A Most Lucrative Way To Protect Your Affiliate Commissions

So you have finally stepped into the world of making money online. You too, like the others, have decided to start with the affiliate programs. Also, you must have heard that it’s not a big deal to make good money with affiliate marketing, provided you choose the right programs and do some strategic planning while promoting your affiliate products. So far so good.

Whether you are promoting other people’s products or promoting your own products - that doesn’t matter because after all it is nothing but your own business and your means to earn good money. So whichever be your case, I am sure you would not want to leave money on the table and invite others to steal your share of profit.

Even though the industry of affiliate marketing is pretty competitive but if you are cautious and are strategic in your marketing techniques then, it could be very profitable for you.

Take a close look at the industry, you will see that not every one who gets into affiliate marketing is successful. People who are doing well leave no room for failure and take all security measures and understand its importance.

Yes! Security is one of the key factors in affiliate marketing. If you do not adopt proper security measures, then your business will be at high risk. One of the most important way to restore security is to protect your affiliate links. Do not take them for granted. A bit of carelessness on your part in regards to affiliate links may cost you a lot of dollars.

Do you know the long complicated links that you send to your prospective customers not only look convoluted but they can create a lot of problems too! If you send such an affiliate link to your customers, then the smart ones will definitely figure out that you are promoting someone else’s product and they would rather visit the parent company. Also, if your link does not function then your customers have to type a really long URL into the browser, which will definitely put him or her off.

You could be a victim of even a worse situation. What if some devious Internet pirates steal your affiliate links and replace them with theirs. If they do that, then you get no commission at all.

Did I scare you off with all of the above possibilities? Well, that certainly wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to open your eyes and state facts that actually happen in the world of Internet. It happened with me until I came across ViralURL , that brought a revolution to my online ventures.

So, if you are not getting the desired results out of your affiliate marketing,don’t lose hope. There’s definitely a remedy to this problem and that is ViralURL.com

Do I hear you asking, what is it and how can it help in averting any adverse situation for an affiliate marketer like me?
Be patient and read on, if you love your business.

ViralURL is a link cloaker that protects you in the truest sense. There may be many unethical people lurking around, who might play with your affiliate links by cutting them off or replacing them with their own etc. How much effort you put in towards building your business and advertising your business, if your links are tampered with, then all your hard work will be rendered useless.

In order to avoid such a rip off, ViralURL gives you full protection and sees to it that your affiliate links never get exposed to others.

So save yourself from getting ripped. Get all the commissions to your account that you rightfully deserve. All this is made possible by ViralURL.com

It is a blessing for every affiliate marketer like you and me, who wants to achieve success in their endeavor.

Is ViralURL limited to only link protection?

NO!

It does much much more than that. Let’s see what ViralURL can do for us:

*ViralURL helps us in protecting commission.
*ViralURL helps in building mailing lists.
*ViralURL helps in tracking statistics.
*ViralURL helps in earning extra ad credits.

In short, ViralURL allows us to create massive business leverage.
I don’t see any negative aspect associated with ViralURL. All you have to do is join it for free, then cloak your links, promote them and see your business soaring higher and higher.

You can get all detailed information about the program from the site www.ViralURL.com . There, you can find several unsolicited testimonials from various users of ViralURL. So if you want to protect your business and see your earnings grow, try ViralURL. You have nothing to lose with it.

Making Money Online Is Alot Of Work

Sorry it's been so long since I posted here but I haven't had much time for this blog lately as I've been busy having a garage sale on eBay and setting up and maintaining all my other sites. Well, the ones that generate cash anyways. :-) And it's starting to get pretty satisfying. All my hard work is finally starting to pay off and the work is getting alot easier.

Work? Wait a minute Bill! Did you say you were "working"? Oh yes. Working alot. That's right, there's no free lunch folks. If you thought you could make money on the internet without any effort then you should rethink your strategy. :-)

It's a whole lot of work actually. Especially if you count research, mistakes, designing graphics, installing blog templates, installing wordpress, designing ads etc...

Designing graphics? Can't I outsource that kind of work? Oh yes. Very easily.

I choose not to outsource anything at this time because I want to save money. Plus if I do everything myself it will make me learn more. Eventually I WILL outsource a graphics designer but not till I start making more money than I am now.

How much work is it exactly? Well, after getting all the sites set up and looking nice (which took me all of 4 months) here is my routine:

I come home from work and immediately check my email accounts and take care of anything that pops up in there first. Usually I have mail from Tiger Direct with product links for me to add to my blog. I usually post about 5 to 10 products on Bill's Computer Deals.

Then I go to linkshare and search for links to other products for my other 2 blogs. Gadgets and Jewelry. After posting about 10 products each to those blogs I check my earnings at linkshare and then I go to google analytics and check my stats there. I usually spend about an hour there checking all the marketing stats for all my sites.

Sometimes I search for information or news to post to Strange And Cool or Bill's Everyday Life. I haven't been lately though because I'm just way too busy. Sorry. :-( I know everybody loves those sites and I need to work on them more and I will as soon as time will permit. Making money and selling our jewelry is more important than UFO's for us right now though. I'm sure you can relate. :-)

How long did it take you to start earning Bill?

Well, I started the blogs and websites I have now ( I have 4 main websites that generate cash) about a year ago and they are just now starting to get enough visitors to pull money. I use Adsense, Amazon.com, and Linkshare mostly along with google analytics. You HAVE to have google analytics or you're missing the point. Go check it out, do a search for it.

FYI: Linkshare is by far my favorite associate program site. CJ dropped me twice for no reason and I'm not signing up again. I don't like their site anyways.

I was really surprised that my adsense account had almost enough money for the minimum payout the other day when I checked. I hadn't checked my account for about 4 months and then all of a sudden I had 70 bucks in there. Woot! Amazon earnings are picking up too.

SO anyway I'm kinda happy about my affiliate programs earning me some cash but I'm really excited about our new Artisan Jewelry Store.

You see, my wife and I have been making hand crafted jewelry for a long time (about 8 years). We started out making hippie necklaces out of hemp and wood beads and have since then advanced to creating sterling silver forged art wrap pendants and gemstone necklaces and earrings.

We are in the process of building our first online store with OUR OWN PRODUCTS! Yay!

This has been our dream for quite some time now and it's finally turning into a reality so we're both really excited.

It's alot of work though but I know now that it will all be worth it in the end.

Finding materials to do my work is the hardest part. There are so many places to get silver and tools and stuff It's hard to shop for the best prices. Finding a jewelry supplies wholesaler is not very easy when you don't know where to look. I find alot of stuff I can work with on eBay though so that's cool.

Okay so what's yer point Bill?

My point is this: Spend some money, do a little work every day, and DON'T GIVE UP! You might get sick and tired of doing all this work for seemingly nothing but don't give up. It doesn't matter if you're promoting affiliate programs or MLM's they key ingredient to remember is that it takes time for your results to show and it's easy to get discouraged early on. But if you just "keep doing what your doing" and "learn from your mistakes" it will all work out in the end.

Like I said before, I'm no expert by any means but if I can help answer any questions please feel free to post it in a comment and I will be sure to answer it asap and if I don't have the answer I will find someone who does. :-)

P.S. Don't forget to check out our other sites before you go.
Bill Computer Deals
Gadget Kingdom
I Love Silver
Aesthetic Naturals Hand Crafted Artisan Jewelry
Strange And Cool

Free Ebay Resources And What Not To Sell On eBay

I'm getting ready to start an online garage sale and wanted to share a free eBay resource that might help you decide what to sell on eBay and some other tips like what would sell better (and easier) locally, like in your local paper or community classified ads website.

First off I am not an expert. My friends Scott and Lewis gave me this idea and I've been researching extensively. I also used to sell on eBay a long time ago but have been "off" for awhile and things have changed a little so I'm still learning too and I just wanted to share what I've learned so far about eBay. If anyone has any more tips to add to this please feel free to leave a comment.

You can sell just about anything on eBay but certain things just sell better locally. So I'm going to write about how to discriminate between what to sell on eBay and what to sell in your local paper or free community classifieds website.

I'm also going to write about how to find out "What's Hot" on eBay. Lot's of people already know this. If you know what the hottest selling items are you can usually find a discount on that item and move it for a profit.

What I used to do is go to eBay and search for products I think are going to sell pretty good on eBay then compare prices. After that I do another search and compare the number of bids the item has on it and how many days are left with the price. Items that have ALOT of bids (More than 25) on it regardless of the price are usually pretty good sellers. If they have that many bids and they are only 2 or 3 days old then you have a really good seller.

Well I found a site that helps me figure it out. The guy who runs it is named Edward Alvey. He's a pretty awesome guy. He provides loads of useful information and the site is free.

His site is called thebidfloor.com

I really like the What's Hot and What's Not on eBay section. There is a nice little chart with a quarterly glimpse into the sub-categories and the sweet spots on eBay where demand is greater than supply. This is a great resource. He even shows you where to find the best dropshippers and gives some tips and guidelines about making a profit.

What I like To Sell On eBay

• Small items that are easy to ship (under 10 lbs.)
• Things that are hard to break

What I Don't Like To Sell On eBay

• Large, bulky items that are hard to ship like couches and furniture.
• Glass and breakable things
  

The Reasons Are Obvious. :-) breakables are okay if you pack and ship them properly but make sure you do it right the first time or you'll get negative feedback.

So I plan to sell all my big stuff like the couch and some furniture on our local community classifieds site Ocala4sale.com and the rest of it is going on eBay. I hate shipping big stuff so if I sell it locally someone can come pick it up and it saves me the trouble of lugging it around.

I used to sell nature jewelry on eBay a few years ago so I may sell off a few leftovers from that and start finding things that turn a profit after I have my garage sale.

There are plenty of tips and guidelines to selling on eBay at the eBay site itself too. Just create an account and start exploring. You will learn alot by just reading the help areas of the site. Don't buy a book about selling on eBay until you explore a little further. All of the information is there you just have to dig it up.

My Favorite Internet Marketing Blog

Okay I haven't posted here for a long time. I've been super busy with a couple of other projects. SO, I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still here and I also want to share a really cool blog with you that can help you learn tons about internet marketing.

As you may already know Derek Gehl is one of my favorite marketers. He's fair and honest and he's not afraid to share lot's of marketing and promotion information with his subscribers. He also has a great blog where he writes about all sorts of tips and techniques for just about any niche or market.

If you'd like to join for free and promote the products everyone NEEDS to succeed online AND get Derek's Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter which explains to you exactly how to do it sign up by clicking here.

If you just want to check out Derek's blog click here.

Are you new to traffic exchange surfing? Here's how to maximize your efforts.

If you're new to all this surfing for traffic stuff then stop for a second and take a look at this.

I'm going to tell you how to do it right now for free. You don't have to sign up via email so I can spew my advertisements at you or anything. It's all right here on this page and I'll never bother you again. Unless you email me with questions. Then I will most gladly help you.

Ok so here's the concept:

• You join as many Traffic
  Exchanges you can.
  
• You set them all up to
  advertise 2 pages for you.
  
• One of the 2 pages is a powerful advertisement that will encourage people to join EACH AND EVERY Traffic Exchange Program underneath you creating mega referrals for you.
  
• The other page is YOUR website.
  
• Then you surf the sites with the special free browser software that I mention below.
  
• Eventually you will have so many referrals you can stop surfing so much because each referral earns you credits while they surf. I will explain everything below.

The first thing you should do is join Traffic Tornado for free. This is the website that you will be advertising to get referrals for ALL of your Traffic Exchanges. If you don't understand just join them for free and all will be revealed.

Here's what they offer

• Get a FREE TRAFFIC BUILDING
  website with all YOUR referral IDs inserted
  
• Downline growth for potentially
  unlimited number of tiers
  
• Total Flow-Through of your
  referral IDs for unlimited tiers
  
• Everyone also gets a Free
  Splash Page
  
• This service is provided
  completely FREE of charge

When you join they will give you a big list of traffic exchanges to sign up for. Join them ALL.

Follow the instructions provided.

Traffic Tornado offers a free Splash Page that you can use to promote your Traffic Tornado referral links.

What you should do is use this Splash Page to advertise Traffic Tornado on all the Traffic Exchanges you just signed up for ALONG WITH whatever program or business opportunity you are offering. This way half the time you are advertising Traffic Tornado so you can get referrals for all your Traffic Exchange programs, and the other half of the time you are advertising your own website.

After awhile you should start seeing alot of referrals joining under you in your traffic exchanges. This is the real secret to making this work. Your referrals will eventually fill up and earn points for you in all your traffic exchanges and you will not have to surf as much anymore. Then you will be getting hits to your sites even if you haven't surfed for awhile.

If you would like to copy the html on this page and modify it to use for your Splash Page at Traffic Tornado then feel free to do so.

This is awesome! I want to join Traffic Tornado Now!

Ok now that's done here's another little trick.

There is a special browser you can use to load all of your Surf For Hits sites at the same time. You just flip through the tabs to surf them all and get credits. It's a whole lot faster than using Internet Explorer.

Go to http://www.crazybrowser.com/ and download their free browser.

Crazy Browser is amazing! It has the ability to open multiple sites and windows inside a single browser window by using tabs at the top. It also has a Smart Popup Filter that blocks errors and popups automatically!

Crazy Browser has a feature that allows you to save any combination of URLs as a group.

• Open Crazy Browser and in the place where you normally type in website addresses (address bar at the top), copy and paste one of your "Surf-For-Hits" URLs in there (for example the one for NoMoreHits.) Now press the Enter-Key.
  
• You will then see your "Surf-For-Hits" page loading.
  
• Now type into the address bar another "Surf-For-Hits" URL, again press the Enter-Key and watch it load in a new window.
  
• Now, you can view either site by clicking on it's own tab or you can scroll through tabs by
  pressing the F3 key on your keyboard (I find this the quickest.)
  
• Now enter all your remaining "Surf-For-Hits" URL's, and don't forget to press the Enter-Key after you type in each URL.
  
• After you finish entering the "Surf-For-Hits" URLs, click on the main menu at the top where
  it says "Groups" and then click on "Save all pages as group".

A windows file window will open. Give your group a name, like "StartPages", and click Save.

After having done this, every time you start Crazy Browser you can simply click - "Groups", then the name of your saved group in the drop-down menu.

All of your programs should load on one screen. You can now surf them all at once.

If you have a slow connection and/or not very powerful computer, opening eight to ten pages at the same time may be too much. In this case, try fewer pages until your computer is running fast enough that you are happy with it.

You can set your own daily hit target according to your connection speed and time limits. I find Click Silo's hit counter a convenient tool to use for this purpose. I try to make it a point to surf at least 20 to 50 hits per program each day, more if I can.

Even without any referrals, working 7 or more Start Page exchanges at once using this method allows you to generate a large amount of traffic to your website.

L8rZ

A friend on myspace asked if someone could give him any advice regarding his website.

His name is Bill and I went and checked out his website http://www.arcade4fun.info/ to see if I could give him any advice.

I noticed a couple of things when I got there:

First thing is the only source of monetization I see is google adsense.

I think there should be other forms of monetization working here such as some game related affiliate programs like the ones I saw at http://www.free-games.com.au/. As you can see in the image they have a sidebar with pics and referral links to some pay MMORPG games which I think could be a nice little source of income. Maybe Bill should investigate that.


And he definitely needs an Amazon account. With Amazon.com Bill can offer links to tons of products that gamers love. Like the latest retail games and hint books and such. And it's free.

Secondly, when I click on a game to play it takes me to a page with the same exact layout. No new ads or pretty clicky ads that say "Awesome Free Games!" or anything else. Just adsense.

Again I believe that Bill should have some other forms of income working here. Usually when I go to a flash game site and click on a game it takes me to a new layout. It has the same navigation structure but this time the most important stuff (like ads for retail games and incentives to post comments and rate games) are at the top and you have to scroll down to get to the game.

Third: Bill's site does have a cool little ratings and comments box at the bottom along with an embed code so you can put the games on your own blog that I thought was really cool, but there is no way to collect email addresses. I think Bill would benefit from a feed linked to his blog so people can sign up for updates. That way he can keep in touch with his users and let them know when cool games come out. He can also send them news and encourage them to participate in rating the games and also comment about the games on his blog.

I would create a blog for this at blogger.com or wordpress.com and use feedburner.com to syndicate it. (And if you don't know what that means Bill just message me at myspace and I'll walk you through it if you want. I've done it dozens of times.) Or you can just go to those sites and investigate a bit and eventually you will figure out what it all means. :-)

After checking out Bill's site I went to a couple of other online game sites I know of to search for affiliate links.

This is what I found:


Gamespot:

This is an absolutely awesome site for gamers with mega traffic. The GameSpot family includes GameSpot, GameFAQs, Game Rankings, and GameSpot Trax. Gamespot is powered by CNET and is also part of download.com and CNET Shopper.

I found out that if your site gets enough traffic you can "partner" with CNET Which means you can offer links on your site to CNET Downloads, CNET Reviews and CNET Shopper and generate some extra revenue.

Just go to http://gamespot.com/ and scroll down to the bottom of the home page. You will see a link labeled "partnerships".

They also have an affiliate program in the works and are asking interested individuals if they would like to be notified when the program becomes active. Click Here For That

CNET has been around for a long time. I've been using download.com for years and years. I just recently bought some items from CNET Shopper and was completely happy with the whole experience. I think CNET is a quality internet company, and as a consumer of their products I feel that I can trust them.

What else did I find?

Well, I searched for LinkShare.com affiliates related to gamers and gaming and found out that you can get hooked up with EBGames and get up to 5% commissions on all sales. Electronics Boutique offers just about any retail game you can think of for any platform.

Gamestop is also at LinkShare.com but I think they are part of EBgames because they have the exact same description in the linkshare directory.

Another one at linkshare is Wild Games. This is a unique site. They offer game trials for download and they require that you sign up for the Wild Games newsletter before you can download anything which is ingenious.

After the user downloads a game they have the option to upgrade it and then you make a commission.

Click here to become a LinkShare Affiliate!

I'm sure there are more affiliate programs and partnerships Bill could find if he searches hard enough. I did not go to commission junction because I don't have an account with them anymore. They cut me off for low activity I believe. I think they will let me sign up again if I want to though.

Some other things Bill might want to consider:

An advertising campaign at advertising.com could get Bill enough traffic to "partner" with CNET so he can get his revenue links up and running. They have a campaign package for just about everybody and their customer service is excellent. I have used them before with a small campaign package for a couple of niche sites I have (I have a low budget can you tell? :-) and they were great. Really nice people.

If Bill had some membership software or a social networking site it might help him gain users. People on the internet love to interact with websites in a social way (social networking) like MySpace and Facebook. If Bill had a site that let people join and become friends and play games together his site would be more "sticky" (meaning people will stay longer) and he would have plenty of constant traffic to expose his revenue links to. Just an idea.

I saw a free social membership software package the other day that seems much better than the membership software in some of my previous posts. I haven't tried to install it and test it yet but the features looked great so I did download it for later :-) (I'm a digital packrat I guess).

Searching.....searching.....

Aha! I found it!

It's called the Dolphin Smart Community Builder and it's free. You can view the demo and download it here: http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/

Well I've been writing this post for about an hour now and I think I'm done. If anyone has any comments please post them.

Everybody visit Bill's website and play some games so he can get some traffic. And if you have a blog link to him and give him some page rank he's a pretty cool guy. http://www.arcade4fun.info/


L8rZ

A few simple and free ways to monetize your blog.

I know everyone has probably written a post about this a million times but now it's my turn and I'll make it short and to the point. :-)

There are 4 main places that I use to monetize my blogs right now.

They are:

1. Google Adsense

Adsense lets you put a snippet of code on your site from Google with ads. When people click you earn money. Simple.

Some tips about Adsense:

Do not put your adsense sites in the traffic exchanges. Some people pay Google for impressions not clicks. They will ban you if you put your adsense pages in the traffic exchanges.

Read the Google adsense TOS completely before you begin with adsense.

A word of note: The links below are my associate links and if you click them they help me to make a little cash so I can work less and blog more. So please help out a fellow blogger and use my links to sign up for these. You won't lose any money I promise, and your generosity is very very much appreciated. :-) Thanks guys.

Click Here To Check Out Adsense


2. LinkShare

Choose from hundreds of companies that pay you to sell their products on your site. Customize your site by choosing products that match your content. Again read the TOS.

Click here for free LinkShare Membership


3. Amazon.com

This is another great company. You can customize your site by matching ads to content automatically kind of like Adsense but I like it better. I'd love to tell you about all the features amazon has but it's really too much to list here. What I can tell you is they have cool widgets, you can build your own store, link to any product, they have their own associates blog etc... Do I have to say Read the TOS?

Join The Amazon.com Affiliate Program


4. The Internet Marketing Center

Yes Cory Rudl's old website, may he rest in peace.

Their new owner Derek Ghel is just as dedicated and just as smart as Cory was. And he's dedicated to helping people succeed. He still has the old "Insiders Secrets To Marketing Your Business On The Internet" package plus a whole slew of other new packages that you can purchase for your own benefit or sell to interested buyers from your website.

If you have people asking you how to make money from their website and you don't have the time to help them, you should tell them about The Internet Marketing Center and let Derek teach them while making some "on the side" cash via commissions from Derek's company.

Join The Internet Marketing Center Associates Program


About Clickbank : I really don't endorse any clickbank products anymore. There may be some good ones but I was not interested in promoting what they had to offer. I am taking down all my clickbank links what few there are.

About PayPerPost : I am not sure I like this concept really. It seems to me that this would decrease the value of my content so I'm not interested.

Anyway, if you like blogging and your getting some Google traffic try a few of these free services and see what happens.

You might be surprized.

Caution: Don't get so caught up in your marketing that you forget what your blog is about. Try not to think about making money just keep blogging about what you love. But if that just happens to be marketing then so be it. :-)

L8rZ.

Bill

Want to learn more about social networking?

Visit http://mashable.com/ "The social networking blog"

This is a very comprehensive blog. There is literally tons of info and resources for anyone wanting to learn more about, or get involved in social networking.

Cool blogging gizmos.

First off someone posted a comment the other day about widgetmate.com on this blog and I kind of ignored it thinking it was spam because they posted as anonymous. Then I got bored yesterday and clicked it.

It didn't take me long to find out how cool it really is. It's the news ticker over there ---> in the sidebar. You might have to scroll up or down to see it.

You can set whatever keywords you want for it (along with other options) and it's actually quite informative. I've clicked on quite a few good stories that were floating by. It makes for grreat dynamic content for your blog or even a website.

You can set them up on multiple pages and assign different keywords for each one to match your content. And it's free? Pretty darn cool if ya ask me. :-)

Go to http://www.widgetmate.com/ to set it up.


The other cool gadget I found is Cbox. It's in the upper right corner of this page. I've been looking for a cool gizmo like this for a long time.

It's a free messenger for your site. I was browsing blogs today and there it was so I installed it.

When I got to the options page they said it was only 2 dollars a month to upgrade it and upgrading gives you a lot of options: Increased message length, increased number of cached messages, user registration features and filters. Pretty cool yet again.

You can get it at http://cbox.ws/

So anyway I just thought I'd write a little note about the cool stuff I found today and let someone else in on it. :-)

Are You REALLY Serious About Advertising Your Business On The Internet?

Do you have a REAL Business Website that you need to get targeted traffic for but just don't know where to start?

Well today is gonna be a good day because if you have a website set up, or even 'almost' set up, I can show you two great places to help you start promoting it properly. If you don't have your own website Click Here.

First let me tell you that this is not a marketing ploy to get you to sign up for a list or to buy something from me.

I think everyone who is really serious should be able to skip the BS and go directly to the source. And if you like that then keep reading because it's all right here and it's pretty darn simple.

Okay, first of all, if you are surfing in the traffic exchanges then what you are doing is almost completely useless unless your niche is Internet Marketing or Traffic Exchange Marketing of some sort. Some people have success with MLM's in the traffic exchanges too.

Second: Email marketing is quickly going out of style because it sucks and everyone hates it. Laws to ban it are in the works etc etc...

Third: Safelists are completely useless to most people due to the fact that everyone using them is trying to advertise something. Advertisers advertising to advertisers? This is completely ridiculous if you haven't already figured that out :).

Fourth: If you don't have a substantial advertising budget you need to build one up or you will be facing failure and frustration.

Okay, now that the harsh realities are out of the way, one of the very best places to get information about advertising a business either on or off the internet is:

http://advertising.about.com/

This is a great resource and you should spend alot of time there. Read everything you can and check back regularly for new content.

Once you have loaded your brain up with knowledge and loaded your bank account up with some money for your advertising budget, go to http://www.advertising.com/ and contact them about setting up an ad campaign for your site. Don't worry if you think your site isn't ready for this. The friendly people at Advertising.com will evaluate your site and help you optimize it. It costs some money but it is well worth it. When you get there read the "About" page, watch the introduction video and then contact them.

If you don't have much money but want to keep playing, then here are some free resources you can mess around with until you build up an advertising budget.

Top 40 Traffic Exchanges
Free Marketing Tools
Free Software
Free List Builders
Free Affiliate Programs
Free Web Tools
Ezine Advertising
Downloads

Cool little Page Rank Checker

Use this to check your Page Rank
Click Here --> http://livepr.raketforskning.com/

Before You Put Your Trust In ANY Web Marketer Check Their Credentials First Using These Great Free Tools.

Everyone has a story to tell about getting scammed on the internet. You find this great sales page with a product or ebook that you just can't live without so you click the buy button only to find out that the product was either some cheesy info that wasn't very helpful or that there was really no product at all and you've just been "had".

This happened to me not long ago. I was on this site that was offering tutorials about internet marketing so I clicked the link and it took me to this sellers ebay page. So I figured this is Ebay, I'm safe here. Wrong!

I clicked the buy button and followed the download instructions but there was no download page. It had been removed or something. So I emailed the seller several times with no reply. It was only 5 bucks so I just let it go. No sense in worrying about it. I just kinda blamed myself for not checking this guy's credentials before I bought anything from him.

Then I thought "how the heck would I go about checking this guy out before I bought anything from him anyway!"

Well, luckily I am a subscriber to the associate programs newsletter by Alan Gardyn an lo and behold there was my answer in the very next issue.

You see someone had wrongly accused Alan of being a scamster and a BS'er so Alan responded by giving everyone on his list some resources they could use to check out his credentials and observe some of his past internet activity in order to determine whether or not he would be someone we could trust.

I didn't need convincing. I've known Alan for about 6 years now and have never had a problem doing business with him or taking his advice because he's never done me wrong and he has some great advice about promoting affiliate programs.

I will never forget the tools he showed us that day. I use them all the time now. Every time I see a new sales letter or new website pop up I use them. Every time someone claimes to be this super successful Internet Marketer and tries to convince me to listen to their advice or join their super succesful program I use them.

I don't trust anyone and neither should you! So I'm going to show this to you right now and explain a little about how to use them to check people out before you buy from them or do business with them so you don't get scammed.

There are several ways to check someone out and some can be faked but it's almost impossible to fake all of them.

You can use these methods on me and my sites if you wish but you're not likely to find much about me. I don't claim to be a super succesful marketer or anything. I've just recently started to make a little money promoting a few affiliate programs and advertising resources that are working for me.

I have no ebooks to sell and no super cool products to offer you that will "explode" your online business or anything like that. I'm just a regular guy that likes to do research and write about the things I learn about internet marketing and share it with whoever will listen and hope that it benefits them.

And yes I am trying to build up trust in people in the hopes that perhaps some will take my advice and join a couple of my programs and use some of the advertising resources I recommend. But I only try to recommend the things that work for me and would never try to sell something unless I KNOW it works.

I can promise you one thing though. You will not find anything on the internet that accuses me of being a scam artist or spamming people or ripping people of or any of that. :-)

Maybe someday my name will be posted all over the internet and I will be viewed as a super succesful, trustworthy marketer that everyone can trust like Alan Gardyn. But for now I'm just a hopeful little fishy in an ocean full of relentless sharks that want to rip me apart and take my money.

That's enough about me and I'm sure you want to get right to the good stuff so here is how you should go about checking to see if who you are dealing with is legit or not.

1. Do a search for their name in google to see how many pages or mentions of them you can find. If you find forum posts then by all means go and read them. Forums reveal alot about a persons character and you can determine whether or not you want to associate with them or not just by the way they act in the forums.

2. Search for their name plus the word "interview" and see if anyone has interviewed them about their business.

3. Use the SEOmoz Page strength tool to research their website and check their page strength. Don't worry if you don't know what it means they will explain it all at the website.
http://www.seomoz.org/tools/page-strength.php
This is also a great way to check the page strength of your own website or blog if you have one.

4. Check their Alexa Ranking. If it's a really big number then either they haven't been online very long, or they don't know how to build traffic, and you should be skeptical about them. Any marketer who doesn't know how to build traffic to their site shouldn't be trusted.
Here is the link to check the ranking for associateprograms.com:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=associateprograms.com

5. Do a whois lookup. You can get their name, address, email, host provider, phone number and lots of other information here.
Here is the domain lookup for associateprograms.com:
http://whois.domaintools.com/associateprograms.com

6. For any marketer you want to research, try searches like this at google:
"Allan Gardyne" +conference (I spoke at one in Hawaii and have been invited to speak at many others.)
"Allan Gardyne" +book (I've been interviewed for quite a few.)
"Allan Gardyne +ebook (I sold my first one in May, 1996.)
"Allan Gardyne" +testimonials (You can find plenty.)

7. Search for their name on http://www.googlism.com
This is a nifty tool for quickly finding a variety of opinions about people who have worked hard for years building their reputation on the Internet. (Googlism says it hasn't added data to this tool since since 2004.) Try it out now and do a search for Alan Gardyn.

8. Another tool you can use is the link popularity checker I mentioned in the previous post. If they have a low link popularity it means that sites probably don't like to link to them for one reason or another. It's just something to look out for and keep an eye on.

If you use all these tools BEFORE you buy anything, listen to advice, join a program, or do business with someone that you don't know it should give you an edge and save you from getting scammed.

What's It Take To Be Successful On The Internet?

This is a tough question no matter which way you look at it but here is my attempt at making an outline.

First of all I don't claim to be highly successful. Sure I've learned a few things and I make a few bucks from the Internet but I'm no Cory Rudl or Mike Filsaime.

I do know how to watch trends and analyze them though and I have noticed a few things from what I see throughout the infinitesimally SMALL section of the Internet that I browse and surf everyday.

1. Successful websites set up their own associate program and recruit people like you and me to sell their products for them. They allow us to join for free and tell us we can make money promoting their product. They give us some sales materials and some promotion tips and tell us to go to it. WHY? Because everyone wants to make money on the internet and successful entrepreneurs know this. SO they give people the chance to make some money. And if the people work at it they CAN make a reasonable amount of money. In fact, some people make SUBSTANTIAL sums of money from affiliate marketing alone.

2. Successful websites have partners and associates. Just look at Amazon.com. It always takes more than one person to maintain a successful business. So they build a workforce comprised of thousands of webmasters who advertise their products and give testimonials and reviews in order to "pre-sell" the products. Some affiliate programs offer multiple tiers or downline levels which means you can build your own downline of people to help sell for YOU. Just putting up products on your website isn't enough. You have to build downlines.

3. Successful websites offer downloadable Products like MP3's, Games, Software, Books and even internet or online services like advertising, directory submission services, email, picture and file storage, web site tools and programs etc.... You get the idea. You can give people "instant gratification" with these products. As soon as their credit card is approved they are sent an activation code and download link via email and they can get it right now. That's powerful.

4. Successful websites offer impeccable support. Some of them will bend over backwards for you. You might not have experienced this yet but give it time. You will see.

5. Successful websites have their own domain name. Some have MANY domain names!

6. Successful websites offer brand new and unique products that are in demand.

7. Successful websites offer dynamic content and lots of stuff to do.

8. They ALL have multiple mailing lists.

9. They ALL get LOTS of Traffic.

10. They ALL have some type of automated sales system.



So to sum it up, to be successful on the internet you need:

- A website with your own domain name.
- A great product or service that provides instant
gratification.
- Impeccable Support
- An automated sales system.
- To offer an associate program or affiliate program.
- Lots of Traffic.
- An Opt-In List.
- To recruit webmasters and build a large downline of
advertisers.

A successful Webmaster's two most important activities are: Building Opt-In Mailing Lists and Building Affiliate Downlines. If you don't do these two things you are shooting yourself in the foot.


Even if you don't have a product or website you still have some options.

You can join Linkshare or Commission Junction and browse their directories to find companies to partner with.

If you haven't heard of Linkshare or Commission Junction they both are sites dedicated to helping website owners find good affiliate programs to promote.

Actually you don't even have to be a website owner for most affiliate programs. Alot of them clone a website for you and give you the links to promote. The good ones will provide banners, ad copy, example emails and newsletter ads
etc...

While you are browsing Linkshare or Commission Junction be sure to check to see if the affiliate programs you are thinking about joining adhere to the following criteria:

- It should be a multi tiered affiliate program. Which means you should be able to get sub-affiliates to sign up under you and contribute to your commissions.

- They should offer lifetime commissions if possible. You can find programs like that here.

- The product or service should provide "instant gratification" or "instant results".

- They should have a reasonable pay out structure.


Some of my favorite affiliate programs aren't even really considered affiliate programs. Some people call them downline builders. They are modeled after affiliate programs but with a very powerful component added: The ability to promote multiple offers and services and build
multiple downlines with only one website. VERY Powerful!

There are several of these on the Internet...

- Home Income Team
- Traffic Hoopla
- Traffic Tornado
- Advertopia

...just to name a few.


My favorite by far is Home Income Team. They have great tutorials and instructions to help you get started if your new. All the tools and services you need for promotion are right there for you and Michael Cobb explains exactly how to use them step by step. And best of all it's free to become a member AND they give you a free website that you can "customize" and upload to your own web server.

Take a look at some of the Marketing Tools and Income Opportunities that you can promote with Home-Income-Team. Click Here to join for free.