http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/is-this-better-than-site-sells-site-build-it-software.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/is-this-better-than-site-sells-site-build-it-software.html Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0600 value-focused and web companies will become larger.

Over the next few years expect larger conglomerates to be buying up profitable websites in their chosen markets. Expect smaller sites to either be bought or driven out of business. My intention is not to scare you, but this outcome is inevitable.

Large businesses have always taken two approaches to their desired markets. They either buy their competition or they push them out of business. You want to be prepared when this trend begins on the Internet.

Being a webmaster and online marketer, you should be preparing for one of two scenarios. To position yourself for a buyout to a larger company or to become the larger company that dominates your chosen market.

Whichever route you choose is entirely up to you, but I would suggest that it would be in your best interest to begin focusing on authority sites. You can either start building them or turning your current sites into them. Whatever your approach may be, I assure you it will help you sleep better at night.

What Is the Definition of an Authority Site?

A fairly comprehensible authority site definition was put forward by Jason Dowdell of Global Promoter. Jason defined it this way: “...Authority sites are sites that have been linked to and referenced on other web sites covering the same subject matter and they also will have hundreds if
not thousands of pages covering that subject matter and nearly every facet of it....”;

That definition is one man’s opinion, albeit a good one, but let us go directly to the source. Many search engine optimization and search engine marketing experts believe Google has derived their primary algorithm from a document titled, "Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert
Documents."

The PageRank formula as we know it today was derived from this paper, and the authors, Bharat and Mihaila, define an authority site in the text below:

"We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if and only if some of the best experts on the query topic point to it. Of course in practice some expert pages may be experts on a broader or related topic. If so, only a subset of the hyperlinks on the expert page may be relevant."

"In such cases the links being considered have to be carefully chosen to ensure that their qualifying text matches the query. By combining relevant out-links from many experts on the query topic we can find the pages that are most highly regarded by the community of pages related to the query topic. This is the basis of the high relevance that our algorithm delivers."

What we have reprinted above is the foundation of the PageRank system and the determination for deciding which sites will be authorities. I highly recommend you read and re-read the full document until you understand every aspect of it.

What Are the Components of an Authority Site?

Allow me to present you with a diagram at: http://www.contentdesk.com/authoritymap that dissects your typical authority site. As you can tell from the diagram, a considerable number of components and systems must be in place for the authority site to function profitably and
reap the benefits of the "Authority Site Formula."

The Authority Site Formula = Visitor Optimization (VO) +
Content Optimization (CO) * Creative Marketing (CM)

A simple question must be asked. What do 99.9% of authority sites provide? In a sentence, an incredible amount of original content and a superb visitor experience. The search engines want you to succeed and they want you to make money, but you have to play by their rules. In the future, focus your efforts on visitor optimization and content optimization instead of search engine optimization.

What Is the Anatomy of an Authority Site?

About.com is the definition and was the original authority site. Their site has a generic domain name and hundreds of subdomains on different topics.

Your authority site should take the same approach, but not on such a general level. If you launch an authority site, it should be geared towards a well-defined and large market. After you launch the site and generate some traffic, you should create subdomains that cover specific
areas inside that larger market.

For example, Diabetic-Resources.Com is not an active site; but if it were, then a typical authority site setup would be something like:

* http://supplies.diabetic-resoures.com *
http://diet.diabetic-resources.com *
http://insurance.diabetic-resources.com *
http://symptoms.diabetic-resources.com *
http://treatment.diabetic-resources.com

Using this approach, you are able to target your general market while generating more targeted traffic pertaining to related sub-markets.

As a rule of thumb, the index pages on your domains and subdomains should be more focused on content, but the article and commentary pages should be more focused on advertising. Just do not ever lose sight of the most important aspect of your site, which is visitor experience otherwise known as visitor optimization.

What Does It Take to Create an Authority Site?

You want to create a site that generates thousands of visitors a day mainly through the major search engines, and would ultimately be the one-stop source for information in that particular market.

Your site must employ three traits to become an authority site. Let’s discuss all three necessary aspects:

Dynamic: You should have as many RSS feeds as you can muster to incorporate throughout your site. Your visitors need to be able to receive RSS feeds for any keyword, category or archive as well as create their own. One feed is no longer enough to satisfy your visitors.

Interactive: You should be engaging the minds of your visitors at all times using surveys, commenting and feedback. Make these features easy for your visitors and your site will grow exponentially. Why? Because they feel like you actually care about them. Interaction is a powerful tool and creates a sense of community on your site.

Consistent: You should post to your blog often, and you should always provide quality and original content. That doesn't mean you need to produce 800-word articles three times a week. Your goal should be to become a news master. You need to be an “...authority...”; on the news
happening in your niche.

If you follow the steps and guidelines listed above, then you will be on your way to being the owner of an authority site.


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Find out more about authority sites and why you should become a member of the Content Desk community. Donny Gamble is a proud member of the Content Desk community and created many profitable business through this membership.


Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/affiliate-programs/the-process-power-affiliates-use-to-select-profitable-online-affiliate-programs.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/affiliate-programs/the-process-power-affiliates-use-to-select-profitable-online-affiliate-programs.html Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0600
...you will probably feel like a little kid in a toy store when it comes to picking the right programs.

It is very easy to become overwhelmed when it comes to picking the right partners to promote. That’s why I am going to give you some critical tips that you can take to make sure you are picking the right programs.

As I stated earlier, the advantage of being an affiliate is that you don’t have to worry about all the strenuous tactics of product development. You simply just refer customers to the merchants and get paid for your efforts. The concept sounds simple, but it involves a great deal of time and effort.

Here are the critical factors that you should take into consideration when it comes to selecting the right affiliate sales programs to promote. Read over these more than once if you want to increase your affiliate sales.

1. Make sure that you choose your market first before you choose the products to promote.

All of the merchants who develop the products look for a thirsty crowd before even considering making a product. It is very easy for them to develop a product that they want instead of gearing it towards the needs of others. Therefore, you need to evaluate the target market of the visitors that come to your website and see if they would be interested in a product or service that you want to promote.

Don’t promote products just because they pay out high commissions because you will still fail to generate a lot of sales if you don’t target the right market.

If you own a website that deals with cats then it would be hard to sell them a product that deals with dogs, even if it is the greatest cat product on the market. Always know

the target market that you are pre-selling your products to.

2. Once you know your target audience, research the web affiliate programs that fit this audience.

Lets revisit our golf website example. You know that you need to find online affiliate programs that cater around the game of golf to fit your visitors needs. This is common sense, but you want believe the amount of affiliates who fail to do this.

You also have the ability to promote closely related products to your visitors, products that will compliment your golfing enthusiast needs. For example, one of your visitors buys a pair of golfing gloves, so you know have the ability to recommend golf clothing for additional back-end sales.

Here are a couple affiliate program directories for you to find products to promote:

http://www.commissionjunction.com
http://www.clickbank.com
http://www.linkshare.com
http://www.paydotcom.com

3. Look for products that already are selling well and have a high market demand.

This secret is worth million’s alone. If you want to make a lot of money promoting affiliate products, then sell the ones that are easy to sell. No use of trying to sell computers to Microsoft, it just won’t work. If no one wants the products that you are promoting then you are just spending your valuable time and money trying to promote them.

You my need to test the online affiliate program before you can tell if it is going to be profitable for you or not. If you don’t see any returns after the testing and tweaking that you have done, you might want to move on to the next.

4. Choose the top affiliate programs that have a solid history of paying out their affiliate commissions on time and have top quality promotion materials and products.

This may seem like another no-brainer, but you must make sure that the company has a good track record for treating their customers with respect because it will fall back on you if you are promoting trashy products to your customers.

Some of the top affiliate marketers suggest that you only promote products that you have personally used yourself, but though ideal, this will not always be the case. Just make sure that you do a little research on the products before you promote them to your subscribers.

Make sure that the products that you promote are priced at a reasonable price for that market. So be sure that the company has a good commission structure and whose products sell well and offer at least a 25% commission on the product.
Also make sure that the program that you are promoting has a good sales page for their products so they will have a good sales conversion based on the amount of traffic that you send to their site.

One more important pointer that I would consider is to read the fine print on the affiliate agreement page before you become an affiliate...

Warning: There are some companies that will terminate the partnership if you don’t send enough traffic to their site in a certain amount of time. If you are unaware of this, you will be at a lost for a lot of income that you should have been making.

5. Stop doing the things that haven’t been producing and get rid of them in the process.

If you get a bunch of traffic to your website, you want to make sure that you are using all of this traffic effectively.

Even though affiliate marketing is a low maintenance business, you still need to tweak your promotions once they are in place. You always need to stay up to date with all of the current trends in this market.

If you keep an inventory of the amount of money that each program brings you, then you can always get rid of those that are not producing and replace them with new ones in your portfolio.

The key here is maximum profit for minimum exposure.

Remember, the advertising that you do is paid by you and not the merchants, so you decide on the methods that you want to use. So always make sure that you are earning more than you spend on advertising.

6. Make sure you understand how you are paid for your efforts.

This is an overlooked area because most marketers don’t want to be involved with all of the technical stuff that goes along with tracking all of your affiliate links. It is important to know how your links are tracked.

Does the company you promote use cookies? What if the company has cookies turned off their browsers, is there a back up method to track the sales? What happens if a prospects visits another affiliate’s site before coming to yours, will you get credited for the sale or will they?

Why are the answers to these questions important at all?

You want to understand these little technicalities because if not, you will lose out on a lot of your affiliate commissions. The point that I am making here is that you need to be sure that your affiliate links are working properly and also be able to see how many people have clicked on your link.

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Refine your marketing skills with Donny Gamble, a top affiliate for Affiliate Classroom . For more affiliate marketing tips and tricks, and to learn other affiliate sales secrets, please visit www.AffiliateMarketingJournal.com

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/affiliate-programs/diversity-in-your-affiliate-portfolio.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/affiliate-programs/diversity-in-your-affiliate-portfolio.html Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0600
One thing that all of the super affiliates I have spoken to have in common is that they all have a collection of products that they are thinking of promoting/ are promoting. They know which products are launching. Products that have launched, products that have been successful for others… these guys are very critical about product selection.

What it means to have a diverse portfolio is that you need to have a variety of different affiliate programs that you promote.

As an understanding, the vast majority of affiliate programs fit into 3 basic payment structures:

Single Commission- One Level: Here you’re paid just once from the purchase of the customer. If that customer joins the said program you don’t earn any more commissions on sales made by the clients.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Commission: Here you’re just one flat fee for the customer, not for his purchases.

Residual Commission- 2 Tiered and Above: You’re paid every time the referred customer makes a purchase and also a percentage of the commissions earned by referrals of that customer. You can therefore earn from your second, third, or fourth, etc. generation recruits even though it’s at a lower percentage normally.

Create an affiliate portfolio of different programs to sustain long term affiliate income. Smart affiliates know about selecting the right programs to promote, they’ve also focused on promoting just these few programs.

The key here is, you may want to balance your portfolio. This is so you can be generating income even if for some reason you’re not able to work.

This is exactly why residual and multi-tiered programs are absolutely necessary elements for a well balanced portfolio.

Therefore, plan and churn out your own in-house portfolio based on the product quality, sales conversions, commission percentage and availability of promotional tools.

Promoting your affiliate portfolio on a planned schedule will get you the best results. Build up this foundation and you will be on your way to affiliate success.


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Donny Gamble is a super affiliate marketer and is owner of www. affiliatemarketingjournal.com. To get the guide that helped Donny become a successful affiliate, please visit Secret Affiliate Weapon



Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/affiliate-programs/affiliate-marketing-experience-the-vision.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/affiliate-programs/affiliate-marketing-experience-the-vision.html Wed, 22 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0600
It all starts out with a company that has a product to sell and has a thirsty market for the product. It then designs an affiliate program for advertisers or affiliates to promote the product and sets up a compromising commission for the affiliates. The affiliates then sign up for the affiliate program and begin advertising the companies product to receive these desirable commissions that the companies have set. This is a quick overall of how affiliate marketing works.

Researchers have found that by linking to other web sites, and paying these other web sites a commission for every sale that they refer, their sales levels will soar. So if you are interested in becoming a successful affiliate marketer, then there are a couple of simple steps that you can take to get you started.

First of all, you should concentrate on finding the product you want to affiliate to. This is not as easy as it sounds at first, as there are literally thousands of affiliate programs out there on the web. You should therefore think about what you personally would enjoy selling. It is very important for you to find a profitable niche when searching for products to promote. Searching on Google, Yahoo, and Msn are great ways to start your search, looking up things such as "affiliate marketing " for instance should bring you back good results. Most people agree that if you are going to have success in affiliate marketing, then you should set up a content rich web site on a topic that already interests you.

This will inspire you to put more content and relevant material on the web site and as a result, your customers will find that your site interests them more - and they will return. Also your site will get picked up fast by the search engines because of your relevant content. You can also consider setting up affiliate marketing sites on web topics that you have special knowledge in such as your profession, or a special skill that you have and therefore on which you have more than just a basic knowledge. You should combine these interests with good affiliate merchant opportunities. Once you decide on your niche, research for some quality affiliate programs that fit this niche.

There are so many of these programs out there, that it won’t be hard at all to find products for your niche. If you find that the products that the affiliate companies are marketing are slightly different than what you have chosen, you can always adjust your marketing strategy to suit the affiliate site more closely. Read their affiliate marketing contract, make sure that it suits you and sounds like something you can profit from. Be sure to check the affiliate forums and to do some searches to check that it has no complaints that have been filed against the program. Then sign up.

A good affiliate company will provide an affiliate link, marketing materials, and a step-by-step guide to getting you started with promoting their product. The product you choose to affiliate with will be your primary product. You should now develop a web site that will promote this product while at the same time attract targeted traffic. Remember that you do not have to sell the product completely, but just get the customers to click on the link to the merchants sales page. This is called "pre-selling" and is one of the most effective affiliate marketing techniques. If the merchants sales page is any good, then you should bring in a lot of sales to their site. Good luck with your affiliate marketing experience and remember, success in affiliate marketing takes work as well as time.


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Refine your marketing skills with Donny Gamble, a top affiliate for Affiliate Classroom . For more affiliate marketing tips and tricks, and to learn other affiliate sales secrets, please visit http://www.AffiliateMarketingJournal.com

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>