this kind of compensation. Look closely for one. Do not waste your time with programs that do not reward substantially for your efforts.

 

6. Be aware of the minimum quotas that you must fulfill or sales target that is too hard to achieve. Some affiliate programs imposes pre-requisites before you get your commissions. Just be sure that you are capable of attaining their requirements.

 

7. Select one that has plenty of tools and resources that can help you grow the business in the shortest possible time. Not all affiliate programs have these capacities. Make use you decide on one with lots of helpful tools you can use.

 

8. Check out if the program has a proven system that can allow you to check your networks and compensation. Also check if they have it available online for you to check anytime and anywhere.

 

9. The program that is offering strong incentives for members to renew their membership each time. The affiliate program that provides continuous help and upgrades for its products have the tendency to retain its members. These things can assure the growth of your networks.

 

10.  Be aware of the things that members are not happy about in a program. Like with the ones mentioned above, you can do your checking at discussion forums. If you know someone in that same program, there is ho harm asking if there are many downsides involved.

 

Have a thorough and intensive knowledge about the affiliate program and network you will be promoting on.

 

Knowing the kind of program you are getting yourself into will make you anticipate and prevent any future problems you may encounter.

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