Dom Cowen’s Affiliate and Internet Marketing Blog

How to be a Successful Affiliate

Article Marketing

November 22, 2008 Posted by Dom Cowen

 

The greatest benefit of article marketing is that is an absolutely free method anyone can use to get free traffic to their site.  The number of locations articles can be placed is enormous with each one containing a link back to a site of your choice. It is a simple matter to submit your article to these places which should, wherever possible, be popular websites,an increase in visitors to your site should happen quite quickly. Acceptance of content at sites like this is a little like a ‘thumbs up’ to you as well and can be of great benefit,trust is probably more important on the Internet because most people are faceless.

If you perform this article marketing and submission process on a regular basis, people will begin to search for your material and trust your work.Showing people you are knowledgeable on certain topics means they will trust whatever you write and bookmark your site. The purpose of all this is to increase your credibility with the various search engines,this can help improve your organic visitors as your positioning on Google improves. Links from other sites (especially if they are popular) just improves your ranking and exposure,all at no charge, so free advertising is possible.

A number of links to other relevant sites can be placed in the body text (not too many) when using article marketing. When other internet users find your articles good, they tend to insert them into their own sites with all the back links to your site which just helps its ranking.  The speed at which websites get visited and registered by search engines can be ‘hit and miss’. However if you are submitting articles that are relevant to your website, the process of listing your site is usually much quicker which increases traffic.

Using article marketing to improve your website will also involve adding content regularly which will also help boost rankings. Bear in mind that when people visit your site, they are unlikely to want your product without learning more about it. Visitors are searching for information so the more precise and truthful you can be about whatever it is you are promoting the better.This is the ideal time to highlight the benefits of the product or service to the visitor. This procedure is almost like a safety net because you are explaining the process to them so they will not misunderstand. By doing this you are securing any order you make and will receive less refund requests.

It is this process of article marketing that ensures you will be in business for a long time,this process must be repeated on a regular basis for it to work. An additional benefit from writing quality articles is that other website owners will either link to your site or use your articles on their own site,having your articles on numerous sites just improves the exposure of your site. With the many ways to drive visitors to your site, article marketing is still the most efficient,all you need is to keep supplying them with the information they are looking for in the form of articles.

Michael Cheneys Fortune 500

Cheap Domain Names

October 28, 2008 Posted by Dom Cowen

You will need to tell a web browser the domain name or URL of a web site in order to view it. Usually this URL is a word such as a business name or a phrase describing what the site is concerned with, or perhaps a word or phrase that is the site name. There are companies that specialize in cheap domain names, and hosting companies often offer free domain names but there is an essential difference between the two. The domain names offered at no charge by hosting companies are not usually new domains but are in the form of a third level on their own domain names.

This means that when typing in the sub domain name the hosting company’s domain must be included. This means that the domain name will be longer than usual and probably hard to remember. These reasons are why it can be best for a person to buy an original domain name. Cheap domain name companies are all competing with each other to offer you a good deal, so finding an affordable name is very doable.

Cheap domain names can be free or they can range in price up to around seven dollars. Web hosting companies that offer free domain names that are worth anything will usually want the customer to buy web hosting from them, and the domain name is still paid for as part of a bundle. Paying for a domain name usually means that you can get it without a bundles web hosting package. Paid for domain names are available for upwards of one dollar.

The registration process does not distinguish the price you pay for the domain - the overall method is the same, whether it is a cheap domain name or not. A customer needs to first check that the required domain name is vacant. The customer must enter the name they are looking for into a certain text box and then decide on and select the extension chosen. If the domain name is still to be had, then they can buy it - if the name is not to be had, they must select another one. Suggested alternatives will often be offered if the desired domain name is already in use.

Unfortunately there are down sides to using cheap domain names, a person name never receive their domain name of the company they are using is unscrupulous. What often happens is that the company tells the customer that they have to wait, typically less than a week, for the domain to activate. When the customer patiently waits for a few days and then finds that the domain still isn’t active, they also find that customer services doesn’t respond with an unscrupulous company.

If a cheap domain name company is fraudulent then they are unlikely to be registered with the Better Business Bureau, so checking with them is a good first step in protecting yourself. This is an entity that checks to make sure that business operate in an acceptable manner. The next way to protect yourself from a deceitful cheap domain name company is to check for the normal contact information such as a land based phone number and address. Thirdly, visit some message boards that cater to webmasters and see if the company has a bad reputation there.

No one on the boards may have had dealings with the company, so you may not be able to get an opinion, this may be a warning sign. This is the sole disadvantage to getting a domain with a reputable and cheap domain name company. All domain names work in the same way whatever was paid for them, so if a person can take advantage of a company offering cheap domain names then they should.

For Cheap Domain Names, get them from GoDaddy.

How to Choose a Domain Name

September 14, 2008 Posted by Dom Cowen

A good domain name is crucial to ensure the success of a website online. An interesting domain name never fails to attract web surfers to click through and check out. That does not mean you need to be totally innovative. What could be the secret to finding a good domain name? Search engines look for specific keywords and then they index anything on the Internet. Attractiveness and optimization are the two important ingredients for a successful domain name. Keep reading – you will learn how to get both these things done.

Your first objective is to find a search engine optimized keyword that you can use in your domain name. You can find immense help with a keyword analyzer to achieve this. You will get these if you do a search on the search engines. Think of a sample keyword that tells about what your site is and enter it into the tool. You will get many options from the analyzer for the keyword you have used. If there are some keywords that better describe your website from among these, choose them. Your site is better search engine optimized if you use a long tail keyword because there will be fewer webmasters who will choose them.

After this, you can begin looking for the domain name you will keep. You can find out from the domain name service itself if a particular name is obtainable. You will get other suggestions for the domain name if your chosen one is not available. The best way to use this tool is to enter the keyword you have selected. You will get other recommendations if this particular keyword is not available to use as the domain name. If a particular suggestion has your keyword in it and terminates with a .com, it will be good for you. If this is not available, be more ingenious.

Try using some words, phrases or numbers to still keep your keyword within the domain name. The articles ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’ are good fillers. Hence, your domain name will get indexed and will also sound interesting. Use numbers at the end of the phrase.

Now let us see what to do if you don’t get the .com ending. With a very popular keyword, it does not matter if your extension is .com or something else. Other workable solutions are .biz, .net and .org. .net, One more tactic is to use country or state specific extensions. You can well understand that it is much wiser to be on the first page in the Indian Google than to be on the 86th page in the American Google!

It is not quite difficult to choose a domain name that will be good for both your users as well as the search engines. You can rely 90% on the analyzer tool to get your domain name. If nothing else helps you, the extensions surely will.

http://www.affiliatetraining-videos.com

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Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC Advertising)

July 22, 2008 Posted by Dom Cowen

The main benefit of pay per click marketing (PPC Marketing) is how in a relatively short period of time, the amount of traffic a web site receives can be increased dramatically. For many companies, this is the only method they employ because the results speak for themselves. There are a great many misunderstandings about how pay per click works which I hope will be addressed below.

All that happens here is an advert (some text with a url link), often in blocks of two or more, is placed on various other websites that are popular and receive large numbers of visitors. If someone likes your ad text they will click on your link and be redirected to your site and provide they stay for more than ten seconds, you will pay the hosting site some money as thanks. Now, the advert you have inserted on another site is directly related to the product or services the hosting site offers otherwise the advert would be wasted. For many people the benefit of only paying when the service is used i.e. when someone actually visits your site cannot be underestimated.

Rather than paying for a month’s worth of advertisements that might bring you no clients, here, you will only pay when people notice the advertisement and then go on to your site. In the past there were many complaints about bills being run up by competitors clicking on an advert link but that is not the case. The advantage of this pay per click system is just how directed the advertising is and of course, more effective use of a marketing budget. People who see your ad are already interested in the product or service you are promoting.

There are a number of these pay per click programs available but it is Google who have captured the market with their Adwords system. The process is easy to understand; all you need to do is provide Google with the phrase or word that you want people to use to see your advert. The searches that are then made on that term will bring up natural results and paid examples which may show at the side or at the top of the page.

For many people, part of the appeal about pay per click marketing is the immediacy. Whether the ad is going to be effective or not can be assessed very quickly with this method. This is still the most popular method of marketing because it works and most companies, large and small will use pay per click advertising as a standard method to market themselves.

If you would like to learn more about Adwords then I would thoroughly recommend the following products:

Adwords Miracle

37 Killer AdWords Pay-Per-Click Secrets

Adwords Killer

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How To Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing

July 21, 2008 Posted by Dom Cowen

The number of people tired of their routine jobs appears to be on the increase, perhaps it is they feel as if they are going nowhere but whatever the reason, they are trying to make money online as an alternative. When you are thinking of ways to make money, you likely want to know immediately what the best way is but everyone is different and what is profitable for one is not for another. First off you need to sit down and assess what your talents are and as there are so many methods to use, the two most popular are discussed here. There is no great mystery to making money because it is just a case of meeting the needs of people, once you find out what it is they are looking for.

Affiliate marketing is probably the most popular way to make money online where you become a commission only salesperson for a company which can easily have thousands of sales people (affiliates) working for them. Obviously the greatest benefit for affiliates here is that they do not own the company or have any of the pressure of running it and only have to think about sales. Once the affiliate has located a good company that intends to be around and continue with the program, it is easier to build up a relationship with them that profits both parties. The idea is to find a company that pays a good percentage on their commissions; seventy five percent is not unusual but try to avoid those where great efforts can be made just to secure five percent. The reason many people like affiliate marketing as a way to make money online is the fact they do not have to own or promote a product of their own so there is very little financial outlay involved. Have a look at Affiliate Millions for an excellent video training program for Affiliates.

Google’s adsense program is the other major method of making money online where they place adverts on websites they hope will attract people to click on. Adsense accounts are free and the person with the adverts gets paid a very small amount each time one is clicked by a visitor. This particular system requires a very busy website or number of websites to get enough clicks to pay a decent income. Google are very strict regarding their terms for the adverts placed on any site and can easily stop payment so check their terms and conditions regularly.

While Google may not restrict who joins their program, they do make plenty of restrictions regarding the placing of adverts so keep abreast of their terms and conditions. Everyone has their own reason for wanting to make money online but you must be sure why you are doing it if you want it to succeed. Some research and study is required to learn techniques of getting people to come to your site and many resources are available online, many of which are free. While I could supply many online places to go, your first port of call is joining the www.warriorforum.com and get yourself known to the other members; this place is full of every type of information used by internet marketers. The best thing about choosing to make money online is you can start from scratch without a product, a service, even a computer; there aren’t many businesses where you can say that!

Affiliate Millions

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How To Be A Successful Affiliate

July 8, 2008 Posted by Dom Cowen

Probably the simplest way to be a successful affiliate marketer is to build websites. Affiliate marketing is a great way to sell other peoples products etc., while earning a commission. You can choose from building a simple one page website or something more complex, it really is up to you provided it is on the subject of what you are selling. Unlike applying for a sales position in the real world, on the Internet you get to choose what company you want to sell for.

Obviously, the first task is to decide on a product that you can sell and there are many ways in which you can find a product. To protect yourself, read the terms and conditions of the affiliate program you want to sign up for and if you do not agree wit them, move on to another product. If you want to be paid for generating sales you will do this after all it will be your business. There are often cases where the trading country cannot export their product to foreign countries or they can only pay people who are resident in that particular land.

Most affiliate programs pay well but it does depend on their prices to start with; fifty percent is the norm but if you decide to become an Amazon.com affiliate, expect around 5-10 percent (this is worth checking regularly). Some of the best information on affiliate marketing is found on Clickbank.com who also promote products and where you can open an account and be paid commission twice a month. You should always be wary of affiliate programs that require a registration or administration fee as they probably earn their income from the large number of people that sign up with them. If you are new to this it is best you stay with companies that are reliable; two such are: Clickbank and Paypal (from ebay) both of which allow you to become a member at no cost although they do charge a small fee for transactions. At a later stage, trying different companies to handle payments will be fine but your inexperience in affiliate marketing at this point could lead you to making mistakes that are unnecessary.

Marketing affiliate products is not that difficult and it is easy to obtain free ebooks on the subject if you do an online search for them or useful websites; just be careful you are not *bogged* down with information. Do not concern yourself about the number of urls you see in ebooks, some but not all, have affiliate links for the author; you are unde no obligation to buy anything. It is easy to spend a great deal of money when you start before you have made your first dollar if you are not careful; start by using whatever free resources you can at first. For a beginner this is a way to see if something works and to then trust the person who supplied it and buy from them at some point in the future.

Do not forget that many types of advertising still exist outside of the Internet and to be a successful affiliate marketer you must consider these also. The advertising only needs to direct people to your website where if it has been designed correctly, will do the work for you. To find out where your affiliate marketing efforts are best spent you will need to track where the traffic to your site is coming from and stick to those methods. With affiliate marketing it is easy to work for as many companies as you feel comfortable with. Do not spend too much time learning about this because some people become permanent learners, never actually doing anything to ear money.

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Have you noticed how difficult it is to actually get any REAL information about how to make money online?

It’s a nightmare isn’t it? You start off buying up everything you come across - all promising your overnight riches but only to disappoint you and leave you out of pocket. Well it doesn’t have to be like that as Michael Cheney is about to explain in this interview.

Michael Cheney, one of the most-respected names in Internet marketing, has been online since 1995 and is the man behind the 6-Figure launches of AdSense Videos, 11 Days To List Profits and Michael’s Traffic Videos.

After receiving 1489 responses to a survey he put out to his list one big request came back from almost everyone;

“Give us something easy, step-by-step and proven to make money online that anyone can do!”

So that’s what he’s giving you in the new product Start Your Profits Today.

Q. Michael, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us today.

A. My pleasure - I know a lot of people out there want to get started making money online so it’s my job to get out and spread the word about how easy it is.

Q. So what do you see as being the main hurdles to newbies being able to make money on the internet? What is it that’s stopping them?

A. To be honest with you I think the main thing is information. There is just so much BAD information out there. Scams. Cons. Just bad information that is leading people astray and wasting their time and money. I mean you get onto the Internet and the first thing you see almost is these get-rich-quick schemes. It’s not your fault for seizing these so-called opportunities as they are presented so well. And believe me - I know there are thousands of you out there who have been taken for a ride by things like this. People on my list have been telling me this.

Q. Yes, you ran survey didn’t you to ask your list what they wanted? What sort of questions did you ask them and what did they say?

A. Well I asked how I could most help them. You know - I’ve been online since 1995 and make a lot of money online but I was keen to tap into their BIGGEST challenges and needs. So I asked them what sort of information they wanted to learn. What style of learning they preferred and how they wanted this information to be delivered. I was totally blown away by the responses - I got 1489 people completing the survey!

Q. So what did they say?

A. There some big common themes that kept coming up as I looked at the responses and all the comments. These were that people want something that is STEP BY STEP, something that is AFFORDABALE and something that takes you right FROM BEGINNING and doesn’t leave anything out. You can get really frustrated when you start investing in products that claim to make you money online only to find that leave out a massive piece of the jigsaw. Or they forget to mention that you need to buy X, Y and Z just to make their system work. And that’s where Start Your Profits Today is different.

Q. How do you mean exactly?

A. Well, for the first time - I take you, as a total newbie beginner, right through the entire process from beginning to end on making money online. You discover how to get your own website address, how to create your website and how to start bringing the money in by selling other people’s products. This is a distilled version of the best making-money techniques I have ever used in my 13 years’ online experience. This is quite simple the fastest, easiest and best way to make money online and I show you what to do every step of the way.

Q. Sounds great. So how do you take people through all these steps?

A. Simple - I have recorded short videos on-screen of me actually doing each of these steps so you just follow the simple success formula - WATCH. COPY. EARN. You cannot go wrong, even a child could do it. I’m serious!

Q.You’re right, it does sound really easy. So tell me, what are some of these steps that you go through in Start Your Profits Today?

A. You learn how to pinpoint the most profitable products to promote. You like that title?! I like to have snappy titles that inspire you to take action as it’s not all sexy make-money stuff right from the beginning. There are obviously crucial steps you need to take in preparation. You know - to get your website online, to get your website address and to add words and pictures to your website etc.

Q. So what exactly do you need if you’re a beginner starting out trying to make online? Are there some items you need to buy?

A. Great question - yes you do need to have a few essentials. You just can’t make money online without them. You’ll need your own website address and of course your own website. I show you where to get this and the best, cheapest place to go for this in Start Your Profits Today. Other than that you can do everything else pretty much for free.

Q. So you don’t need to buy lots of different things to get started online?

A. No not all. I’m a big believer in doing things that are free! I started out with nothing, working from my bedroom in a poxy one-bed bachelor apartment. Now I live in $800,000 house in the country. My point? When I started out if there was a free way to do something - I found it! And I’m still that way now so I uncover some of these insider money-saving secrets in the videos as well.

Q. So wrapping up then - who would you say would benefit from these videos? Do you need to have a basic level of knowledge on the internet to get started?

A. If you can turn on your computer you are good to go! Seriously! You’ll see that I take you by the hand and guide you through every step of the way. I hate jargon so you won’t see any of that and it’s all explained in simple English and you can go along and progress through to the money at your own pace.

Q. You really do seem to have created a product that every newbie is going to want! So I guess the big question is - how much money can they make using Start Your Profits Today?

A. Well this all really depends on your attitude. If you have a great attitude and you put in the time to go through the steps then there is honestly no limit. You could quite easily be bringing in a few hundred to a few thousand extra dollars a week once you are up and running. What you need to remember is that is exactly the same system that I use in my multi-million dollar business. It works for me, it works for thousands of other people and it will work for you too.

Q. That’s great Michael. Thank you again for your time today, I really appreciate you doing this interview for us. Well all that remains now is for anyone listening to this interview to get over to Start Your Profits Today and start your profits today!