By Robert Evans
Affiliate programmes are springing up
everywhere and cover every type of
product or service imaginable. Some
incorporate fully automated systems
that sell high volumes of hard products
all over the world. Many have several
thousand affiliates and one or two of
the bigger companies have over one
million affiliates.
So what are the advantages of joining
an affiliate programme?
* they provide a ready-made business.
This is a very big plus for those people
who want to earn some kind of living off
the internet but lack the knowledge or
inclination to set up a business by
themselves
* commissions and rewards are generally
good and the more established programmes
offer a real chance of advancement to
higher and better-paid levels.
* other affiliates are usually on hand
to offer practical support
How about the limitations?
* you are restricted in your promotional
activities due to the fact that you do
not actually own the affiliate site they
give you. I'm thinking here about not
being able to put such things as banners,
images, links, meta tags etc onto your page
* the URL of your affiliate page is often
either too long or contains such awkward
things as question marks, which many Search
Engines will not index
* any promotional literature provided has
probably already been used by thousands of
other people and consequently may have lost
its impact, making it more difficult to
achieve sales or referrals
* if the programme you have joined has not
yet established itself (or in some cases
even if it has) then you may encounter problems
with payments owed to you not being honoured,
or low quality products, or sub-standard
statistics that do not accurately record how
many referrals or sales you have made etc
* you may also be required to purchase a
minimum quantity of the product on a regular
basis before you start to qualify for commissions
or even before you can become an affiliate
* you may not get the technical or affiliate
support you might expect from the company.
This may be due to inadequate staffing, or
perhaps the company just doesn't care about
you!
* other people in your downline do nothing
to promote the programme
* the programme itself ceases to exist overnight
At least four of the above limitations can
be overcome with a little time and effort.
You could, for example, come up with fresher
ads to promote the programme (provided this
is allowed).
If the company supplies the email addresses
of people in your downline then you could
offer to help the less active members. Very
often these people are passive not because
they are lazy or apathetic but merely because
they don't know HOW to promote effectively!
Your guidance could mean the difference
between no sales or referrals and healthy
downlines and residual incomes.
As regards promoting your actual page, here
are a couple of little tricks that should
overcome a number of restrictions:
* get a redirect URL from http://www.cjb.net.
While this will not help you to get listed
on the major Search Engines, it will make
your web page easier for prospects to remember
and type into their browser's address bar.
* go to your affiliate page. Place your mouse
pointer anywhere on the page and right click
once. In the drop-down box choose "View Source".
This will display the HTML for the page. Save
this to your hard drive as a HTML document using
the "Save As" function. Upload the page to your
web site. If you don't have a web site then get
some free web space from one of these:
http://www.xoasis.com
http://www.tripod.com/
http://www.fortunecity.com/
http://www.homestead.com/
http://www.hypermart.net/index.gsp
http://www.coolchat.com/
http://www.crosswinds.net/
http://www.htmlpublishing.com/
http://www.freehomepages.com/
http://www.pageproducer.com/
Submit your 'new' page to the Search Engines.
You are also now able to place banner codes,
links, images, testimonials, in fact anything
you want onto these pages, because you are in
control of the HTML. A word of caution, though.
Don't change the actual HTML of your original
affiliate page. Just put the other stuff, like
banners etc, around it.
Making this "mirror page" of your affiliate
page will dramatically improve your
advertising options.
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Robert Evans has been doing business online
since October 2000. His latest project, the
GET-IT-DONE! Action Plan, is a step by step
marketing system, including over 20 original
video tutorials. http://www.market4profit.net
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