 |
|
How to Get Major Affiliate DirectoriesI'm a big believer that smaller is usually better when it comes to affiliate programs. What I mean is that I believe that the closer you are to the person that's running it, the less hassles you are likely to get from them. I would suggest that if you have little money to start with, you should try to steer clear of the BIG brand name affiliate programs like Google. Here is a list of some of the places where you can find affiliate directories. http://www.AssociatePrograms.com Best Affiliate Program!
At this website, you can find a more deluxe revenue stream . . . The AssociatePrograms.com directory helps you find the best associate programs which are also known as a referral, partner, revenue sharing or affiliate programs which help you to earn money from your website. No "adult", multi-tier or MLM programs or scammer companies make it onto this site so you are safe here. This is one of my personal favorites. Not only does Alan Gardyne filter out all the bad people, but every single affiliate program is rated by the public. The site is well presented and it's easy to find the information I'm after. The newsletter is awesome too. It is one of the best sources of new programs, affiliate news and selling tips available today. Please remember the name: AssociatePrograms.com Since The idea behind an affiliate, or associate program is to recruit other webmasters to help you sell your wares, by paying them for each visitor or sale they bring you. 2-Tier is a directory of two tier affiliate programs. It features a searchable directory of associate, reseller and partner programs. It also works to include recommended sites, news and articles.
This website can be your source for affiliate programs and associate programs. Over 2700 listings including new programs, recommended programs, top ten, two tier, most popular and top rated programs out there today. This is a great directory for you to go to.
Don’t believe the hype! AffiliateAdvisor.com claims that they are NOT an affiliate or associate program directory. It's a resource for merchants and affiliates who want to make more money by participating in the explosive growth of affiliate marketing. The focus here is on educating you and consulting to merchants and third party providers, and program recommendations for affiliate sites. This web site is the authoritative guide to internet associate, referral, and affiliate programs. Refer-it also features resources, a discussion forum, interviews, downloads, and an article archive. It will really help you no matter what level you are working from. Here you will find Affiliate marketing tips, resources, industry news and interactive email discussions. This is a true one-stop resource for learning about affiliate programs and finding new ways to profit from your website. Their email discussion list is one of the few that is world wide and that is entirely dedicated to affiliate marketing. This is a cool website that will give you all of the latest news on revenue sharing, affiliate and associate programs. ReveNews.com is dedicated to providing expertise, education and resources to the growing community of "revenue sharing" web site participants. They are very focused on providing you the advice and opinions to participate effectively in these new revenue sharing opportunities. This is like a one stop shop for news. this is the official site of the internet affiliate marketing summit. Its purpose is to bring together all of the solution providers, merchants & affiliates. The largest congregation of affiliate marketing experts to date. For the inexperienced Personally, I think that Commission Junction is pretty good to start with if you are not sure what you are doing. What I did was phone up or emails each the top solution providers / affiliate directories. I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to html, but not everyone is as good as that. When you try to call and emailing each one of the BIG affiliate companies for tech support and you’re not an HTML expert, you might just need a little help with the tracking code. Larger companies assume that you already know all of this if you are an affiliate, but they are also hoping to make money off of those who do not.
I tried signing up for an affiliate program that claims to be the biggest affiliate software company as an experiment. I tried purchasing something using my links and the sale was not tracked. The affiliate software company actually blamed the merchant and vice versa. All I was left with was a tracking number. A month later the merchant said the problem was resolved. forget it! It just isn’t worth the effort if you are not really good at HTML code. One affiliate program refused my membership because my site did not have enough content in it. That just amazes me! I tried to explain that my site is a web store, and most of my valuable content was subscription based and inside of password protected directories. All that I actually managed to get from them were a bunch of stock replies. When I finally did get an answer from a real human being I basically had to hear “so what that is how we work.” Commission Junction, finally, a big affiliate directory and solution provider that I can work with. With them, I got a very informative answer from a very polite technician. I find that it is a very good option for the newbie because the help is useful and polite. Basically, Commission Junction creates alliances between affiliate sites that have interesting content and online merchants that sell products or services. We enable affiliate content sites to leverage their content and engage in e-commerce, by placing merchant ads, products, and services at the point-of-interest to their consumers on a pay-for-performance basis. In other words, Commission Junction asks you to find products that match your content. Create instant shopping on your site. Earn commissions for every impression, click, lead or sale. Manage your entire merchant network through a single interface. Of course, by the time you reach this part of the book, you have already done that, so it will be a snap!
This information was received by an article written by Todd Farmer & Jeff Doak Affiliate Managers and many other web marketers have started to use a variety of tracking technologies and strategies, over the last few years, in their quest for accurately keeping track of their referred customers. Tracking customers "from click through to sale" can be accomplished with various tracking methods, such as: • Simple Direct URL Links One of the good things about these methods is that each of them has strengths, and each has weaknesses. However, you'll see that Cookie Tracking (which I mentioned in an above section) is the clear winner as the preferred single tracking method when it comes to reliable, flexible, and convenient tracking. When you are searching through the different tracking methods, an affiliate manager has to consider these things first: • How flexible is the method? For example: Can you track everything that you want to track and will it work with my shopping cart or ordering system? • How easy is it for the tracking to be started and completed? Ask yourself: ‘Do I have to exert much effort re-designing and maintaining my website to work with the tracking method?’
• How easily can an affiliate with a lot of experience defeat the tracking method?
A Simple, Direct URL Link is the most basic and the most limited form of referral tracking technology. The affiliate ID is only visible to the customer in the URL when you are using this method because it passes the referring affiliate's ID directly to the URL of a specific page that the affiliate or YOU choose (which must be equipped with an order form). This specific page is then coded with a script, which reads the referring affiliate's ID in the URL, and passes it into a "hidden field" in the order form on the page or to a visible "reference number", that can be printed or reported by the visitor to the website. While this simple method is good at keeping track of immediate sales on a single-page sales site, it cannot track the affiliate ID if the customer leaves this page and returns later. In that way it is inconvenient. Since the affiliate ID is visible in the URL, customers can easily defeat the tracking by simply removing the affiliate ID from the URL. CGI/URL Tracking CGI/URL Tracking is a relatively effective, but sort of inefficient means of tracking that passes the affiliate ID throughout the merchant's entire website. How it works is that the affiliate ID is visible in the URL just like in the above method and "follows" the visitor until she reaches the ordering system, where the ID is detected from the URL string. This how it follows the customer throughout the site and, in most cases, by processing all internal site links through a Perl script or JavaScript that does the following: 1. reads the current URL This method is a bit of a fragile one because it requires a great deal of careful design of the website and maintenance of every link that is included inside of the merchant's site. Of course, when the site exists under heavy traffic, the script can become a "bottleneck" to the merchant's web site. In addition, if the script ever fails, the merchant's site will fail. The CGI/URL Tracking method is usually used in conjunction with "cookie tracking". This combination allows for the tracking of customers who have disabled their cookies. CGI/URL Tracking, however, is losing its popularity as a backup mechanism because in most circumstances, Internet users who are security-conscious enough to disable cookies are also savvy enough to navigate around the CGI/URL method as well. Customers today can easily disable the tracking by simply removing the affiliate ID from the URL and re-entering the site. Cookie Tracking Cookie Tracking is the most popular and annoying method to track customers "from click through to order", because it is simple to implement & use, it doesn’t require any significant web design considerations, nor does it impact the performance of the web site or web server. This method works by simply writing a small text file, which is called a "cookie", to a user's browser when they click on an affiliate link. This cookie holds the referring affiliate's ID, which can be identified at the merchant's order page to credit affiliates for referred sales. Cookies make tracking affiliate-referred-sales very convenient for the webmaster. The cookie can be read and used on any page or on any form, and can be used in conjunction with almost any ordering system. Not to mention, the cookie that records the affiliate's ID can "live" for as long as the merchant wants it to. This is how the affiliates get credit for customers who clicked on a link weeks, or months, before finally purchasing or making a repeat purchase. Cookie Tracking is essentially invisible to the user, because cookies are written and read "behind the scenes". Unlike the other methods, the merchant's URL does not need to display the affiliate ID for the tracking to work. The only drawback with cookies is that a small number of web users intentionally "disable" cookies, and therefore, they cannot be tracked. The number of Cookie Enabled browsers is growing, because a majority of web surfers' favorite sites require cookie use; plus, the option to disable cookies is not obvious in the two major browsers like internet explorer and Netscape. Those users who take the trouble to disable cookies are, oftentimes, the same users who will probably be wary of other tracking methods and have learned to intentionally bypass those as well. Self Replicated Pages Self Replicated Pages (SRP), offer affiliates a web page that is based on a template, or multiple web pages, that is found in their own directory at the merchant's website. SRP's are an effective and reliable form of affiliate tracking, but their use requires careful planning, the creation of template web pages, and ongoing maintenance in order to be effective. With SRP's, the affiliate receives one or more pages at the merchant's website that is exclusively used for that affiliate's referred web visitors. Since the affiliate's website is designated by a directory name, the affiliate's ID is actually located within the URL. Because of this, customers who do not wish to be tracked can defeat this tracking method by removing the affiliate directory from the URL, and re-entering the site. In order to be able to offer maximum benefit, SRP's are oftentimes used in conjunction with cookie tracking: the SRP provides the affiliate with a URL to which he can point his customers, and the cookie tracking takes over from that point. Sub Domain Tracking Sub Domain Tracking is a great deal like Self Replicated Pages, in that it provides an affiliate with a full URL that can be used by the affiliate to direct customers. Unlike Self Replicated Pages, though, this method gives affiliates an actual sub domain at the merchant's site, not a simple directory path found at the merchant's main domain. The Sub Domain process is one of the more time consuming and demanding tracking methods. The process requires that the: • DNS is configured to point this new sub domain to the appropriate web services on the web server • web services are created for this new sub domain as well as the main pages • web services point to the appropriate files for surfers to view the sub domain. The web files must either be created (just like SRP's), or the web service must point to a predefined root directory. The Sub Domain Tracking method is actually very server intensive, since web services must be created for each and every sub domain used, and it may require additional hard drive space to be wasted. The website may need to undergo a major site overhaul and maintenance to handle sub domain tracking. Not to mention, this method requires the intervention of a web server and DNS administrator, or expensive scripting that can automate the process. When you are considering the use of this method, affiliate managers have to carefully plan the ordering system and its integration with the sub domain option, and cookie tracking should be used as a backup. Database Record Matching Database record matching (which is also called "lifetime affiliate tracking") is the least used of the methods because it is difficult to operate and maintain, and must be used in conjunction with at least one of the other tracking methods; it cannot be used alone. Why am I including this information then; you might ask. Well it is best to know beforehand right? Database Record Matching rewards affiliates for returning customers, but does nothing for new customers. The initial sale must employ some other form of referral tracking, and then store unique contact information about each customer as well as the referring affiliate's ID. When that customer returns and buys again in the future, the customer database can be searched to find that the customer is "owned" by an affiliate. This affiliate will receive commissions on that customer's repeat purchases for the life of the system so trying to get in now is a waste of time for you. Trading Links There are many different reasons and ways that trading links increases traffic to your site so it just made sense to cover it. First of all, each link that is pointing to your site opens a new gateway for people to find you as they surf the web. That is why so many affiliates seek to do it in the first place. Secondly, trading links gives you better chances of getting listed in paid submission search engines for free. THAT’S RIGHT FOR FREE! When you are ranking your site, the search engines do link analysis as part of their algorithms. Your search engine rankings and link analysis score steadily increases as proportionally as the number of relevant quality links back to your site increases. How Search Engines Evaluate Links: In order to be able to figure out how search engine evaluate your links, you have to ask yourself these key questions first: § How many sites do you have linking to your site right now? Just for the record Reciprocal Links are the easiest to obtain and will aid in gaining better placement on the search engines, but they are not as valuable as One Way Links because you have to look for a link on their Home page to their Links page. The most common name to find it under is usually called "Links", but "Resources" is also quite popular. If you cannot find this link or if they don't have a link that is easily found, you may want to skip them all together. If you can't find their reciprocal links, chances are no one else, including the search engines, will find them either, so you don’t have to panic about it.
It wouldn’t make any sense to share or trade links with another site without knowing first what their site has in it. Is there anything that your average visitor would find objectionable? Is their site in working order? After all, you will be placing a link on your site to this site and it will reflect you too. Place the other website's link on your site first & test the response If the site that you are thinking of linking has passed your inspection, as a show of good faith, you can place a link to your potential partner's website on your site first. During your visit, you should have found some sort of information regarding their site's title and description as well as the category or theme that they would prefer. If this is not clear, you should be able to write a little something for them. Remember it should be a theme that matches your own. Properly contact the other website merchant While you are visiting the website, you should have discovered how they want to be contacted for a link exchange. If they have a form to fill out, be sure that you use it. Read and follow their directions properly. Typically, they will then ask you for a link to their site first. If you have been following my tips, you have already done that. Do not tell them you have placed a link to their website before you actually do. Many of these people are quick to look and see. If it's not there, your request may be ignored or at least will take a lot longer. E-mailing your request When you are looking to request a link trade, you should see if there are specific ways to go about it by email. If they don't have a form, look for a specific e-mail address they want used for such inquiries. No matter who you e-mail, be brief and to the point. If they have already included a subject line in their e-mail link, don't change it. If they haven’t, simply have it say, "Link exchange" or "Link request." A subject line that isn't clear is bound to be deleted as spam without being read. You must also make sure that you don't use attachments unless specifically asked to do so. In your e-mail introduce yourself and the website you represent. Include the full URL: This will make it easier for the webmaster to copy-and-paste your linking information if it is approved. You must also let the other party know that you have visited their site. A good way to do this is to complement them on something unique to their website that would require a bit of surfing to see. Simply saying you were impressed with their site is not unique. Telling them that you liked their black and gold eagle logo is unique. Let them know that you have already placed a link to their site and give them the full URL: http://www.johndoe.com/links/widget.html From here, you must politely request a link from them. Give them a specific and brief title, and not simply a list of keywords. Next, include your website's description and again Be brief. Their current links will give you an idea of what they are willing to accept. Be sure to use a category/theme for your site that you have found specifically on their site's link pages. Finally, thank them and invite them to e-mail you with any changes they wish to have made their link. The first step in receiving requests of your own is the same: Visit the other site and explore it. If it meets your standards, then place the other website's link on your site and reply that you have done it. In your reply, be sure to thank them and also give them the full URL of where their link can be found.
There will be some days where you will not want to trade links with the other site for things like content or maybe your site is simply full. In this case, you must reply with a brief, but polite reason. Even if you think their website is the worst thing you have ever seen, you can merely say, "Thank you for the offer, but we are currently not accepting any new links." On the other hand, if there is a specific reason for turning them down such as relevancy, a good reply is, "Thank you for your interest in exchanging links. To be mutually beneficial, our websites need to relevant to one another." Still others may completely acceptable, except for a technical reason such as no link to their Links page from their Home page. A polite reply to this type of situation would go something like this, "Thank you for your interest in exchanging links. We require that your Links page be directly accessible from your Home page. If circumstances change or we have overlooked something, please contact us again." § Visit the other site One Way Links Why Are One-Way Links Helpful? Each page actually acquires its link popularity based on the number pages that link to it. Google and Yahoo both have toolbars showing the page rank of pages you visit, so you can use these tools to get a good estimate of your pages' link popularity. It is not necessary to get caught up in the which types of links from which types of pages are the most important. Basically it works like this: By acquiring links pointing back to your website, particularly links from sites covering the same or related topics as your site, it is helpful in the overall scheme of search engine ranking. Since there is no particular topical emphasis here, it is then made obvious to Google and the other search engines that the sole purpose of these sites is to artificially increase the number of links that are pointing to your site. Since there is no value added for the search engine's users, they in turn give no value to these links. Another advantage to these focused, one-way links is that they will tend to stay in the same spot over time. A website that features a link to your site probably does it because that site's owner thinks that their visitors will benefit from the content your site has to offer. Rather than simply trying to manipulate search results, they want to add to the experience of their visitors; which allows you to benefit from having a long term link in place. Sites featuring reciprocal links may simply drop your link when it no longer suits their linking strategy. Getting Natural Links One-Way Linking Sources There are quite a few ways that you can use to get links from other sites back to yours. The most important principle to keep in mind is that you will get the most links when you offer something significant to link to. Think of what you can provide that people will want to link to if you want things to run smoothly: § Natural links given from topic-related websites that like your website For each of these types of content that you can add, you will want to have an active link that is pointing back to your site. Of course, when you are creating your own original content, you must always archive your own work on your website to build your content and increase your own link popularity by growing the number of pages on your website. The extra value that you can get out of one-way links is the fact that you are also promoting your website from the listing as well as the active link. Articles, newsletters, white papers, directory and business association links may bring in traffic from visitors who are interested in the what the description is of your website listing.
Recognizing Valid Links In order for you to gain the most benefit from your links, the link back to your web page should be the one that can be followed and detected by the search engine robots. Plain text links and image links can usually be followed by the search engine robots. However, more exotic types of links, like JavaScript links, cannot typically be followed by the search engine robots. When you offer up suggested linking code, the easier you keep it the better. Don't be afraid to suggest different linking formats to the owners of sites that link to you. The types of links that serve your purposes best will generally provide their visitors with the best experience as well. You also have to check to see if the page where the link will be located can be found in the search engine results. You can search yourself by using the entire website or by individual page. Different search engines use different syntax in looking for individual pages and links; you must refer to the advanced search function for each search engine for details. If the page you are looking for is listed in the search engine results, this means the page has been indexed by the search engine robots. This means the web page is valid for indexing and that your link will be picked up as well. That wasn’t too difficult was it? Research and Quality Content = Success One-way link building means hard work and long term determination to achieve good link popularity. By improving the quality of your website, you improve the chance to obtain good quality natural links. You need to spend a set amount of time each week to seek out quality one-way links to achieve your goal. In order to do this, you will have to take your time to do it. By using this long-term game plan you will be able to safely build links for optimum link popularity success. Whew!
|
