How to find Affiliates
Paying affiliates to promote products or services on your website will definitely get you more visitors. The real trick is getting those extra visitors without spending more money than you’re earning. You never want to just throw money in to advertising to “see if it works” without doing your research first.
For example, if you choose to use Google Adwords to advertise you’ll be paying for every click you receive. Now just because you’re getting clicks it doesn’t necessarily mean that these visitors will complete offers, produce sales, or make you any money at all. It’s easy to lose money with pay per click advertising so be careful.
In the last few years Pay Per Action (PPA) marketing has gained a lot of ground. Instead of paying affiliates per click you pay them for every email submit, offer completed, or purchase. This way you ensure that you’re only paying affiliates based on quality traffic.
There are affiliate networks out there that have hundreds or even thousands of affiliates. These networks offer their affiliates the opportunity to promote products for a variety of advertisers without signing up for each advertiser individually.
In order to promote your product or service with an affiliate network you must first signup with the network as an advertiser, submit your application and be approved. Once you’ve been approved by the network you must setup your advertising campaign. They usually help you with this and they provide their own link redirects.
Most affiliate networks will require that provide your own html text, html links, banner images, and any other marketing material. You should be able to set your own conditions on what methods of generating traffic you allow affiliates to use. For example, if you don’t want any affiliates using email marketing to promote your website, product or service you’d set that condition. The affiliate network would make it clear to their affiliates that email traffic is not approved for your campaign.
Here are some affiliate networks that have worked out great for me in the past:
Clickbank
XY7.com
Silverinet
MaxBounty
No matter how many affiliates these affiliate networks may have, in order to have these affiliates promote your product or service you must have an attractive payout (affiliate commission) and a campaign that converts.
large affiliate networks
Make Money with Google Adsense
One of the best ways to make money online is to become an affiliate for a company or affiliate network that will pay you to promote their product or service. The most popular affiliate networks out there is currently Google’s AdSense program. You probably see Google Ad’s on hundreds of thousands on sites all over the internet and don’t even know it.
One of the largest sites on the internet displaying ads from Google’s Advertisers is myspace.com. Advertiser’s signup with Google Adwords and pay Google to market their ads on google searches and/or through google’s advertising partners. As an advertising partner it’s easy to make money with google adsense.
Webmasters signup to become a google search partner by joining the Google Adsense network and inserting adsense banners throughout their website. The webmaster then gets paid for every visitor that clicks a link provided by google adsense. Google then charges the advertiser for that click and pays you a portion of it. An adsense click is usually worth anywhere from $0.07 to $2.15 depending on how that advertiser has setup their Pay Per Click advertising with Google AdWords.
Here is an example of adsense ad’s being displayed on MySpace.com.
Google Adsense Advertisers
AdWords Advertisers:
- www.Bagelgum.com/Short_Film
- GuyOpinions.NPDor.com
- www.TheTotalTransformation.com
- PlayStation.com
These are all Google Adwords customers who pay Google to help them market their website and attract visitors. These advertisers pay Google for every click they receive to their website. Since these ads are placed on MySpace.com, part of the Google Adsense Network, Google pays Myspace for every click generated by myspace visitors.
Example of Google Adsense
Example of Google Adsense
Using Google Analytics for Keyword Research
Many people use Google Analytics for stats. It provides a wealth of information, allowing you to see how well your site is doing, as well as showing you the spots you need to improve on. One of the areas we are going to focus on are the keywords that are used to find your site through the search engines. We’ll do a little bit of keyword research with Google Analytics.
You’ll want to set your Analytics to show the last month or so. (It does this automatically.) On the right hand side, you’ll want to choose “Traffic Sources.” Then click “Keywords.” This will list the top 10 keywords used to to find your site. It shows you how many visits, the average amount of time on site, and other stats. Those are the main 2 you want to look at. There will probably be a few that are way above the rest in the “visits” category, and hopefully that is for the term you are attempting to rank for the most. If not, that’s fine, hopefully that term is in the top 10.
Next, you’ll want to open up a new window or tab, and do a Google search for those keywords, and see where you are in the results. Are you on the first page? Are you number 1? If you aren’t number 1, but you’re on the front page, let me first say, “Congrats!” Secondly, you need to start optimizing for that keyword. You need to use that phrase on the page, use it in your header, and most importantly, build links to your site with that keyword you rank high for as the anchor text on those links.
Since Google already thinks you should rank in the top 10 (first page) for that term, if you’re optimizing for that term, it’ll just make it easier to rank higher. And, if people are already clicking through to your site, how many more will be clicking through the higher you go up on the search engine rankings.
So, instead of busting out one of your other keyword research tools, trying to find keywords you’ll have to start from scratch to begin to rank for, why not bust out Google Analytics, and see what keywords you’re already getting traffic for, and start optimizing for those keywords, to move up higher in the Google rankings.
