Affiliate Programs Worthless for 80% of Affiliate Marketers
No doubt you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule – which states that 20 percent of affiliates generate 80% of affiliate income, and conversely, remaining 80 percent of affiliates generate only 20 percent of all income for most affiliate programs. There are...
Getting Started in ECommerce - Part One
In 2004, Enquiro.com conducted a study of the search behaviors of men vs. women. They found that women spend more time in their searches and at specific sites. The study also revealed that women tend to be more deliberate in reading search results,...
Google Adworeds and Multiple Streams of Income
I’m not a super affiliate, I don’t claim to be, but, I will tell you I like to think I have a little experience on the web. I have been at for six years now. You’d think after six years I’d get it right. Actually, I’m just like you! I work a full...
Link Popularity --- Its Role and Importance In Getting Top Search Engine Rankings
Introduction “Link Popularity” – these words may have caught your attention several times while you have been searching the Internet for tips on optimizing your website for top search engine rankings. Link popularity means popularizing a...
Register Your Domain Name Longer = Better Search Engine Rankings?
Google May Have New Criteria When Ranking Web Sites While I was registering a new domain yesterday I came across an option asking if I wanted to register it for more than one year. At first, I paid it no mind and just registered it for one year. ...
Affiliate Opportunity Scams
What could be better than an opportunity to make money using the power of affiliate marketing, while avoiding the hassle of having to build a site or pay to host your domain? Wouldn't it also be wonderful to have someone else do the work of sending traffic to your site?
Basically, you just sit back and wait for those huge commission checks to roll in.
Sound too good to be true? Good, because you guessed it. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
I'm referring to affiliate 'links' opportunity sites that are becoming increasingly popular. 'All' you have to do is promote the site.
In these schemes, you are given a free site into which you insert your affiliate link. That link becomes the 'featured link' on your site. Featured link? Picture a site like Yahoo!, then try to pick out one link as being featured. Can't do it, can you?
As the owner of a fr*ee site, you also earn a paltry commission when you sell one of these sites to someone else. Earning a commission on the sale of a product or service from which no one benefits sounds like ML*M to me.
Now here's the good part. For a 'small fee' the company promises to do 'all the work' of building masses of traffic to your affiliate site.
Oh wait. Before you can earn commissions from those links, you'll have to JOIN all those programs first. Until then, the links belong to the person who gave you the fr*ee site, and any sales made from those links will be credited to him, not you.
Considering those sites typically consist of hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of links to various affiliate programs, it's starting to look like you're going to have to do some work, doesn't it?
Do you really want to pay the 'small fee' of fifty or sixty dollars a month for the privilege of generating commissions for someone else? Instead, you could buy a web site template for twenty bucks that looks a hundred
times nicer than the affiliate links site design. Then you pay ten bucks a month to host your own site and join all the same affiliate programs.
Actually, you probably wouldn't want to join all the same programs. Many of these affiliate links lead to sites and products that you wouldn't want to buy yourself. Do you want to risk your business reputation by offering them to your site's visitors?
Don't forget that the same offer is made to thousands of people every day, each of them looking for the same magic bullet - the quick and easy business opportunity. That means that there are copies of 'your' site all over the web, and more coming online everyday. So much for being unique.
Not having a niche has another disadvantage. How many surfers will find your flea market affiliate link site when they are searching for 'handheld computer' or 'treadmills'? Approximately none. Niche sites get ranked by the search engines while flea markets don't get found.
All in all, these 'opportunities' are a waste of time and money, and benefit only the scheme's originator.
Real affiliate marketing opportunities abound, and many have excellent potential for earning serious income. Thousands of affiliate marketers enjoy very large incomes by promoting merchant programs and products.
While they avoid the hassles of carrying inventory, order processing and customer service - super affiliates do not avoid effort.
They know that success comes from investing time, effort and the forging of one's own path.
In other words, do the work, reap the rewards.
About the Author
Rosalind is a recognized expert of affiliate marketing. Her recently released ebook, the "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 Last Year Selling Other People's Products Online" is receiving rave reviews throughout the I-marketing community. Check it out at: http://superaffiliatehandbook.com