Earn 75% Commissions On My Answers Domination Report

I recently released a brand new report called Answers Domination…a step-by-step guide to generating web traffic using Yahoo Answers.

And now you’ll be happy to know that I’m launching an affiliate program that will pay you a ridiculous 75% commission on all sales you generate!

You can make money promoting Answers Domination in lots of ways…

• Post a review on your blog
• Send an email to your list
• Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages,etc
• Be creative!

To get started all you need is a free Clickbank account.  then go to the link below and grab your affiliate links to start making money!

Strange Happenings At Clickbank

If you’re into affiliate marketing then odds are you know all about Clickbank.  If you’ve never heard of CB you should know that they’re probably the largest online retailer of digital products and they have thousands of products to promote.  Its where most newbies start their affiliate marketing journey.

Unfortunately there have been some rumblings in the past few weeks about orders not being processed correctly.  More specifically, vendors and affiliates alike are afraid that they’re not getting paid for their sales.  Conversion rates for some products have tumbled and while some may shrug it off as a fluke a lot of people are concerned.  After all, if you’re spending money on a PPC campaign your profit margin may be pretty small.  Losing a few sales could mean the difference between a tidy profit and a huge loss.

Personally, I did notice a very quiet two weeks from my affiliate sites, but this past week has been back to normal.  Is there a technical glitch in Clickbank’s system?  Or is there something more sinister going on? 

Check out these two threads from the WarriorForum for updates…

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/27188-dreaded-clickbank-problem-some-facts.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/24125-clickbank-hows-strange.html

Using Htaccess To Mask Affiliate Links

One of my readers recently asked me how I mask my affiliate links on my new web hosting review site and I promised I would write up a post about it…so here it is.

There are several different ways to mask affiliate links but personally I use htaccess redirects.  i think its the easiest and most efficient way and I’m going to explain exactly how to do it so you can try it out for yourself.

But first let’s think of a few reasons why you’d want to mask your affiliate links.  Here’s what a typical affiliate link might look like:

http://www.costumecraze.com/WZRD22.html?c=cj,WZRD22

And here’s what it looks like using an htaccess redirect:

/dorothy

Notice they both go to a Dorothy Halloween costume with a merchant I work with through Commission Junction.  The second link has several advantages over the first:

• It looks nicer.
• It describes the link destination.
• Its easier for a visitor to remember or write down.
• Its more difficult to be hijacked.

Plus, it only takes about 5 seconds to create the redirect.   Here’s how you do it…

Go to your root directory (where your home page is) and look for a file called “.htaccess”.  If its there, open it in Notepad.  If its not there just open a blank document in Notepad and save it as “.htaccess”.  Note there is nothing before the period and be sure to change the “Save as Type” to All Files.

Ok, once its open just go to the very top and enter this simple code…

Redirect /description http://destination.com

Or using my Dorothy costume example above…

Redirect /dorothy http://www.costumecraze.com/WZRD22.html?c=cj,WZRD22

This simply creates a command that tells your server that if someone visits /dorothy they should be redirected to http://www.costumecraze.com/WZRD22.html?c=cj,WZRD22

Piece of cake!  And the beauty is that all of your affiliate links are located on just one text file.  If a merchant changes their links (you eBay affiliates know what I mean) you only have to change one file instead of painstakingly searching through your entire site.

Before I forget, you need to make sure that each redirect is entered on just one line or it won’t work properly.  Also be sure to backup the original htaccess file before making any changes.  Htaccess controls a lot of things and if you mess something up your whole site could be unavailable!

This really just scratches the surface of what you can do with htaccess.  To learn more check out this comprehensive guide to htaccess.

12 Reasons To Jump Head First Into Affiliate Marketing

If you’re looking to jump into the world of online business and start making money on the internet, look no further than affiliate marketing. It’s how I got my feet wet and I recommend it to anyone who asks me how they can start their own business online.

Here are my top 12 reasons to become an affiliate marketer (drum roll please)…

photo credit: ClickFlashPhotos

1.  It costs next to nothing to get started.  Technically you could start out without paying a dime, but I do recommend getting your own domain and hosting.  Still, you could literally start your business with less than a hundred bucks.  How many businesses can you say that about?

2.  Since you’re not shelling out a fortune just to get your business going there’s not much risk involved.  If you stick to low cost or no cost methods you really don’t have much to lose.

3.  There’s no inventory to store.  A friend of mine built a website to sell tea that he bought from a wholesaler.  He dropped about $1200 on tea and other supplies and the business went nowhere.  He had boxes of tea in his garage for a year and ended up giving them away at a terrible discount.   Affiliates never have to worry about storing goods or being out of stock of an item.

4.  There’s no order processing involved.  The merchant handles all orders.

5.  No shipping expenses or trips to the post office that you’d deal with if you started an eBay business.

6.  There’s no customer service headaches or refund requests.

7.  You don’t have to pay merchant fees and you don’t have to worry about paying for chargebacks.

8.  You don’t need any sales experience.  You can remain completely anonymous if you choose to.

9.  There are a limitless number of products to promote.  Imagine just about any kind of product or service and you can bet there’s an affiliate program to go with it.

10.  You can sell to the whole world.  You’re not limited to a certain region or territory.  You can promote the latest gizmo to consumers in Manhattan, Paris, Singapore, Dubai, and everywhere in between.  It truly is a global market.

11.  Your websites, blogs, articles, and ads will be running 24 hours a day.  You can literally earn money while you sleep or lay on the beach vacationing.

12.  High income potential.  if you just want to make a couple hundred bucks a month for spending cash, thats cool.  But you can make a lot more than that.  The sky is the limit for affiliate marketers.

Affiliate Marketing in Plain English

It always surprises me how little the average person understands about the world of [tag-tec]affiliate marketing[/tag-tec]. Whenever I try to explain how I make money online everyone in the room gets a kind of glazed look over their eyes…its like they understand the language I’m speaking but I’m just not making any sense.

I guess its because people like you and me are ahead of the game when it comes to the future of business. We’re already working on building a presence online whereas most people can barely check their own email.

Or maybe you’re new to internet marketing and don’t fully understand how affiliate marketing works?

Whatever the case, I’m going to explain the concept of affiliate marketing in plain English so everyone can understand.

Let’s say you want to make a purchase online…perhaps a new video game. Traditionally you would see the transaction like this…

A consumer such as yourself goes to a merchant website and buys the product they need. For example, if you want to buy a Shrek video game for Xbox you’d go to Amazon, search for Shrek video games and purchase the one you want.

That’s the way most people see online transactions. But often there’s another party involved. A mostly invisible party that few people know exists. The affiliate.

An affiliate is basically a salesman. The affiliate promotes a merchant’s products through special links. When someone like you or me clicks on one of those links and makes a purchase the affiliate gets paid a commission. Pretty simple huh? Here’s what it looks like visually…

Staying with our video game example…let’s say you weren’t sure which game to buy so you ran a search for the most popular games. The website listing the top selling games may be using affiliate links so when you clicked on a link and bought a game he would have gotten paid.

The process is seamless from your point of view. You paid the same price whether it was through an affiliate link or directly through the merchant. The affiliate merely received a cut of Amazon’s profits.

Affiliate marketing is a huge business and there’s a lot of money to be made…so if you’re looking for ways to make money online I strongly suggest you consider becoming an affiliate.

I’m going to be writing a whole series of articles on affiliate marketing so be sure to subscribe to my free RSS feed so you don’t miss a thing.