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How To Increase Affiliate Sales In 5 Easy Steps?

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Increase Affiliate SalesIn simple terms, affiliate marketing is a money making practice conducted on the web. In affiliate product sales, the publishers are rewarded for promotion of the service or product of some business.
 
In recent years, the bloggers have largely turned into affiliate marketers and are therefore earning money by helping business products in getting sold. Although many bloggers have obtained success by adopting the affiliate marketing practice.
 
However, there are still few bloggers and individuals who are finding it challenging to increase affiliate product sales by doing so in an inaccurate manner. Maybe you’re one of them ;)

MOST of you are already putting banners on your blog to increase affiliates sales. However I’m not sure they’re working or not! But here are some of the unique and creative ways to Increase Affiliate Sales in 5 easy steps.

How To Increase Affiliate Sales In 5 Easy Steps ??

1. Start Guest Posting

Guest posts are usually very beneficial for boosting the ranking quickly. However, there is another way of utilizing guest posts. This can be achieved by insertion of the affiliate links into guest posts and doing so on an established blog. It is true that many of the sites would not allow affiliate link posting on their pages but still it is worth a try. These site owners can be negotiated strategically.

The incentives such as a fixed or flexible share, in form of commission in each sale of product can be decided. This can bring many new users to visit and review your intended site and product. Especially if the blog or site is popular, it would bring hundreds of thousands of users and thus adding to sales prospects.

Read : How To Get Maximum Benefit From Your Guest Post

2. Affiliate Links Exchange

There are bloggers and sites which would not still allow you to post affiliate links on their sites. So, such bloggers and site owners can be addressed to in other forms. You may have to post their affiliate links of round about the same monetary value as yours. For this, negotiations can be made with the other bloggers; allowing both parties to benefit in desired terms.

3. Product Reviews Writing

You can also opt for writing review posts in case you are good at writing proper reviews. However, if you are not good at writing or are writing half-heartedly then it can conversely damage your intentions negatively as well.

As an added quality, if you can perform SEO on your posts it would further increase the prospects. Your written product review can make an appearance on top of search results and thus more visitors would translate into more sales. Remember that, words like ‘coupon codes’, ‘discount’, etc. are searched frequently so using them would mean better results. Try them in order to increase affiliate sales! :D

4. Social Media Promotions

Social media usage expertise can also help you a great deal in reaching the benchmarks set by you. Social media can be innovatively used to market and share your product information to a wide potential customer base.

Utilize the power of social media and thus increase your sales by embedding your product affiliate links in the social media sites. Some of the social media sites which can be used effectively are; Facebook, MySpace, Digg, etc.

Make sure not to do spam too much!

5. Offering Free Services

Consider the scenario in which you are writing the coupon codes and letting your readers know about the coupon code discounts. You can hide your coupon codes for users to click on button first to view the coupon codes. Just as the users click the coupon codes, they can be redirected to product website and thus allowing better chance of product being reviewed and bought. But mind that, every product owner would not allow for such tactics.

Thus, considering their terms and conditions would allow you the chance of getting saved. To further help, amongst many others, following are the two notable WordPress plugins for this purpose i.e. ‘coupon code plugin’ and ‘couponreveal’.

Bounce Tip :

Use Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress. It will auto convert keywords to affiliate link and you can easily increase affiliate sales using this plugin!

Don’t forget to increase your traffic in order to increase affiliates sales.

What technique do you use to increase affiliate product sales? Share your ideas via comment below!

Your Blog Does Not Make Money? It is Matter of Karma!

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Coins thrown at stone statues in the temple groundsSo you want to know What is Karma?
 
Am I right? ;)
 
Karma is defined as a universal law that has a direct correlation with all other laws – physical and metaphysical – which control all of creation.
 
Karma itself means “action” and this why it is called “Karmic Power.”
 
Basically, all your actions – good and bad – are returned to you, sooner or later in the course of your life.
 
It’s true and it can be frightening, but only if you have a dirty conscience!
 
Trust me, if you have something to pay, surely you are already doing it in some way, or you have already done, or you will do.

So, for today, you might focus on how to improve your life and specifically your online activities through the “Karmic Power”.

What has Online Marketing to do with Karma?

Too often online we, as online marketers, seem more calculators than human beings. We spend hours studying the number of analytics, on the keyword tools, on the social media and so on. We look for patterns, repetitions of behaviors that may indicate some signals, some truth about our target audience.

Too often we ask ourselves thousand questions, but the right ones are : “Which problems have my users?”, “How can I help them?”.

One of the small things that I have discovered during my online experience as blogger and online marketer is that behind all these numbers, there are real people. Yes, it may seem silly, but one thing is to know something and another thing is to be aware of that.

If the “Karmic Power” associated with my actions, will come back to me every time I do something, then, I will consider my users as real people rather than “Unique Visitors”.

I will respect them, and give them interesting content (the best I can do) and I will be available when they will need help. This is what connect Online Marketing with Karma.

A more human approach to marketing improve the experience of all your audience.

In short, you should offer help to those who need it, even if it is for free. The recognition of these people will make a difference for your business, for your brand and even the emotions you feel about it.

Read Also: 4 Reasons Your Blog Will Never Grow!

What to Do to Transform Your Business?

Do you know which problems have your users and potential customers?

If your answer is no (and you can read this also if you said yes), then you should follow these simple steps. Trust me they’re too easy to follow! :D

Start listening to the people around you:

 
– use Twitter, Facebook, forums, the comments in the blog posts of your niche. All these are areas of discussion where you can find out the problems of your audience;

– use Google AdWords Keyword Tool in order to find what your users are really looking for.

Open a channel of communication :

 
– you can create an account on Twitter and start offering free assistance from there. With TweetDeck you can monitor conversations and receive a notification every time someone tweets to request for your help;

– create an account on any site that is taking requests for help in your niche;

– if you have a blog, then set up an easy contact and comment form, in order to be in touch with you;

– create a real online service center, even if you are alone. Others like yourself could come together to help you along the way!

Offer help whenever you can & do it for free as long as it is sustainable

 
– you will clean your negative karma (if you have any) and you will start to accumulate positive Karma;

– people will look differently at you, and this will help your brand;

– you will feel happier, perhaps, but certainly this will make others happy. Isn’t it! ;)

In short, if you have difficulties to interact with your potential customers, offer them free assistance. Answer their small questions. Show them the solutions. And ask them how things are going. They will surely thank you and this will give you a whole new charge (Karmic Power) !

Buddha Karma with money

How to Track the ROI of your Online Karma

For anything you do, you will have always something back (theorically) : a positive emotion, a gain or a recognition.

This also applies to Online Karma (can we call it like this?). So you may want to check some metrics that will help you understand your online success. These metrics are, for instance :

– Twitter : how many people thank you after you helped them. How many retweets you receive. How many new followers do you have?

– Facebook : how many “like” do you receive? How many shares? How many clicks on your new updates?

– Your blog : how many comments are you receiving on your post? How many people ask you to collaborate with their sites? How many new members have you contacted for your new online courses?

Can we call the above mentioned metrics also Social Signals? 

And are not the Social Signals a metric chosen by Google in its new algorithm update to judge your site in the rankings?

All these signals clearly results in:

– traffic and ranking increased on your site;

– average time spent on your blog improved;

– reduction of the bounce rate and increased pageviews;

– the numbers of new sign up to your newsletter improved;

– increase of your affiliate sales. (means more money! ) :D

There are a huge number of tools in order to check your social media influence. Choose the ones you like more and stick with them, in order to monitor your social signals.

Don’t forget to read : 5 Basic Pillars of Creating Successful and Profitable Blog!

Conclusion : Online Karma Make Money!

The recent online fears caused by the new Google updates, should not shake at all your activity and your online business.

As long as you work hard to give your audience real quality of service and high level of assistance, you will never have to fear again any future Google update.

And you? What do you think? Are you one of those who help the community?

Do you think that Karma is a New Age bullshit, or do you believe that good actions make good business?

5 Question to Ask Before Using Google Adsense

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Adsense Are you currently using Google Adsense on your blog, or even thinking about it?
 
Then stop here now! ;)
 
You’ve to ask Five Question to yourself Before Using Google Adsense.
 
This blog post just might open your eyes to what you might be doing to your blog and audience for just a few dollars. There was a previous post on this blog titled “12 Things to Do Before Applying for Google Adsense“, which walks you through the process of what you need to make sure you blog looks like and has before applying to Google Adsense. We are going to take that same approach, but with a few different questions to ask yourself if you really want to sacrifice your blog and traffic to the almighty Google Adsense!

How much is your site traffic worth?

Before using any advertising solution, you need to know what your traffic is and how much they are worth. Entertainment sites and blogs have a low value per user, as they are pretty much there just to view pictures and get news. Product reviews and coupon sites have a high value per user, as they are already in buyer mode. Knowing your average visitor value is a very important thing to know!

Read : How To Get Traffic To A New Blog ?

Are you playing by Google’s rules at all times?

Lately Google has been on a tear and throwing many sites out of their Google Adsense program. No matter their reason Google may banner your account, once you are tossed, you are gone for good and they will also keep all of the money remaining in your account as well. Do you really want to work with an ad network that can keep all your profits from this and the previous month? As a Google Adsense partner, you always need to play by their rules at all times.

Can you make more money going directly?

Have you even thought about selling your own banner ad space? There is a good chance you can find a quality advertiser in your niche that will pay a much higher CPM premium over what Google Adsense will pay you. If you are running 125×125 banner ads on your site you can probably fill four to ten of these banner spots and make several times more than what Google Adsense could ever earn you.

Are you killing your profits by using Google Adsense?

One of the best ways to kill your profits is by throwing Google Adsense on your site. If you are selling products, trying to get people on your mailing list or get them to take any other action… Google Adsense will hurt you. Keep your focus on your end goal of either getting people on your list or getting them to take action. If you have a solid monetization plan for your site, Google Adsense probably shouldn’t be one of them.

Lastly… do you like giving away your traffic for a few pennies per visitor?

When did you last click on a Google Adsense banner?

I’m not sure if you remember. ;)

But whenever someone clicks on any Google Adsense banner, they leave the site they are currently on and get swooshed off to another site. Most of the time Google Adsense is only paying a few pennies per click. Are you losing your traffic for just a few pennies? If you are, it’s not a good business model at all!

Don’t get me wrong… :D

Google Adsense has made BILLIONS of dollars for Google and their publishers… but there is a reason why it’s so ridiculously easy and simple to setup. Google is making a ton of money by lazy site owners just placing a code on their site and not knowing better. There is nothing wrong with using Google Adsense, but there are much better and more profitable ways to make money!

Are You Ignoring One Rule for Making Money Blogging?

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Let’s cut to the chase: We all want making money blogging from our blogs.

Of course! ;)

During consulting sessions with bloggers it’s one of the first items we discuss. Everyone has seen the success stories, and we’d all love to be the next blogging superstar and making money blogging. But how?

When my clients ask how they can make money, I pause the conversation there and change directions. The conversation goes something like this.

Me: “So you’d like to earn money blogging?”

Client: “Yes, but I don’t know how.”

Me: “If you want to earn money for your efforts, you have to provide people with something, right?”

Client: “Yeah, sure.”

Me: “So I ask you, what do you provide to your readers that is so valuable?”

The conversation usually stops dead here. :D

I suggest that the client takes a day or two to ponder that question. Sometimes they come back with a solid idea, and we can build from there. Other times, though, they come back stumped. They’ll ask, “What do readers find valuable?” There’s a good answer to that, and it constitutes my one rule for making money from a blog.

You have to teach them something.

If you’re just re-blogging the news, or blogging your opinion on current events, you’re not teaching the reader much of anything. There’s an old saying about how everyone has opinions and how they all stink. That applies to bloggers, though you wouldn’t know it by the number of opinion-based blogs out there.

To stand out in the blogging world today, you have to be remarkable. That’s sad for opinion bloggers, because opinions are not remarkable. If you want an opinion on any subject, from the latest political news to the hot new gadget release, you can find it on any number of websites. Dozens of writers race to post updates to blogs, hoping that if they post first that readers will find them. But it’s just a shell game. There is no winner when blogging opinions.

If you ignore that rat race and focus on how you can become valuable to readers, then you might be onto something. And you might find not just one way, but many ways to make money from your blog. When you teach people something new, all sorts of opportunities start appearing.

Of course, after I tell clients about teaching through blogging, they always have a follow-up question: How can I teach people with my blog?. Here is my three-part answer.

Read Also : Want To Become A Famous Blogger? Then Read This!

How Can I teach people with blog & make money?

OK, So How can I teach people with my blog and start making money blogging? Here is my three-part answer.

1. Start with something you know

With the internet as your guide, you can learn about almost anything. Even if you’ve never known a thing about home improvement projects, you can learn plenty from instructional texts and videos on the web. But if you want to teach readers how to do something, chances are you’ll need a bit more knowledge. They’re looking for something deep and real, and your understanding based on other home improvement blogs won’t cut it.

Start by blogging about one of your passions. If you know a lot about using the internet to save money when shopping, then start a blog about that. You might not know everything there is to know, but you sure know something. You can start blogging with that knowledge. Of course, that won’t always be enough. You have to be always learning, which brings me to Part 2.

2. Dig deep, then deeper

Picking a familiar topic will help at first, but eventually you’ll have to learn even more about your subject. Why? Because if you don’t you’ll run out of material. Using the above example, if you don’t learn more about saving money online, you’ll never be able to keep up and teach your readers something new. You’ll eventually have taught them everything you know, and from there what can you do?

This goes especially for high-tech subjects. I have a buddy who installs video surveillance equipment for businesses and residences. Take a look at that link and look at all the stuff listed just on the very first page. If he didn’t keep up with those products, he’d never be able to keep up. The same goes for you and your blog. Learn it all, and then learn more.

3. Connect with readers

This goes for any blog, but it bears repeating in this instance. So many bloggers I know neglect to respond to their comments and emails*. If you’re

connect with readers

ignoring those, then how are you getting a feel for what your readers like and don’t like? It’s through these reader connections that we can help our blogs go. Unsurprisingly, this holds true even more so for blogs that teach.

* I submitted a guest post a few months ago and forgot to reply to the comments. Ammar was not happy, and I don’t blame him. Every blogger needs to respond to comments, or else why blog in the first place?

When you connect with readers you can find out your weak points. Maybe you explain certain points in an unclear way. Maybe you use too many words to describe something that needs only a few words. Whatever the reasons, your readers are able and willing to point them out. If you learn from them, as they learn from you, you’ll see enormous growth.

Read : 12 Tips For Writing Engaging Content For Readers

Why teaching works?

So many blog posts I read start with theories but never explain them. We’re just supposed to believe that this works, because the author said so. So before wrapping up, I’d just like to outline how you can make more money with a teaching blog than almost any other type of blog.

  1. Advertisers like teaching blogs. When you teach people things, they often need to buy resources that they don’t already own. That’s a perfect opportunity for an advertiser to step in. Display ads from ad networks typically don’t pay much, but on blogs with a teaching angle you can earn a higher CPM.
  2. Articles that teach people something spread on social media. If I read an article and learn something from it, you can bet I’ll share it to Twitter and Facebook. If I learned something, then maybe others in my social graph will learn something. And if they learn something, they might pass it on to their social graph. If you want to create content that spreads, try teaching people something. It’s the best form of blogging.
  3. Affiliate sales rule. Teaching blogs are tailor-made for affiliate marketing opportunities. You’ll have to be up-front about it, but it can be a big money-maker on a teaching blog. If you link people to the tools and resources they need, they’ll be more apt to buy from you. That means an opportunity to make even more money blogging.

Starting a blog that teaches, like a DIY blog, is never easy. But if you put in the time and effort you’ll find it more rewarding than any other kind of blog. You’ll be helping people do things, and you’ll be rewarded with a modest income. If you play your cards right, maybe even a high income. :)

Earning Residual Income from Membership Site & Courses.

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One of the main goals for many internet marketers is to have a good steady flow of money coming in each month, and that usually requires a membership site or a continuity program. There are several ways of doing this, you can have a membership site where people pay each month to learn something or have access to something which only ends when the customer decides to stop or you can create a course that lasts for a time frame like a year.

Believe it or not many of us are part of a continuity program or membership system and never really thought about. Do you pay each month for satellite TV, a mobile phone or electricity supply?

membershipsites

These are a continuity programs and you could say a membership of a kind. We are all members of that organization, paying to receive an ongoing service.

As a marketer or online business builder you really want to get a monthly membership system in place so that you can make money each month making your day to day life easier.

The hardest part is trying to figure out what you can offer and charge for each month. There have been some really cheeky people who have charged a lot to learn things that are readily available to learn for free elsewhere on the web however there a few things to remember.

Not everyone knows where to find the free information and not everyone wants to look for it. Many people are happy to pay for the ease of having it in one place where they can keep going to it. It is like having the familiar & comfortable surroundings of going to your favorite members only Golf Club

Also people will happily pay to be taught by people who

  •   They believe to be an authority on the subject
  •   Is someone they can trust
  •   Gives them good value for money
  •   Is someone they like

The last one is really a powerful one,; if they like you they will happily spend money with you.

So what kind of membership site can you run? I once heard of a guy who set up a site dedicated to Yoga and then charged people to have access to videos he took from YouTube. Now I am not sure if they were his that he stored there or if he cheekily used other peoples. He wasn’t breaking any particular rules. I am sure it was padded out with related articles & photos but what it did do was save people having to search for videos and information.

Have you tried to search both Google and YouTube for something specific? The amount of rubbish that YouTube is filled with these days requires a lot of sifting through and Google? Well their new search algorithm delivers things they THINK you want and not what you were actually looking for.

One keen gardener created a gardening forum, where he could discuss gardening issues with other gardening lovers, gardening is as old as the hills and is basic natural practices. There is so much free gardening information available everywhere for free yet his forum, which charged $15 annually or $5 per month, went from a few people to having 75,000 members in a few years.

Education is the most popular form of online membership site; people pay a monthly fee to learn things like Internet Marketing, gardening, yoga and Social Media. The Social Networking Academy for example has a monthly membership site where you learn all about Google+, Facebook and Twitter etc.

Tim Lowe & Nick James have the ‘10 Minute Marketer’ which teachers people all about internet marketing, Nick James has another membership site that makes over $40,000 a month. A simple small home business idea like teaching how to use Twitter can result in big profits.

Offering services can also be charged on a monthly basis, LinkedIn is a network where business people can meet, swap details and create business friendships. It is also a great place to drive traffic to your site. It is free to join but there is the option to upgrade to different monthly paid packages that give the user more tools to use.

There are sites that provide a content based service or product that is charged on a monthly basis. For example NicheMarketingIdeas.com charges a monthly fee to have access to a huge library of Public Domain material that you can then use on your websites, as articles for article marketing, as emails or as eBooks and reports. The choice is yours.Earning incomes
 
Similar sites charge monthly fees for writing services, they pay writers to write articles and content and you pay a monthly fee to have access to this material for you to use however you like.  Now how these sites do now that websites are penalized for duplicate content I do not know.

The idea is simple; you do something once then get paid several times for it then repeat. As an example, imagine you created a ‘Learn Social Media’ membership site. You record 10 video tutorials on how to use Google+ and upload them to the site. You then charge something like $37 a month for access to your membership site. You get 20 people sign up when you go live, making you $740.

You then create 10 videos on using Facebook and again you get paid $37 a month per person. You have the 20 original people, but now you have another 5 people who have joined up, who get to see all of the videos or depending on how you set it up they get to see the first 10 before a timer releases the other 10 similar to an email sequence.

Now you are earning $925 a month. I have seen membership sites and courses where video tutorials are between 3 and 20 minutes long. Very easy to make videos too, filled out with a couple of bonus webinar recordings and some eBook & squeeze page templates.

Obviously people will now and again drop out of the system depending on certain factors, they probably have learn all they wanted to know, maybe you do not deliver enough quality info for the price people are paying, or maybe you deliver late. (I once had to wait several months for a course to be updated, which should have been monthly, I wasn’t happy)

The idea is to keep people in the system and delivery fresh new quality info each month. If you can create a service like Satellite TV where people happily pay each month for the continual delivery of things they enjoy then you are onto a winner.

Remember a membership site is in reality an online magazine, how many of you reading this do or have in the past paid to receive a magazine each and every month whether it be from cars to cooking, UFOs to model trains?

The adult industry is good at this, especially in the more unusual niches of the adult world.

If we use foot fetishism as an example, (a brilliant small home business idea if I may say so) Using a simple website, the owner takes photos of his or her foot using a mobile phone or digital camera and makes short films again with a readily available phone or camera then adds several pictures and films each month to the site, charges $20-$30 for a month’s access, they can make a reoccurring income for maybe a couple hours work tops.

We live in a digital age; we have incredible tools at our finger tips, we do not need to send pictures off to be developed, we can upload them from our phones and computers, we do not need to send our magazine to be printed instead we can upload it as soon as it is ready, we do not need to spend time packing and posting our magazines they are visible to everyone worldwide for a minimal monthly fee.

Obviously you will need traffic to turn into paying members, creating a social media campaign and a few satellite sites like having a Tumblr blog you can and will start to create an interest in your membership site.

People will pay for what they enjoy, even in times of hardship; people will try their hardest to keep paying for the things they enjoy. If they are learning some new skills that could increase their income then they will certainly keep paying.

Is it time you considered this business model? I think so.

Andi (the minion) Leeman writes for Tims Minions a blog full of blogging tips, Small Home Business Ideas and Internet Marketing advice along with easy to follow tutorials.