PajMon Information Blog

Posts Tagged ‘affiliate software’

I’ll bet you have read a lot of headlines that sound similar to this one above, or make promises like this one seems to. You have might have read some of those articles all the way to the end, even clicked on some of the links in the article and read all the information on those links. When you finished the article, you may have thought to yourself, “That just won’t work”… who in the world would ever buy THAT… or whatever that! IT WILL RUIN MY IMAGE!

That isn’t necessarily so. I’m going to give you some tips that will give you an opportunity to monetize your website or blog, while preserving your brand. One of the best and easiest ways to monetize your online properties is to join some affiliate programs and advertise them on your site.

Affiliate programs are the answer

Why affiliate programs? Simple. As an affiliate marketer program, you get access to products and services that are well supported by professional marketing materials and you don’t have to pay for those materials. All the work of writing an eBook, or recording an audio track, or programming a software product is taken care of by someone else. But the benefits don’t stop there. You also don’t have to create any marketing materials - those are all created for you by the affiliate program owner.

Another great benefit is that you really don’t have to keep track of money or finances. Most good affiliate programs will provide the members with a login to a sophisticated affiliate management program that is based on one of the leading affiliate software programs. Software management of affiliate program means that you won’t have to ride herd on the affiliate program owner.

Five tips for choosing affiliate offers to promote

1. Look good earnings potential - You want to make sure that if one of the people you refer to an affiliate offer buys, that you will make some decent money. Some experts recommend that you look for high percentage payouts. I prefer to look for opportunities where you can make a ‘big hit’ from a sale. This affiliate program for promoting music teacher websites offers the opportunity for you to earn $200 for a sale with monthly recurring income of $10.
2. Choose programs your readers will like - It is critical that you choose affiliate programs and offers that your audience will appreciate and be interested in. It wouldn’t be too smart to choose to promote affiliate programs and products for adult content movies on a site that is dedicated to toys for toddlers. However, if you have a website that helps people find careers is sales, it would be great to promote something like How to Get Into Medical Sales.

3. Look for affiliate programs powered by software - When you sign up for an affiliate program it will quickly become obvious if the owner of the program is serious about helping affiliate members be successful. After signing up, if you are automatically redirected to a page powered by a fully-featured affiliate marketing software program, they are probably serious about their affiliate program. If you get an email message that says ‘here is you affiliate link’ you might want to think carefully about investing any time. Their are several top name brands like iDev Affiliate, LinkShare, and JROX JAM. My favorite is JROX JAM, which you can get for free here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/recommends/free-affiliate-management-software.htm

4. Make sure the website is NOT anonymous - What I mean is, make sure that there are real people standing behind the website, people with good reputations, who take customer service seriously. Affiliate program owners who let you know who give you contact information with phone numbers are more likely to treat you well. They aren’t likely to try to avoid paying you the commissions that you have generated. If you can find a picture, bio, and phone number of the affiliate site owner, chances are they will behave legitimately. You will also be able to ‘Google’ them to find any complaints about their program. Peggy McKee, the Medical Sales Recruiter, is one of the country’s leading sales recruiters - she proudly announces her site ownership on the about pages like this one: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/about/

5. Choose affiliate programs that have support programs - If you are choosing a piece of software to buy, you probably wouldn’t purchase it if there was not support mechanism in place. It would be wise to use similar criteria when evaluating affiliate offerings. If the website owner doesn’t have a support system in place - something like a ticket system or help desk software - then they probably don’t care about their customers. If they do, then you can be rest assured that they are trying to keep customers happy. If they AREN’T working to keep customers happy, their poor service will reflect poorly on you, and tarnish your reputation.

There are a couple of affiliate programs that meet all these criteria, that I recommend if your site’s visitors would be interested in these subjects. One is an affiliate program for a sales interview tool that targets sales professionals - you can check it out here: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/affiliate-program-details/. The other is a program that has a broader appeal - it targets people who own businesses that either have no web presence or under performing websites; you can get all the information for it here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/blog/home/affiliate-program/

A beautiful website design can never compensate slow performance in any website design. The biggest mistake one can make when designing a website is to include too many fancy graphic works and flash files that needs endless minutes loading them for display.

Let sneak a view into the elements that makes up a good website design.

1) Do not include splash pages

The splash pages are the fancy pages you see when you enter a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like welcome or click here to enter. The unfortunate thing is splash pages actually takes away attention from the real purpose of the website, and often frustrates users with their slow loading time. Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Overuse of banners is counterproductive

Some sites have a number of these advertising banners displayed around the page but the most prominent place is at the top. Banner ad tends to be ignored by most web surfers so it is a total majority of the web surfers so they would a total waste of your website space. There is a better way to add contents instead of using banner is by giving them useful information and then add their affiliate links so that they would seem natural.

3) All navigational systems should be easy

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. It is good to leave out any fancy flash menus or even multi-tiered drop down menus, they only serve to make navigating the site harder. If you make it difficult for them, they will leave your site. Your website design should include the construction a sitemap that will make it easy for them to find what they want.

4) Ensure your visitors know what page they are on

When you have successfully captured their attention and enjoying the whole experience perusing your website, you will want to make them know where they are at the moment without feeling lost. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Ensure every page of your website has its title and a tracking system is used to allow visitors to see where they have been and where they are. Any type of confusion drives your visitors away.

5) Where possible, do not use audio

Avoid the use of music if you can. Sound files should be used sparingly. Adding audios may seem cool but provide some form of user control such as muting ability or volume control so that your visitors can adjust accordingly. When you use all this website design information, you will find that your visitors will return again and again to your site.