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	<title>Online Smarts</title>
	<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info</link>
	<description>Helping you be smart online</description>
	<pubDate>Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:43:59 +0000</pubDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3</generator>
	<language>en</language>
			<item>
		<title>10 Steps to Successful Selling On Ebay</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/10-steps-to-successful-selling-on-ebay/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/10-steps-to-successful-selling-on-ebay/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:43:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/10-steps-to-successful-selling-on-ebay/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Step 1: Identify your market.
Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn&#8217;t out of the items you&#8217;re interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You&#8217;ll probably see the sweet spots quite quickly - those one or two items that [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <strong>Step 1: Identify your market.</strong><br />
Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn&#8217;t out of the items you&#8217;re interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You&#8217;ll probably see the sweet spots quite quickly - those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.</p>
<p><strong>Step 2: Watch the competition.</strong><br />
Before you invest any money, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.</p>
<p><strong>Step 3: Find a product:</strong><br />
Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to sell, and see what are the best rates you can get. Don&#8217;t be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the eBay prices you&#8217;ve seen are higher than the supplier&#8217;s, then you&#8217;re set.</p>
<p><strong>Step 4: Start small:</strong><br />
Don&#8217;t throw thousands at your idea straight away - get started slowly, see what works and what doesn&#8217;t, and learn as you go. Remember that it&#8217;s very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work!</p>
<p><strong>Step 5: Test and repeat.</strong><br />
Keep trying different strategies until you find something that works, and then don&#8217;t be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you?ve just found a good niche.</p>
<p><strong>Step 6: Work out a business plan:</strong><br />
A business plan doesn&#8217;t need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the market opportunity you&#8217;ve spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.</p>
<p><strong>Step 7: Invest and expand:</strong><br />
This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.</p>
<p><strong>Step 8: Make it official:</strong><br />
Once you&#8217;ve made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Don&#8217;t worry, it&#8217;s not expensive or hard to do - a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.</p>
<p><strong>Step 9: Automate:</strong><br />
You&#8217;ll probably find that you&#8217;re writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.</p>
<p><strong>Step 10: Never give up:</strong><br />
Even when it looks like it&#8217;s all going wrong, don&#8217;t stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you&#8217;ll almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.</p>
<p>Once you get into the swing of things, you might start thinking that you should quit your job and take up eBay selling part time. But it&#8217;s not always as easy as that - there are all sorts of factors that you need to consider.</p>
<p><strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Jane runs the website <a href="http://www.cyberlibrary.biz/" target="_blank">www.Cyberlibrary.biz</a> - an article library and resources directory for webmasters and novices alike.</p>
<p><em>Article Source: <a href="http://www.articlegeek.com/">http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content</a></em></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Great Ideas for your Auction Site Business</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/great-ideas-for-your-auction-site-business/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/great-ideas-for-your-auction-site-business/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:43:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/great-ideas-for-your-auction-site-business/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Finding great items to sell can be difficult for some people. After all, your auction site business depends on great items that you can purchase very inexpensively and sell for a profit. If you are having difficulty finding items online for your auction business, here are some easy tips.
One of the best ways to [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> Finding great items to sell can be difficult for some people. After all, your auction site business depends on great items that you can purchase very inexpensively and sell for a profit. If you are having difficulty finding items online for your auction business, here are some easy tips.</p>
<p>One of the best ways to find a great idea is to check out the auction sites. Many people don&#8217;t realize that great ideas are on practically every page of Ebay. You can easily look at which products are selling, how much they sell for and the average price that they are sold at. Using Ebay is probably the easiest and quickest way to find great products that already have a thriving market.</p>
<p>You can also check out auction site forums. Here many people talk about great products that are hot. There are even auction analysis companies that analyze millions of pieces of data to come up with great items for their customers to sell.</p>
<p>There are many overseas manufacturers and distributors that would love to sell their items to you for a great price, which can be quickly converted into profit. Many of these overseas manufacturers are usually located on large marketplace websites which are easy to find. So if you are looking for great items to sell on auction sites, follow the above tips.<br />
<strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Joel Dresse is the Webmaster of <a href="http://www.auctions-00.com/" target="_blank">www.auctions-00.com</a>, an informative website on auctions.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>One Step Ahead on Ebay!</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/one-step-ahead-on-ebay/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/one-step-ahead-on-ebay/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:43:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/08/18/one-step-ahead-on-ebay/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Selling on Ebay can be a good hobby or a nice profitable business for others. I like to sell on Ebay and other auction sites for both of these reasons. Below I will list some of the things that have helped me out enormously through trial and error.
1. Determine if the product that you [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> Selling on Ebay can be a good hobby or a nice profitable business for others. I like to sell on Ebay and other auction sites for both of these reasons. Below I will list some of the things that have helped me out enormously through trial and error.</p>
<p>1. Determine if the product that you are going to auction is a one time sale or if you have a continuous supply of this item. This means that if it is a one time item that you are going to want to get the best price for it. The best way I found to do this is to put a reserve price on the item close to what you need to get out of it. I know that alot of people say that a reserve price will hinder the chances of selling an item, but it won&#8217;t if you try not to be greedy. If you have a continuous supply of a product, taking a $15-$20 profit is the way to go on something like a $200 Digital camera because you will have many more sales.</p>
<p>2. If you want a steady income on Ebay you need to find suppliers. The best way to do this is to determine what type of product you want to sell, and then start researching what that item is selling for on auction sites. Once you find a supplier that carries your product and you determine that you can profit at least 10% after your listing fees and Paypal fees if any, you are then ready to climb aboard the Ebay bandwagon.</p>
<p>3. The next thing you will want to do once you find the right supplier is to buy a few items to sell. This way you are going to test the suppliers quickness in getting the items to you. Also it is good if the supplier will dropship to your customers. The reason for this is sometimes you may get a item that is broke or scratched and you don&#8217;t realize it until it is time to ship to your customer. A dropshipper can send this item to your customer just like it came from you.</p>
<p>I hope these few little tips will help you get started in a hobby on Ebay or maybe a lucrative business.</p>
<p><strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Kevin Anthony is an Ebay seller who makes a nice living selling consumer electronics. For Ebay products to sell try: <a href="http://www.bestwholesaleelectronics.com/" target="_blank">www.bestwholesaleelectronics.com</a></p>
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		<item>
		<title>How Sneaky Links Increase Your Click-Throughs</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/how-sneaky-links-increase-your-click-throughs/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/how-sneaky-links-increase-your-click-throughs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:08:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/how-sneaky-links-increase-your-click-throughs/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ If you find that your site visitors have developed a high level of resistance to clicking through your affiliate links, you&#8217;re not alone. What is it that makes affiliate links suspicious to people? They&#8217;re certainly not meant to be offensive.
I believe that it&#8217;s the same kind of thing that automatically activates your defenses when [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> If you find that your site visitors have developed a high level of resistance to clicking through your affiliate links, you&#8217;re not alone. What is it that makes affiliate links suspicious to people? They&#8217;re certainly not meant to be offensive.</p>
<p>I believe that it&#8217;s the same kind of thing that automatically activates your defenses when you walk onto a used car lot and are promptly accosted by a guy wearing a green and orange plaid sports coat, pink neck tie and white patent leather lowtops that zip up the side.</p>
<p>Do you hate the feeling that someone is &#8220;selling you&#8221;? I really think that it&#8217;s the same thing when visitors see what&#8217;s obviously an affiliate link (or a poorly disguised affiliate link) and start looking for a way to buy &#8220;straight from the source&#8221; thinking that they&#8217;re going to get a better deal!</p>
<p>If your website sells affiliate products, here&#8217;s a simple &#8220;Sneaky Link&#8221; tactic that will help you with affiliatephobes.</p>
<p>Note: This article has a free corresponding step-by-step video tutorial that demonstrates the exact steps to creating your own &#8220;Sneaky Links&#8221;&#8230;www.gothrive.com/sneaky-link-video.htm</p>
<p>Street-smart webmasters and marketers understand the importance of taking every possible step to get visitors to let down their guard. We seek information but we resist being sold.</p>
<p>So, the following sample source code can be used on any web page to create &#8220;sneaky links&#8221; that don&#8217;t have the appearance of affiliate links. You&#8217;re not running a non-profit organization are you? No? Well, let&#8217;s just let someone else believe that you are.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s an example of source code that will bare your soul to the world. Note: the tags are altered with a period that needs to be removed if you intend to edit and use this source code in your web pages.</p>
<p>No mysteries here:</p>
<p>&lt;.a href=&#8221;http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=100&#8243;&gt;Plug-In-Profit-Toolbox.com&lt;./a&gt;</p>
<p>Now, let&#8217;s get sneaky. ;~)</p>
<p class="alignleft">&lt;.a href=&#8221;http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php? id=100&#8243; onMouseOver=&#8221;window.status= &#8216;http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/&#8217;; return true;&#8221; onMouseOut=&#8221;window.status=&#8221;; return true; &#8220;&gt;http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/&lt;./a&gt;</p>
<p>To assist in understanding how the &#8220;sneaky link&#8221; works, let&#8217;s do a little link anatomy study. Here are the pieces and parts of our link:</p>
<p>Part 1, Beginning anchor tag: &lt;.a</p>
<p>Part 2, Target URL (affiliate link): href=&#8221;http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=100&#8243;</p>
<p class="alignleft">Part 3, &#8220;MouseOver&#8221; attribute: onMouseOver = &#8220;window.status=&#8217;http: //www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/ &#8216;; return true; &#8221; onMouseOut=&#8221;window.status=&#8221;; return true;&#8221;</p>
<p> Part 4, Link Text: http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/</p>
<p>Part 5, Ending anchor tag: &lt;./a&gt;</p>
<p>So, what&#8217;s the trick? It&#8217;s in part 3, the mouseover attribute. This nifty little piece of source code tells the web browser what to display in the status bar (very bottom of the browser window), and if the &#8220;window.status&#8221; is the same as the link text, it appears as though there&#8217;s no trickery going on. But, we know better.</p>
<p>Is it possible that this link could be found out, discovered and revealed for what it really is? Sure. If someone were to apply a single right-click to the link, the web browser will reveal the actual target URL. However, the average user won&#8217;t know this so the &#8220;sneaky link&#8221; tactic can be very effective in getting people to let their guard down.</p>
<p>End result&#8230; your click-through rate goes up, you make more sales and we all live happily ever after. Go forth and create some &#8220;sneaky links&#8221; now.</p>
<p>To view this article&#8217;s free corresponding step-by-step video tutorial that demonstrates the exact steps to creating your own &#8220;Sneaky Links&#8221;&#8230;www.gothrive.com/sneaky-link-video.htm</p>
<p>There&#8217;s a zip file available for you to download (no cost, of course) with the exact source code that&#8217;s shown in the video.</p>
<p><strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to &#8220;GoThrive Online&#8221;, for Free Video Tutorials for Internet Marketing and big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. Free Video Tutorial Archives Here: <a href="http://www.gothrive.com/free-video-tutorials.htm">http://www.gothrive.com/free-video-tutorials.htm</a></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Promoting Your Affiliate Products</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/promoting-your-affiliate-products/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/promoting-your-affiliate-products/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:07:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/promoting-your-affiliate-products/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Once you have your affiliate link, you&#8217;re ready to go!
All you have to do, as we&#8217;ve discussed earlier, is to pre-sell your affiliate&#8217;s products by marketing the same through your affiliate link. An affiliate link leads the would-be buyer to the affiliate merchant&#8217;s payment processing page. Once you have managed to do that, your [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> Once you have your affiliate link, you&#8217;re ready to go!</p>
<p>All you have to do, as we&#8217;ve discussed earlier, is to pre-sell your affiliate&#8217;s products by marketing the same through your affiliate link. An affiliate link leads the would-be buyer to the affiliate merchant&#8217;s payment processing page. Once you have managed to do that, your job is done, and the affiliate merchant will take care of the rest. This system makes affiliate marketing a very convenient home based business for anyone!</p>
<p>Pre-selling, however, should be carried out through effective marketing strategies to make this venture really profitable for you. These marketing strategies should be able to ensure a high conversion rate, or the power to convert the people who would be exposed to your affiliate link into successful sales.</p>
<p>Here are some of the more popular types of marketing campaigns being used as promotional tools in this home based business:</p>
<p class="indent20">
<ul>
<li>Promoting your affiliate links through viral marketing. Viral marketing is a very powerful strategy that would rapidly expose your business message, or your affiliate links in this case, in just a short period of time. Viral marketing tools usually involve eBooks, special reports and other information products. We will discuss this effective promotional tactic for your home based business in the succeeding lesson.</li>
<li>Marketing your affiliate links through forums. As we&#8217;ve discussed in a previous articles, promotion in online communities is an affordable and efficient way in spreading the word about your products or website, including your affiliate links. You could try to be active in these forums, befriend other members if you have to, and before you know it, you&#8217;ll have more traffic for your site and more referrals that could rake in some good commissions for your home based business.</li>
<li>Article marketing. As we&#8217;ve likewise discussed in a prior article, writing articles and submitting them in various venues, with your resource box firmly attached at the end of each piece, is a magnificent way of promotions. People would scour the Internet for information, and if you write something about what they&#8217;re looking for, you&#8217;ll win their favor and expose your affiliate links to them aswel. This could only redound to the benefit of your home based business.</li>
<li>Search engine optimization. As we&#8217;ve mentioned earlier in these lessons, having your own website would help a lot in marketing your affiliate links. If your website carries your affiliate links, you could always optimize the same for the search engines and drive a humongous amount of traffic to your pages. Every visitor you&#8217;ll have would always carry with him the chance of clicking on your affiliate links.</li>
<li>Create your own mailing list. With a mailing list in place for your home business, you won&#8217;t have to lose any visitors. You could always &#8220;capture&#8221; them, warm them up for an offer later on, or present to them new packages that they might be interested with in the future. Most successful affiliates make a killing with their mailing lists alone! We will discuss this in detail in one of the the forthcoming lessons.</li>
</ul>
<p>These are but some of the ways by which you could market your affiliate links. If done well, they could assure for you a very successful business that can be easy to sustain as well. <strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Mal Keenan can show you step-by step how to set up and run a successful online home business. Learn the 7 essential strategies to internet marketing success. To receive your free 7 day mini-course visit: <a href="http://www.malkeenan.com/" target="_blank">www.malkeenan.com</a><br />
For a home business you can believe in, check out: www.malkeenan.com/pips.html</p>
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		<title>Affiliate Programs Multiply Your Sales</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/affiliate-programs-multiply-your-sales/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/affiliate-programs-multiply-your-sales/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:07:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Make Money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/18/affiliate-programs-multiply-your-sales/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ What could be better than exceeding your personal sales goals for a given month or year? How about doubling, tripling or even more of you sales goal for the month? This is exactly what affiliates can do for you. The amount of growth potential through affiliates is unlimited; the more affiliates you have the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> What could be better than exceeding your personal sales goals for a given month or year? How about doubling, tripling or even more of you sales goal for the month? This is exactly what affiliates can do for you. The amount of growth potential through affiliates is unlimited; the more affiliates you have the more money you can make, after all, if Sam Walton tried to run every Wal-Mart store, he obviously wouldn&#8217;t be very successful. You must realize that for maximum growth you cannot do it alone. Think of the success of companies such as Avon or Home Interiors. Their success is based on two things; a great product and excellent affiliate programs.</p>
<p>To attract affiliates to your company you should make it worth their time. Offering one percent of sales, is not an attractive offer, the higher the commission that you are able to offer your affiliates the more affiliates will be tempted to join your team. You should also provide your affiliates with the tools that they will need to successfully market your product such as banner ads, articles, and anything else that will help them to better market the product. You should provide the affiliates with updated product information through newsletters, new promotional campaigns and other things to motivate and inform the affiliates.</p>
<p>You can choose to run your affiliate program in a few different ways, both of which are beneficial to your business. A one-tier affiliate program allows you to generally offer a larger commission and pays on one level. The affiliate will receive a predetermined amount for each sale. Using a two-tier affiliate program, affiliates are paid on two different levels. This is done by allowing the affiliates to recruit others to sell under them. In this situation, the top level affiliate would receive a slightly larger commission than the recruit or second level affiliate. For example if the top level seller makes 20% of the sale, then she/he would make 15% giving the second level affiliate the 5%.</p>
<p>Setting up the affiliate program can also be done in two different ways. One way is to do it yourself through an affiliate tracking software. This software will provide you with a way to track affiliate sales as well as allow the affiliates to view their progress. The downside to this option is that you are responsible for making payments. You can also choose to hire an affiliate tracking company to do all the work for you. These companies will allow the use of credit cards and completely run the affiliate program from billing customers, paying affiliates, and also pay you. This is a great option for the busy business owner or the beginning business owner and it is affordable as most affiliate tracking companies charge a small one time fee. However you choose to run your affiliate program it is sure to increase profits for your business.</p>
<p><strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Glenn McDonald can help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours&#8230; To learn more, visit: <a href="http://www.autoprofitcash.com/pips.html" target="_blank">www.AutoProfitCash.com/pips.html</a></p>
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		<item>
		<title>How to Use The Power of Affiliate Marketing</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/how-to-use-the-power-of-affiliate-marketing/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/how-to-use-the-power-of-affiliate-marketing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:09:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/how-to-use-the-power-of-affiliate-marketing/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ What is Affiliate Marketing? Will it lift your business to the next level? Or, is the Gold Rush over?
A wise man once said that the majority of people take their project to the point where it looks impossible and then give up. That is NOT the time to give up, because two more steps [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> What is Affiliate Marketing? Will it lift your business to the next level? Or, is the Gold Rush over?</p>
<p>A wise man once said that the majority of people take their project to the point where it looks impossible and then give up. That is NOT the time to give up, because two more steps could see success!</p>
<p>You get up each morning - rush to your computer - you didn&#8217;t make any sales! Did you realise what a vast marketplace you were setting up your stall in and unless you tell them you&#8217;re open for business they won&#8217;t come?</p>
<p>Your web site looked great (if you had one) but did you, like me in my early days, advertise it in FFAs, Free lists and safe lists? If you did, you now realise these lists only contain others who want to sell what they&#8217;ve got and are not the slightest bit interested in your offer! Don&#8217;t fall for the &#8220;We&#8217;ll put your ad in front of 2,000,000 people&#8221;. So, what has all this got to do with the Power of Affiliate Marketing?</p>
<p>Are you creating your own Gold Rush? You&#8217;ve got a great product be it a hard product, a service or a digital product and you have a few visitors, and perhaps you&#8217;re making a few bob a month. If you add five or six Affiliate products allied to your own, to your site, what have you got? CHOICE. The number of visitors goes up because you&#8217;ve got links back to your site, which means the Search Engines favour you more.</p>
<p>Affiliate Programmes must be in line with your own product, but you&#8217;ll have a larger range to offer visitors. Imagine the &#8216;wants&#8217; of those whom you are trying to interest - NOT the needs. People invariably buy what they want, not what they need.</p>
<p>Even if you haven&#8217;t got a product of your own, or even a website, you&#8217;ll make money with Affiliate Programmes. Solve people&#8217;s problems and you&#8217;re on to a winner.</p>
<p>Some of the highest paid net-workers don&#8217;t have a website or a product of their own, but they make a whole stack of money by offering the products of well known companies to a receptive audience. They&#8217;ve created their own Gold Rush via Affiliate Programmes.</p>
<p>What are you doing? Wondering &#8220;Where do I find such products?&#8221; Well, there are many sources of &#8216;product finders&#8217;, but you can do a lot worse than look at what Affiliate Programmes there are on Clickbank - some 10,600 products and sites!</p>
<p>But (and yes, I know you should never begin a sentence with a preposition) investigate thoroughly those programmes you think will make you money. Look for a programme that pays at least 50% commission and if you find one with a two-tier commission structure, well, that&#8217;s great because it means that you&#8217;ll get commission on sales made by affiliates that you introduce.</p>
<p>So, what are you looking for when you investigate? Look and see how many affiliates each company has. Don&#8217;t be put off by the fact that there are a lot. Its good. It means the product/s sell well. How much commission is paid out to affiliates? If you&#8217;ve got a Google toolbar (and if you haven&#8217;t, go to Google and download one - they&#8217;re free) you can find out a lot about companies by entering their name in the search box., and this will throw up a lot of information including how many backward links there are to that company. Important? I should think so, because search engines like backward links for high ranking.</p>
<p>Proper investigation will take a little time, but you&#8217;ll find out a lot about these companies. Can you see yourself making money with a product AFTER you&#8217;ve investigated the company. Is the product something people want - not need!</p>
<p>There is no doubt in my mind that Affiliate Programmes is the way to make considerable money on the net, multi income streams from 5/6 Affiliate Progs. Not just one cheque a month, but several.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, you can&#8217;t just become an Affiliate and expect the money to roll in. If that&#8217;s your thinking - get another job! But if you are prepared to put in the right effort and look to the future with confidence and determination, you&#8217;ll win.<br />
Thomas Edison said - &#8220;What you are will show in what you do&#8221;</p>
<p>Advertising your programmes is easy, but that&#8217;s the subject of another article - &#8220;Don&#8217;t Pay for Advertising&#8221;. Finally, let me urge you here NOT to use FFAs, Safe lists and the like. They never worked for me and they won&#8217;t for you.</p>
<p>Note what I&#8217;ve said. These thoughts and pointers will take you where you want to go.</p>
<p>Tony Bryan.</p>
<p><strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Tony Bryan is a retired Bank Manager, and Finance Director, with a keen interest in golf, writing and helping others prosper. His own site has many affiliate programmes on it where you can see what he does, and other sites include health matters <a href="http://www.richesfromhome.com/" target="_blank">www.richesfromhome.com</a></p>
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		<title>How To Market Affiliate Programs With Your Newsletter</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/how-to-market-affiliate-programs-with-your-newsletter/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/how-to-market-affiliate-programs-with-your-newsletter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:09:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/how-to-market-affiliate-programs-with-your-newsletter/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ If you&#8217;ve been building an opt-in list, you are on the right track to making a living online. If you have yet to start building your list, you need to get started right away! A quality list is worth a lot of money, if you know how to use it. Notice the word &#8216;quality&#8217;&#8230; [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> If you&#8217;ve been building an opt-in list, you are on the right track to making a living online. If you have yet to start building your list, you need to get started right away! A quality list is worth a lot of money, if you know how to use it. Notice the word &#8216;quality&#8217;&#8230; .not &#8216;quantity!&#8217; A list does not have to be huge to turn a profit. Again, if you have a quality list, you can turn out a quality newsletter, and then you can learn how to use your newsletter to promote your affiliate programs.</p>
<p>First you should note that the newsletter must be of high quality. Just sending your list advertisements will not cut it in today&#8217;s competitive online market place. Your subscribers do not want advertisements - they can find those anywhere. What they want is quality up-to-date information. As a marketer, you produce that information, and build the information around one of your affiliate programs.</p>
<p>Start by choosing a product that you feel your highly qualified list will be interested in. Really think about this long and hard, and make sure that you pick a quality product or service. If you&#8217;ve used your newsletter in the right way up to this point, your subscribers will put a lot of faith in your recommendations - and you are about to make a recommendation.</p>
<p>With that product, write an article. The article should not be about the product - unless it is a review of the product. Instead, it should pertain to something that relates to the use of that product. For instance, if you are advertising a shampoo, you would probably want to write an article about hair care - not about the shampoo.</p>
<p>You can work the product into the article in various ways. For instance, if you are just promoting one product with your article, at the end of the article, you might suggest to your readers that using brand x - with your affiliate link - will help them achieve better results or that you&#8217;ve found that this brand is better than that brand, or something along those lines.</p>
<p>If you are promoting several products within one article, spread them about throughout the text, but make sure that your article doesn&#8217;t become one big advertisement - and avoid promoting too many products within one article. Also avoid including more than one article in each issue of your newsletter. You want your visitors attention to remain focused - and if you give them information overload in one issue, your chances of making any sales at all diminish!</p>
<p>It is vital that you use a professional link cloaker. You do not want your affiliate link to look like an affiliate link! A link cloaker will change the text of your link, but when clicked, the linked cloak will take your reader to the site with the product that you are promoting - and you will get credit for the sale. Using a link cloaker also prevents link hijacking - where someone exchanges your affiliate ID with their own affiliate ID in the link.</p>
<p>Be personable with your readers. Become their friend. Let them know that you are looking out for them, and that you are interested in helping them achieve something. Developing a relationship with your readers is the key to getting them to trust your recommendations.</p>
<p>Discuss this article in the Affiliate Marketing forums at ReveNow: www.revenow.com/forums<br />
<strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
ReveNow! is an <a href="http://www.revenow.com/" target="_blank">Affiliate  marketing resource</a> covering affiliate marketing, AdSense, AdWords, and SEO.</p>
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		<title>The Past, Present, and Future of Affiliate Marketing</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/the-past-present-and-future-of-affiliate-marketing/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/the-past-present-and-future-of-affiliate-marketing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:08:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/the-past-present-and-future-of-affiliate-marketing/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ The Good Old Days
Remember the good old days? You&#8217;d purchase a domain name, set up your site (with a few swear words here and there), and place some banner ads (while crossing your fingers for the best banner ad click-through results). This all worked great&#8211;for a while; until people managed to avoid our banner [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <strong>The Good Old Days</strong><br />
Remember the good old days? You&#8217;d purchase a domain name, set up your site (with a few swear words here and there), and place some banner ads (while crossing your fingers for the best banner ad click-through results). This all worked great&#8211;for a while; until people managed to avoid our banner ads like the plague. Life got more complex. What were us internet marketers to do? We had to become more savvy. Fortunately for us, the affiliate model was introduced.</p>
<p>Ah, the affiliate marketing model. It never hurts to get a little help from your friends, right? Affiliate marketing networks offer a wide range of advantages to businesses. In short: it&#8217;s a booming business with dollar signs all around it. Sure, affiliate marketing can be a profitable business, but it can also be very aggravating, time consuming, and antisocial. So here&#8217;s the big question: Why the heck do we keep putting ourselves through all of this pain? The answer, although seemingly complex, is quite simple: easy money.</p>
<p><strong>The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly</strong><br />
The average person thinks of affiliate marketing as a &#8220;get rich quick&#8221; scheme for geeks and nerds. Actually, it&#8217;s the farthest thing from the truth. Nowadays, you&#8217;re just as likely to find a High School dropout behind an affiliate marketing operation; as you are to find a computer science major.</p>
<p>Despite the revenue advantages, many successful affiliate managers are weary of transparent affiliates. After all, there&#8217;s a lot of trickery out there. You have to be on the lookout for the &#8216;Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.&#8217; That&#8217;s right folk, if you&#8217;re the good guy, beware of the bad and the ugly affiliates. They&#8217;re out there right now placing infectious adware on an unsuspecting consumer&#8217;s computer.</p>
<p>As a marketer, it&#8217;s your responsibility to investigate your affiliates use of adware. Don&#8217;t turn your head and look the other way. It&#8217;s OUR consumers that may receive unwanted and/or destructive ads. Can you blame them for becoming angry at the marketer who (perhaps inadvertently) funds adware infections? Of course not. Destructive ads shouldn&#8217;t even be considered a marketing strategy. It&#8217;s completely unethical.</p>
<p><strong>The New Guy</strong><br />
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is a great starting point. If you experience success&#8211;run with the ball. Explore additional performance compensation structures. But before you even consider jumping into the game, you should ask yourself the following questions (to avoid business pitfalls):</p>
<p>1). Will affiliate marketing assist you in reaching all of your business targets?</p>
<p>2). Will affiliate marketing have advantages over other types of online marketing?</p>
<p>3). Do you have the time and commitment to run a developing affiliate operation (which will require time to flourish and succeed?</p>
<p>4). How flexible is your budget for affiliate marketing?</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s some background information for the &#8216;new guy&#8217;: Time and commitment are essential to your success. While running a network of affiliates doesn&#8217;t require a college degree, it does require your attention for details. Perhaps this is why merchants find outsourced providers offer a very appealing solution. In addition, the new guy should realize:</p>
<p class="indent20">
<ul>
<li>Not everyone will make five figures a month with affiliate marketing. There&#8217;s a lot of marketers out there. You&#8217;re the new guy, remember? Find some successful companies that use affiliate marketing. Research them. What did they do to become such a success? Can you duplicate that plan?</li>
<li>You&#8217;re not going to make any money eating potato chips in front of the television. If it were that easy&#8211;I&#8217;d be doing that instead of writing this article on affiliate marketing. Be prepared to devote a lot of time to your business and your affiliate relations.</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t take blind referrals from anyone! You&#8217;ll discover the best affiliate opportunities through your own research.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>The Future</strong><br />
In just the last few years, affiliate marketing has become a very powerful force on ecommerce. Every day thousands, if not millions, of merchants rely on affiliate marketing to drive their businesses. But is affiliate marketing all just a big hype? What ever happened to customer service? What strange times we live in; as the value of business is no longer placed on the customer, but on the relationship with whoever facilitated the connection.</p>
<p>This just goes to prove that affiliate marketing is only as good as the people who run it. Remember, there are ways to get your affiliate program noticed; just make sure that you get it noticed for the right reasons. If you value internet based businesses and you&#8217;d like more job leads, educational information, and tools to aid your internet entrepreunership, then visit: www.ebyro.com (a Vertical Portal for Internet Entrepreneurs). <strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Marissa Ranello is an independent marketing consultant with clients in the United States and Canada. As an employee of eByro, a Vertical Portal for Internet Entrepreneurs, Marissa devotes her time to internet business, performance-based marketing, and affilate programs. Visit: <a href="http://www.ebyro.com/" target="_blank">www.ebyro.com</a></p>
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		<title>Creating Wealth with Affiliate Programs: Getting Rich with No Money Down</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/creating-wealth-with-affiliate-programs-getting-rich-with-no-money-down/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/creating-wealth-with-affiliate-programs-getting-rich-with-no-money-down/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:08:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Justin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affiliates]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinesmarts.info/2008/04/11/creating-wealth-with-affiliate-programs-getting-rich-with-no-money-down/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ The question I am asked the most is, &#8220;How can I create additional income streams if I don&#8217;t have any money to get started?&#8221; This article is going to teach you exactly that - how to create additional income streams using the Internet - without requiring any money to get started&#8230;
If you search for [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> The question I am asked the most is, &#8220;How can I create additional income streams if I don&#8217;t have any money to get started?&#8221; This article is going to teach you exactly that - how to create additional income streams using the Internet - without requiring any money to get started&#8230;</p>
<p>If you search for Work-at-Home or Make Money Online, you will have literally millions of websites to visit that promise you the next best way to get rich&#8230; for a fee&#8230;</p>
<p>You can spend hundreds of dollars researching all of the business opportunities on the Internet. But more times than not, the money you spend only supplies information on everything else you need to buy to get started.</p>
<p>Well have no fear! I am going to show you some of the secrets I use to creating income streams with no money down!</p>
<p>I realize that a lot of you are living paycheck to paycheck. Everything coming in, quickly goes right back out. My intention of writing this article is to help you break out of this cycle with Affiliate Programs.</p>
<p><strong>What are Affiliate Programs?</strong><br />
Affiliate Programs are used to promote a product or service through a cost-per-action advertising model. Simply put, website owners will pay you a commission for every person you send to their website that either buys their product or service, or perform some other type of action such as filling out a survey&#8230;</p>
<p>Amazon.com built a huge following by utilizing Affiliate Programs. A website owner simply put a unique link on their website that Amazon.com provided them. Every time someone clicked on their unique link and ordered a book, the website owner would be paid a commission - usually a percentage of sales.</p>
<p>Banner ads or text ads are used to drive the traffic to the affiliate website. For example, one website might say &#8220;Click here to order Sean&#8217;s Latest Book.&#8221; When someone clicks on the link, it will go to exactly where they can order the book at Amazon.com.</p>
<p>High traffic websites benefit greatly by this business model since they can drive a lot of people to the affiliate websites which results in a lot of commissions being earned.</p>
<p><strong>But what if I don&#8217;t have a website?!</strong><br />
I know, you don&#8217;t have a website, right? Or maybe you do, but you don&#8217;t get a lot of traffic? I have good news&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>BLOGS = FREE TRAFFIC</strong><br />
Over the last couple years, a new type of website has come onto the scene. They are called BLOGS. A blog is like a personal diary of articles that you post that people can read and comment on.</p>
<p>A couple examples:<br />
http://fortunedreams.blogspot.com<br />
http://ulosefast.blogspot.com</p>
<p>You can use a BLOG to drive visitors to affiliate links without having to have a website. If you look at the fortunedreams blog above, you will notice that at the end of every article is a link that says &#8220;Click here for FREE Information on Working at Home-FortuneDreams.com&#8221;</p>
<p>If you click on that link, it will go to an affiliate link which redirects you to a free survey to fill out.</p>
<p>For every person that completes that free survey, I get paid $2.25. Not too bad, eh?</p>
<p><strong>So How Do I Do It?</strong><br />
Step 1: Open a free affiliate account. Go to www.magmoney.com and join the affiliate program there. This affiliate program will allow you to earn $2.25 for every free survey completed.</p>
<p>Step 2: Login to your affiliate account. At the top of the screen, you will see some TABS. Click on the tab that says &#8220;CREATE YOUR LINKS.&#8221; Then click on the link that says &#8220;CLICK HERE To get banner and text link code to advertise our three different websites.&#8221;</p>
<p>The first website listed will allow you to refer other people to join the MagMoney Affiliate Program. For every person that signs up through your link, you will get paid 75 cents for every person THEY get to complete a free survey. (You might not want to promote this one until later - when you have a friend that wants to do what you are doing&#8230; You can then get paid on their efforts!)</p>
<p>The second website listed will allow you to send traffic to a weight loss website. If you want to create a blog about weight loss, then you will want to use this for your affiliate link.</p>
<p>The third website listed will allow you to send traffic to a Work at Home website. If you want to create a blog about Working at Home, then you will want to use this for your affiliate link.</p>
<p>Step 3: Decide which website you want to promote from Step #2, and click on the CLICK HERE that is next to it to create your unique affiliate link.</p>
<p>Once you do that, you will get a list with your unique affiliate link along with about 10 banner ads. Disregard the banner ads since we will not be using them on the Blog.</p>
<p>Step 4: Write down the affiliate link that is listed under the heading &#8220;Basic Affiliate Url:&#8221;.</p>
<p>If you are doing a weight loss blog, your link would look something like this:</p>
<p>www.mailorderwork.com/gl/g.o/USERNAME/http://www.ulosefast.com</p>
<p>(Except all on one line.)</p>
<p>Step 5: Go to Blogger.com and create a free Blog account.</p>
<p>Step 6: Go ahead and create your first blog, whether it is for Work at Home or Weight Loss.</p>
<p>Step 7: Post articles to your Blog with your affiliate link posted at the end of every article you post. (Refer back to http://fortunedreams.blogspot.com to get an idea of what to post.)</p>
<p>Do the same thing I did with the &#8220;Click here for FREE Information on Working at Home-FortuneDreams.com&#8221; But make sure you link it back to YOUR unique affiliate link that you wrote down from Step #4.</p>
<p><strong>Where Do I Find Articles?</strong><br />
The easiest way would be to simply copy them from one of my blogs listed in the examples above. Or visit one of the free article websites such as www.SubmitYourArticle.com . There are literally thousands of articles for the taking. You will want to search for articles that fit the topic of the link you are promoting.</p>
<p>For example, if you are promoting the Work at Home link, you would want articles pertaining to Work at Home.</p>
<p>Step 8: Promote your Blog! There are hundreds of Blog Directories and RSS Directories that you can submit to that are free of charge. When you create a blog at www.Blogger.com, you also get a free RSS feed of your Blog. You simply add /atom.xml to the end of your Blog.</p>
<p>For example:<br />
The blog http://fortunedreams.blogspot.com/ would be http://fortunedreams.blogspot.com/atom.xml as an RSS feed.</p>
<p>This allows you to submit it to all the RSS and Blog Directories that you can find&#8230;</p>
<p>Step 9: VERY IMPORTANT: After EVERY article that you post to your blog, go to www.pingomatic.com and submit your blog. Click on ALL the Services to Ping and then submit pings.</p>
<p>This tells many of the popular Blog directories that you have a new article posted. The more articles you post, the higher your ranking (and the more traffic they will send you!)</p>
<p>So be sure to do this after every article you post.</p>
<p>Step 10: Post new articles on your Blog several times a day. Try to post at least a dozen or more new articles on a daily basis to achieve the best results.</p>
<p>So there you have it! A completely, absolutely free way to start generating income with the Internet from the comfort of your own home&#8230;</p>
<p>Of course you can repeat the process over and over again creating as many blogs as you want. You can also use this method with any of the hundreds of other affiliate programs on the Internet.</p>
<p>Utilizing this method, you should be able to build up an extra income from several hundred dollars a month to several thousand - depending on how hard you work at it.</p>
<p>Now that you are earning a little bit of pocket money, put $250 aside for a special opportunity to turn it into hundreds of thousands of dollars with the ultimate leverage!</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll tell you all about it in my next article about my favorite Business Model - Network Marketing&#8230;</p>
<p>Good luck and God bless!</p>
<p><strong>Author Bio</strong><br />
Sean Gum is the president of Magnificent Enterprises, Inc and founder of GroupLeads.com a leading Internet leads generation company. He offers a free newsletter on how to create wealth on the Internet utilizing three distinct business models. Sign up for free at <a href="http://www.millionairestudyguide.com/" target="_blank">www.MillionaireStudyGuide.com</a></p>
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