More Great Affiliate Products
Another good site to visit for affiliate products that are information based is PayDotCom. If you know Clickbank, then Paydotcom will be a snap as they are similar. Just like Clickbank you have to start by getting an account. Once you select the information products you want to promote, the site releases an affiliate link for the product that you use in your marketing. One big difference is that Paydotcom pays you through PayPal once a month instead of sending you a check.
Another difference between Clickbank and Paydotcom is your commissions are paid directly from the owner of the product. This can cause problems at times and you should be aware of this before you sign up. Some people believe that this is the main reason Clickbank is far more popular as they pay commissions directly to you and they also offer a 100% guarantee that you will get paid. If you want to join Paydotcom click here.
There are other types of products to promote online as well. If you would rather promote products such as web hosting services, life insurance, paper books, or florists the main two affiliate websites to check out are:
• The Commission Junction Website
• Linkshare Website
The Commission Junction website offers some incredible products and it is a very popular affiliate program. They offer a variety of products which you have to see to believe.
Want to join them? Just click here
If you want to sign up with Linkshare click here
The Amazon Affiliate Program is one of the best for those who want promote paper books.
Click here to join Amazon Affiliate Programs.
Choosing the Best Blog Domain and Hosting Service
There are two kinds of blog hosting: free and paid. If you are serious about making money through your blogs, you should consider paying for your blog. There are some good reasons for this.
For me, personally, I prefer paid hosting for all of my blogs because it is affordable and it allows me to make my blogs look professional. This helps my customers have confidence in me. Remember, you are asking people to send you money. You must look professional in order for them to do that. Free blog hosting packages simply cannot compete in this area.
Another reason you want to be careful with free hosting is the company can shut you down whenever they want to. They do not even have to tell you they are closing your account. This has happened a lot with Google Blogger. Many good people have lost their entire blog or website like this with no comment from the service provider as to why. And, worst of all, all the work put into the site is gone too.
I’ll speak about cost for blogs in a moment, but first let’s take a look at how to get the best domain name for your blog.
Getting a Domain Name: Option One
You should always try to think of names that contain your main keywords. This makes it much easier for people to remember your blog address. You may not always be able to do this, as so many names are already in use. But if you can do so, do it.
Normally, I get my domain names from GoDaddy. They are fairly cheap and they provide great service. You have two choices when it comes to buying domain names. The first is to go to GoDaddy and do a search for the name that you want to see if it even available. If it is available, you can buy it right then and there.
Do not be too concerned if you have to use .com, .net, .org or .info. True, a lot of people like the .com better as that lends a certain confidence to the name, but really it not that important these days. What is important is the amount of work and effort you put into your blog. Offer your visitors good useful content and they will not care what your address ends in. They will come back time and time again, and that is what you want.
Buying your domain name in this manner allows you to use it almost immediately. And that, too, can be important.
Finding Affiliate Products
Locating the Best Affiliate Products
Determining your niche market is, of course, your first step. You want a niche that shows heavy online search activity, but does not have a massive amount of competition from other vendors. The next step is to locate products associated with your market that you can sell or use as promotional material. This is not as difficult as it may appear. In fact, finding affiliate websites to offer these types of affiliate products can be done fairly easily. One of the most useful affiliate website is Clickbank, which is located at www.clickbank.com. Unlike some other sites that only offer a few product options, Clickbank offers you hundreds of popular and powerful information products from which to select. To make your work even easier, the products are categorized by subject and topic.
When you are choosing Clickbank products, make sure you use the helpful tools they provide. These tools are shown as statistics and are located beneath the items. Using these numbers can help you select the best product for your needs.
Let’s look at these stats for a second. First of all, you will see the $/sale statistic. This is the amount of commission you earn with each approved sale for that particular item. The next stat is the %/sale, and this represents the total percentage of the sale price that you earn in commissions. Keep in mind that this percentage level will change between various products. Generally, the majority of information products pay out close to fifty percent as the commission. There are some, however, that pay out between seventy and eighty percent.
The next statistic to look for is the % refd field. This is an important bit of data as it represents the percentage of sales made by product affiliates. The higher this number is the better for you as that means the originator of the material is doing less of his or her marketing of the product. In other words, affiliates are making more of the sales, which means they are making more money A low percent number in this area is often a red flag and the product should be investigated further before signing up for it.
The next stat to pay attention to is called Gravity or Grav. This is simply the number of specific affiliates that have made commission money off this particular product. Keep in mind that this is not an actual numerical total but rather a weighted sum. During each eight-week period, Clickbank will increase this total amount by between 0.1 and 1.0. A low Grav number will often result in some online vendors avoiding the product as this might indicate the product is not selling. However, you should remember that a low Gravity may also mean the product is new and not yet had a chance to gain a lot of vendors who are promoting it.
A general rule of thumb is that products that are higher on the list are the ones doing the best in sales. But this does not always make them the best choice for you. Newer products that have yet to gain their footing can often be better choices, with higher conversion rates, because they offer the customer new or updated information.
As is true with any sales campaign, high-priced items are often more difficult to promote and to sell. Generally speaking, most consumers are more comfortable spending in the mid-range when it comes to online sales. It is true that higher priced products often result in higher commissions, but take this with a grain of salt. Personally, my approach is to offer products in the range of $30 to $60. My own experience has shown me that products priced much lower than this do not provide enough commission, and the products that are more expensive than this are hard to sell. You, of course, can explore and set your own price points.
Getting started with Clickbank is easy. You simply need to open up your own account with them, working as an affiliate. Clickbank affiliates are paid every month, normally by company check. As an affiliate, you can always check on your sales and other transactions with ease. Signing up is free and fairly easy to do. With each sale that you make, Clickbank will deduct a very small fee to handle its costs, and this fee is deducted right from your account. These account fees are common in the affiliate marketing industry, and Clickbank has one of the lowest.
To get started, just click here: www.clickbank.com
