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Marketing Affiliate Links

Promoting Affiliate Links:

There are a number of methods for promotion of affiliate links and we will discuss the two major ones.

Banner Advertising:

First, here is a little info on how banner advertising works; you place html code on your website and every time you have a visitor to your website the banner records an impression. The normal return is for every 2 impressions of their banner on your site, you will receive one impression of your own banner on another site on the web. 

Ask yourself this one simple question. How many times have you clicked on a banner that came up on your monitor? If your answer is never, you then should understand why banner advertising is not always successful. This said, a lot of marketers swear by banner advertising and since it is relatively cost free, you should give it a try.

You do not need to have a website to promote your affiliate links with banner advertising. Simply select the banners you would like to use from the ones supplied by the company and sign up with some of the banner exchange companies like BannersGoMLM or any of the others on the web (a google search for "banner exchange programs" will return 432,000 pages). You will need to buy the impressions from some of these companies if you do not have a website to insert their html code for the exchange feature. 

Note: Banner exchanges also can be part of your multiple income stream if you sign up as an affiliate for them. If someone signs up from one of the banners on your site, you then receive impressions from their banners also - giving you more exposure. You might also be entitled to receive commissions from any purchases of banner impressions from your "downline".

Establishing Your Own Site:

Depending on the type of site you want to establish, this can be relatively low cost or it can be extremely high cost. I suggest you check out the free hosting companies first. They allow you to choose a subdomain name that will be part of your url address. Give this a good bit of thought before selecting one. 

If you are establishing a gaming/entertainment portal, be sure the name you select reflects your site's emphasis. 

Example: gamblingheaven, casinomall, entertainmentdoorway, gatewaytofun. 

The search engines look for urls that match the keywords in a search request. If your site address is "joesplace.stormpages.com" and someone has requested "online casino" in the keyword search, your site will not be in the results (unless your meta tags (discussed later) reflect that your site is an online casino portal). 

If your address is "joesonlinecasino.stormpages.com" then your chances of being listed in the results are greatly improved.

The next thing you need to understand about "free" web hosting is that all of them come with the host's own banner advertising. This means that when you upload your pages, you will have a banner at the top of the page from the web hosting company. 

Is this Bad? Depends on how you feel about having a banner that may be advertising a competitors site flashing on your page. If you do not want the banner up there, most of the free hosting sites offer banner free sites for a small fee (about $5 per month).

Also, most ISPs (Internet Service Provider) offer free web hosting (up to 10 MB - the exact amount will vary from ISP to ISP) together with internet access. Using your own unused web space is highly recommended for those of you with little to no experience setting up web pages.

"How do I know if I have any web space? And if I do, how do I make a web page with it?"

The best place to start is the FAQ page on your ISP's home page. Most ISPs have a page where you can select files on your hard drive to upload -- while others will simply provide you with a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) address. (example - ftp://login.netmar.com) 

To upload files to an FTP server, you will need a software program that will allow you to freely upload and download files. I recommend BulletProof FTP - its the one I use myself and I consider it to be dummy-proof.

If you want to go for your own site with your own registered domain name, then your cost will be a little higher.  First you will need to register your own domain name: (never pay an outrageous fee for your domain - the ones below will register your domain for less than $12 a year.

HOMS Hosting (12.95 per year)

Lowest Domain Rates ($11.95 per year)

You will then need to sign up for hosting with one of the many hosting companies or just go to our HOMS Hosting and take advantage of the free web design offer shown on our Web Hosting page.  When selecting a web host, you will need to consider the services offered in their packages.  Be sure you will have enough space and bandwidth.  The bandwidth is very important if you plan to launch a full scale advertising campaign.  This can get a little technical so suffice it to say that you will need enough bandwidth to cover an onslaught of visitors to your site during a one month period.  If you use all of the bandwidth allocated for your site, the hosting company may close your site down until a new month starts.  This could be devastating to an advertising campaign.

Next you will need to design a website and for that you will need some software (very expensive in most cases - can range from $150 - $400).  But wait, there is freeware available and it is WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) software.  Just download EvrSoft's 1st Page 2000.  If you have never used web design software before, start with the "Easy Mode".  You can find website templates by doing a search on yahoo or google for "free website templates" . After you have your page designed, simply upload it with an FTP software (see above) or through your web host's file upload utility.

If you need more help with this step, please send me an email with your phone number and a convenient time to talk and I will give you a call.


Marketing Agency Links

Promoting Affiliate Links:

If you have signed up with one of the many opportunities on the web that give you a replicated website, with a tracking ID at the end of the URL, to promote their product or service then you will need to pay special attention to your marketing strategies.

WHY?

Most major Search Engines will truncate, or remove any characters encountered in a URL string after a "?" so as to eliminate multiple entries from the same domain. Example: Lets say your new company website address is:

http://www.makemoney.com/affiliate/?XYZ12345

A visitor puts in the keyword "makemoney" in one of the search engines and your page comes up in the listings. However, when the visitor clicks on your link, they are taken to

 http://www.makemoney.com/affiliate/ 

instead of your site because the search engine automatically removes everything from the "?" to the end of the url.

What does this mean to you? Simple! You now have a great working (and great looking) website that will not register in most Search Engines. In order to get listed AND achieve a high ranking in the Search Engines, we recommend you set up a mirror site. These are not difficult to setup and do give you more flexibility for your marketing efforts.

If you would like a Mirror Site and are willing to pay as little as $10/month for someone else to set it up and take care of it for you, I recommend you go to HOMS Hosting, sign up for a starter account. We can set up your mirror site, register a domain name for you, suggest html code that will help your Mirror Site rank better in the search engines, and even submit the site for you! This will also give you the opportunity to take advantage of advertising through the banner exchanges.

There is another way to advertise your site by setting up a "gateway" or "doorway" page. This is a simple one page site that you can set up on one of the free web hosting sites that links to your main site. See the explanation above on designing a website and a link for free software.

  http://www.home-communication-services.com This site is called a framed site. The heading allows me to use my own domain name but when the page is loaded, the code in the frame pulls up my affiliate site at RiverOffers and helps me promote all of the products and services for my RiverOffers business. The advantage is having your own url/domain name but not having to worry about the information on your site being out of date.

If you need more help with this step, please send me an email with your phone number and a convenient time to talk and I will give you a call.

 

 

 

Home Office Marketing Services
1780 CR 1123
Cumby, TX 75433
(903) 994-2325
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October 2000, all rights reserved.