Okay, so you have been looking at affiliate programs for a while now. Your inbox is filling up with all these advertisements and you just don’t know how to pick the right program.

How do you know which program is going to bring the best profit?

Well, I personally believe that a lot of the income is created from the effort an affiliate marketer puts into a program. But I do have a few pointers as to picking the best one.

1. Commission. You need a program that will pay you a good commission rate. It should pay you at least 20% of each sale. A good rate is 50% and anything above that is ideal. You should also look for how often they pay. Some programs pay you twice a month and some only once a month. Most programs also only pay you when you have earned a base amount.

2. Attraction. Is the website attractive? Or will your customers leave your site without even reading. The site needs to easy to read, but not boring. Also you don’t want to pick a site that is full of garbage, advertising an array of different subjects. Your site needs to filled with common ground. Also make sure the sight doesn’t seem to be screaming for attention (lots of large, bold lettering).

3. Support. What is the support for your program like? Do they have a good list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), a contact email address with a quick response (24 - 72 hours is good)? Any more than 3 days for a response is too long. Some programs even offer live chat. Now that is good!

4. Your Statistics. The program should offer an automated and immediate reaction to your statistics. They should automatically contact you when you receive a client, prospect, lead, customer or when you make a sale, it should also be ready to view in your downline as soon as you have the knowledge of the sale etc.

5. Incentives. Does the program offer free gifts, tools and advertising content (banners, pop-ups, email letters, articles etc.) It is important to have marketing tools to keep track of business and change things that may not work for you. Advertising is also important your traffic won’t come from no where, And gifts are a good bonus for your customers as well as learning from the gifts yourself. Usually the gifts are products to help you with your business.

6. Monthly Reports. Every good program will have news and training updates sent to your inbox so you can learn what works best for the program and what the top affiliates of the program are doing. You should also be able to read this on their website.

7. Reviews. Sometimes you will find that the program you are looking at has reviews in the search engines. All you have to do is enter the name of the program in the search engine form followed by “reviews”. For example if you want to read about Strong Future International (SFI) you would type “Strong Future International Reviews” and click ‘search’. Select any item that describes what you are looking for, and read what people think.

It is important to do your homework before you dive into anything. Learn as much as you and make sure you feel comfortable with your decision before going ahead. Remember that you will not make money overnight……..Some of the best affiliates spent 3 years or more promoting before they got where they are today.

For more info and great tips on Internet marketing, visit: http://www.profitableworkfromhome.com. Get your fully automated money making website setup free that’s 100% ready to take orders and pull in massive residual profits for you right now. Guaranteed! Visit: http://www.profitableworkfromhome.com

I can’t believe it! I open up my mail today, and what do I receive? A statement from one of my affiliates saying that I’ve earned a pretty good amount of money for the last quarter. Wow! How’d that happen? Since my web site is only a couple of months old, I couldn’t believe that I’d already earned that much from this affiliate. Now why am I surprised? Don’t I tell all of my visitors and readers to find out on a consistent basis how they are doing? Of course I do. But guess what? I got caught up in something that I bet each and every one of you gets caught up in!

I work hard on my web site. In fact, I work on it almost daily. And I work hard on my weekly e-zine. But then I sit back and think, Hmmmm is anyone really visiting my web site?” And that’s all I do. I don’t think to track too much. This is really not a smart way to handle your business. Since I started I-MarketingZONE I have learned a lot about marketing. I have to. I have to keep up with all the current trends in Internet marketing and web site promotion. That’s what my visitors expect me to do. And I use most of the things that I learn. But I’ve forgotten the most important elements tracking and testing.

It’s very important to keep track of which affiliates are producing an income for you. And I don’t mean by waiting for a quarterly statement like I did. By then you’ve spent a lot of time and money on something that may not be working. What you need to do first is get a notebook or use a spreadsheet program. List any affiliates that you have signed up for. Write down your username and password for future information. Write down the link that you need to visit to check your stats. Every time you go to check your stats, write down what kind of activity you are doing. If it’s working, then keep it up. If it’s not working, you may want to either try a different approach to promoting it, or you may want to drop that affiliate program.

Affiliate surprise can be fun when you get a notice like I did today, but if you get a notice where you are producing nothing, then you’ve probably wasted 3 months on something that you could have been doing different.

About The Author

Marci Perrine is the owner of Marci’s Creations Online, a web site development company, and I-MarketingZONE, an Internet marketing web site.

Visit http://www.marciscreations.com for more information on how Marci can help you build your web site.

Visit http://www.i-marketingzone.com for solid solutions on how to market and make money with your web site, and subscribe to her weekly ezine today at

http://www.i-marketingzone.com/subscribe6.htm

Many people are confused when they first become iterested in internet businesses, they find themselves asking what type of busisness is best for me?

Well I can’t answer this for you but I can certainly give you a few pointers in the right direction and my personal opinion. So here they are:

1. No emplyees. There is no need to employ people to do the work for you.

2. Low costs. Most affiliate programs are free to join, you don’t have to buy the product to sell it. Some programs have a upgrade option to make which makes your earninig capacity somewhat larger.

3. No storage. The merchant is responsible for the storage of product so you don’t need to worry about space or storage costs

4. No shipping and handling. The merchant is also responsible for the product arrival, so there’s also another cost you don’t need to worry about and running around you won’t have to do.

5. You don’t deal with customer service. Another problem you don’t need is customers who are not happy, if they are not happy the merchant deals with it.

6. No account keeping. There is no need to store customer information such as credit card details, addresses and phone numbers, this is yet another merchant responsibility.

7. No trading time for a wage. You can spend as little or as much time as you like selling your product. How much money you want to make is entirely up to you.

8. There are literally thousands of options out there for you. If you have a favourite niche market go for it, in my experience if it is a product that you are really happy with then it will be easy to sell.

If this doesn’t clear things up for you, I don’t know what will! What better way to make money online then to watch the company do all the hard work. All you have to do is promote, promote, promote, and when it is something you are happy with it’s easy!

For more info and great tips on Internet marketing, visit: http://www.profitableworkfromhome.com. Get your fully automated money making website setup free that’s 100% ready to take orders and pull in massive residual profits for you right now. Guaranteed! Visit: http://www.profitableworkfromhome.com

"Where is all the help I’m supposed to get. I have been buying ezine and classified ad builders and signing up for Echecks and Virtual credit cards. In the meantime I have no business and no ads set up. When does all this happen? Let’s go here. I spent all day on this. I’m running out of time."

I kid you not, this is the sum total of an actual email that hit my inbox this week. Not only did I not know this person from Adam, this was the first and only email I had ever received from her and to this day, I have no idea what she’s talking about. Presumably, she signed up for one of the affiliate programs I promote from my site and was asking, in her own inimitable style, for my help. Although I am always ready and willing to help anyone I can, this is most definitely NOT the way to go about asking for it. Needless to say, I let her know what I thought of her approach in NO uncertain terms.

The attitude displayed in this person’s email to me (and she is by no means an isolated example) exemplifies why so many people fail to make a success of their online businesses. Leaving aside the utter rudeness of the approach, notice the impatience, the expectation to be up and running in a day, the HURRY, the apparent belief that real world principles such as courtesy and good manners don’t apply online (they do). Think this person is going to last the distance? What kinds of tactics do you think she is capable of resorting to in pursuit of the almighty dollar?

So, let’s take a realistic look at affiliate programs, what they can and can’t do for your business and how to maximize your chances of creating a successful, long-term business with them.

WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM?

An affiliate program (also known as a reseller, associate, referral or partnership program) is essentially a revenue-sharing arrangement whereby you, the affiliate, receive payment from the owner of a product or service that you promote on their behalf.

Affiliate programs are an excellent way for the new internet entrepreneur to start an online business.

TYPES OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

There are various types of affiliate programs.

The most simple involves you, the affiliate, placing a banner ad, graphic or text link at your site which is linked to the site of the business you are promoting. This link is coded with your unique affiliate ID so that the site visitor is recorded at the target site as having originated from your site, thereby allowing you to be credited with the sale.

Payment is generally a fixed percentage of the sale value (commission) or "pay per click", where the affiliate is paid a certain amount for every time a site visitor clicks on the link at the affiliate’s site, whether or not a sale is made.

The more sophisticated affiliate programs are multi-tier and allow the affiliate to earn commissions not only on the traffic they directly refer to the target site but also a proportion of sales generated by their sub-affiliates.

BENEFITS OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

The greatest benefit of affiliate programs is that when you are just starting out in your own online business you don’t have to worry about creating your own product or service. You just promote someone else’s and get a share of the revenue pie for your efforts.

You also don’t have to concern yourself with warehousing, transport or logistics headaches. All of this is handled by the business whose products/services you are promoting. All you need concentrate on is driving traffic to that business’s website. This means that a high proportion of your revenue is profit.

The owner of the product/service is also responsible for collecting payment, customer service and the myriad other details that come up on a day to day basis in running the business.

DISADVANTAGES OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

The main and obvious disadvantage of affiliate programs is that it is the owner of the product/service who earns the lion’s share of the profit on the sale.

You’re working on commission. You will NEVER earn by way of affiliate program commissions as much as you can earn by way of profits from producing and selling your own product/service.

As a result, affiliate programs represent a high opportunity cost when you consider what you could earn if you instead channeled the time and energy you spend on promoting affiliate programs into creating and promoting your own product/service.

For this reason, it does not make sound business sense to rely solely on affiliate program income for the longer term growth of your business.

Instead, think of them as a way of dipping your toe in the water when you’re first getting started, and a nice little sideline once you’ve created your own product/service. Do NOT build your business around affiliate programs with the intention this will always be the backbone of your business. You’ll be stunting your own growth if you do.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT AFFILIATE PROGRAMS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

So, keeping in mind what affiliate programs can and can’t do for your business, let’s turn to what you should look for when choosing an affiliate program or programs to promote in your business.

=> Synergistic Products/Services

First off, and this is a cardinal rule, only promote those programs which will allow you to create synergies with your site. This means selecting programs that naturally complement the subject matter of your site and that will therefore be of interest and relevance to your site visitors. This will ensure your prospects (ie your site visitors) are pre-qualified which will result in a relatively higher conversion ratio (the ratio of visitors to purchases) than would be the case if your traffic is untargeted (which will be the case if you promote unrelated products and services from your site.)

=> Quality In All Things

Keeping the need for synergy uppermost in mind, look for quality programs first and foremost. The last thing you want to waste your time, money and reputation on is a shoddy product or service. There are just too many quality programs out there to settle for anything less.

=< Stability of Company

Look for a company that’s been around for a while and that’s reputable and stable (both financially and in its management). Any reputable company will have full contact details readily available so do your research.

=> References

Look for testimonials and references from other affiliates. If the company you’re interested is not forthcoming when it comes to putting you in touch with other affiliates, move on.

=> Affiliate Agreement

Look for a professional, considered and detailed affiliate agreement (contract). This shows that the company is serious about its business.

Watch out for exclusivity clauses and other restraints. Some affiliate agreements will require that you not promote competing businesses’ products and services. This is not to say you should avoid such agreements. As a general rule, it is your interests not to promote competing programs anyway. Just be aware of what the agreement says on the subject to avoid getting yourself into hot water.

Look also for an agreement that treats spammers harshly. This protects not only the company but other affiliates as well. The last thing you or any other reputable affiliate needs is to have your reputation and the reputation of the product/service you are promoting besmirched by these sorts of tactics.

=> High Commissions

Promoting someone else’s affiliate program necessarily requires that you divert traffic away from your site and towards someone else’s. Make sure you’re properly compensated with a high commission structure. And be sure to set up your link so that when the visitor clicks on it, a new browser window is opened for the target site. This at least keeps your site in front of the visitor so they can go back to your site once they’ve finished at the site your link has taken them to.

=> Lifetime Commissions

Look for affiliate programs that will credit you with not only THIS sale but all other sales the customer may make in the future. Many programs are set up so that the customer is identified as "yours" so that when the customer returns to the target site in three months time, the sale is recorded as having been generated by you.

=> Residual Commissions

Include programs that offer residual commissions in your portfolio. Good examples are webhosting services, autoresponder services and the like where customers sign up for a continuous service that requires periodic, regular payments. You receive periodic, regular commissions as a result.

=> Tracking of Commissions

Look for programs that allow you real-time access to your stats so you can keep easy track of your commissions.

=> Reliability of Payment

When checking with affiliate references, find out what the business’s record is on paying out commissions. If they’re slow or there appears to be a pattern of problems, keep looking.

=> Frequency of Payment

Make a note of payment schedules too. Some programs pay weekly, some monthly, some quarterly. Some only pay once you accumulate commissions of a certain amount. None of these arrangements are necessarily good or bad in and of themselves. Just be sure you know what to expect.

=> Programs that Require Payment Up Front

Two words: MOVE ON!

=> Affiliate Support

Finally, take a look at what support the business offers its affiliates to make sales. Do they provide resources such as sample ads, banners, logos and the like? Do they provide useful advice about maximizing your sales? A good affiliate program provides affiliates with a LOT of support in these areas.

MAKING MONEY FROM AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

OK, now you know what to look for in an affiliate program. Here’s how to maximize your sales of those products and services and, therefore, your commissions:

=> Get Your Own Website

No ifs, no buts. DON’T rely on the you-beaut self-replicated job the company provides all its affiliates. Link to that site from your main site.

=> Get Your Own Domain Name

This presents a much more professional image. Many people won’t give the time of day to a business that thinks so little of its prospects that the owner won’t shell out 70 bucks for a domain name. So mean business and look like it.

=> Get Traffic To Your Site (Duh!)

As a rough guide, you will need at least 500 targeted unique visitors a day to your site to make reasonable money from affiliate programs.

=> You Must Have A Site That Will Attract Repeat Visitors

If your website is nothing more than a splash page consisting of little else other than banners for umpteen different affiliate programs, forget it. Your site must be worthy of your visitor’s time and interest before you can even begin to think about converting that visitor into a paying customer. So create a real site with real content that will keep them coming back for more.

=> Personal Testimonials

A personal testimonial will result in more sales than a mere link or advertisement. So take the time and trouble to write a personal endorsement of the product or service you are promoting. And, of course, it goes without saying that in order to write a personal endorsement, you must know that of which you speak. NEVER promote a program you haven’t first purchased yourself. If you don’t think enough of your program to invest in it, how do you expect to persuade others to?

=> Promote With Your Sig File

Include a link to your site in the signature of every email you send.

=> Promote In Your Own Ezine

Finally, if you’re not already publishing your own ezine or newsletter to stay in touch with your site visitors, start. It’s a great way to promote not only your site but also the affiliate programs you promote from your site.

MAKING SERIOUS MONEY FROM AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

The only way of making SERIOUS money from affiliate programs is by creating your own product or service and recruiting affiliates to sell for YOU.

The affiliate program phenomenon is one of the Internet’s true success stories. It provides a toe-hold for the would-be internet entrepreneur to begin a real, live business of his or her very own. But the real beauty of affiliate programs lies not in what they can do for you, as an affiliate, but what they can do for you, as a recruiter of affiliates for your own program. By all means jump on the bandwagon and start promoting other people’s products to get your start. But don’t wait too long to start developing your own product line. There is a ready-made salesforce numbering in the millions ready and waiting to sell it for you.

About The Author

Elena Fawkner is editor of the award-winning A Home-Based Business Online … practical home business ideas, resources and strategies for the work-from-home entrepreneur.

http://www.fawkner.com/subscribe.html

How should you organize your online business?

Affiliate marketing seems to make sense, its easy and low cost to start, and you can be up and running within a few days - but the struggle is how to get traffic and make my offer different than all the others?

On the other hand, creating your own product is what you may really want to do, if not for being so unsure about what topic to write about and finding the time in your busy life to get started?

Let me share two important true facts with you about choosing between affiliate marketing and producing/marketing your own products.

Tip 1: 99% of Successful Online Entrepreneurs Do Both

Tip 2: Most Successful Online Entrepreneurs Lead With Their Own

Product To Build Affiliate Business

Here’s why.

Truly successful online marketers look to differentiate and dominate a given niche demand within a market.

For example, let’s pick the Strength Training and Fitness market.

Matt Furey (of www.mattfurey.com) has come from nowhere to dominate his market niche in the last few years with a combination of his own products, but also offers many affiliate products to his subscribers.

Affiliate marketing, marketing your own products, and for that matter network marketing and franchising are all just business models.

No matter what the business, what you really want to do is dominate your market with a combination of hitting the right demand and meeting that demand in a unique way.

You Want To Position Yourself Between The Challenges

And Solutions Within Your Chosen Niche Market

Think of it this way.

You find an interesting niche market and discover they are challenged by 3 main issues.

You know more about issue 1, but less about issue 2 and 3.

So - you create a product around solving issue 1 and plan to address issues 2 and 3 with affiliate programs.

You lead with your product, including a list building campaign such as a minicourse or newsletter through which you later market products that fulfill issues 2 and 3.

Its really common sense when you think about your business in terms of solving problems or overcoming obstacles in a given market rather than lets market hot product #1 because it seems like a good affiliate program.

If you are struggling with what your business model should be - don’t get caught in this trap. Instead, find out what your market needs, then figure out the best way to solve the problem for them - either through someone else’s products or your own.

Need help finding your niche marketing, discovering pockets of demand or creating your own products to lead into your market - then the answer can be found here: http://www.infoproductcreator.com

Turn Your Knowledge Into High Profit, Hot Selling Infoproducts (Reports, Ebooks, Books, Seminars, Courses, etc…) Discover the Formula For Creating Your Own Infoproducts In This Free 7-part Formula Available Here: http://www.infoproductcreator.com/ebook/

When joining affiliate programs there are many decisions you have to make. Unfortunately, few people query what kind of tracking software the program uses. To overlook this can prove costly, and means you may never be credited with 5% - 10% of your affiliate sales.

A good affiliate program will use quality affiliate tracking software that is reliable and tracks all of your sales. You must make sure that they not only track online sales, but also sales by phone, fax and mail order. Many companies only track online, and this means you will lose between 5% - 10% of your sales.

Also, make sure that the affiliate program uses ‘cookie tracking’ software to ensure that you will be credited for sales from people who don’t buy the first time they visit your website, but come back and buy at a later date. For those of you who don’t know what a ‘cookie’ is. A cookie is a small piece of information that a web site puts on your hard drive so that it will remember you when you return later. This is how cookies can be used to track visitors to a web site. In this way the affiliate program will be able to track all the sales from your site, even though the visitor did not buy on the first visit to the web site.

Many affiliate programs use software that only tracks about 80% of your sales. It has to be said that many of the popular affiliate companies are guilty of this. So beware big names! Some companies use tracking software that only pays if the customer visits your link and buys straight away. If the visitor returns to your site an hour later… a day later… week later… and buys, you will not be credited for the sale. Good ‘cookie tracking’ software ensures that this never happens.

So, before you join any affiliate scheme make sure to ask about the kind of tracking software they use. It could save you a small fortune in the long term.

© John Lynch

For high-earning lifetime and residual affiliate programs go to: www.merchant-account-service.com/affiliate_programs.html

Virtually all online marketers have attempted lots of schemes and programs. Most online marketers have dropped a load of bread attempting to get going. But most online entrepreneurs have just quit. In point of fact, merely one in a hundred of internet entrepreneurs ever pull in enough income to retire from a 9 to 5 job.

The good news is that though most internet marketers don’t make it, each internet marketer can succeed.

The number one step of every single achievement on the internet is a goal. Whether that goal is a C note every 4 weeks or a good retirement income, you are required to write your plan out.

To reach that goal, you should lay out some sensible steps in getting to that goal. You could begin with a goal of ten dollars every 4 weeks. Then fifty dollars a month by the third month and one hundred dollars a month in a years time.

If you are trying for a million dollars a year, then you ought to set your goals quite a bit higher. However either way, you just have to write down your plan and try to attain it.

With any program, you ought take note of your advancement. As you near the second month, note the difference between your progression and your goal. At this point you need to analyse your advancement. Look at your profit versus what your goal was.

If you did not earn as much as your goal, ascertain why. Are you using the wrong affiliate program? Are trying to get traffic to your affiliate the wrong way?

On the other hand, if you reached your goal, analyze how it happened. Remember, you will be attempting to ramp up your income within a few weeks. Look into what you did right. Try doing better the next time around. And try to repeat the things you did well and expand it.

If things are going even better than you expected, you will have made even more than your goal. In that eventuality, you also must to figure out the reason. Then you will want to increase those methods you used.

Now take some time; look back at your goals. You may need to adjust the amounts of money and time periods to a lower goal, or set the goals even higher.

In any case, you will find yourself part of an exclusive minority. You will be part of those actually making good money on the internet.

Ron McCluskey has been marketing online since the early eighties.
Need some great free afilliate tools? Check out Affiliate Treasure Hunt
You can find these articles and more at Monthly Affiliate Income

When you join an affiliate program or start an affiliate program of your own, you have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program.

With a single tier program you earn a commission on any sales you make and that is it. If you are running your own affiliate program, you pay your affiliates a commission for any sales they refer and that is all.

However, with a two-tier program, affiliates are allowed to recruit sub-affiliates and are paid a small percentage of the sales these sub-affiliates generate. For example, the affiliates may earn a 30% commission for selling product X himself; and when one of the sub-affiliates makes a sale, the affiliate may get a 10% commission as well. This is very profitable for the affiliate as he can recruit an army of sub-affiliates, all earning commissions for him without any effort on his part except for the initial recruiting process.

If you are starting an affiliate program of your own should it be two-tier or single tier? Some might shy away from the seeming expense of a two-tier program. But is it really that expensive? Many affiliate program managers make the wrong decision on this.

Let’s look at an example. You have an affiliate program up and running and an average affiliate joins your program. Mr.Average has a web site that receives average traffic. He also has an ezine with thousands of subscribers published monthly. Mr. Average posts your affiliate links to his web site and promotes your product to his ezine list.

Initially, he generates good sales. However, a point comes when he saturates his market with your product and his sales begin to drop. He begins to lose interest in your program and your sales remain small. What happens if you set up a two-tier program? Rather than trying to keep your commission pay outs small, you motivate your existing affiliates to recruit other people to your program. This will exponentially increase your affiliate sales. Would it not be worth paying the referring affiliate a percentage of their sub-affiliates’ sales? Now when Mr.Average joins your affiliate program this is what would happen. When he has saturated his market with your product, he would now promote your affiliate program to his customers and ezine subscribers. Many of Mr.Average’s customers and subscribers decide to join the affiliate program. This in turn will motivate Mr.Average to continue promoting your products and recruiting affiliates.

Now what is the situation?

1) Your income increases because of increased sales.

2) You have a much larger customer base to which you can sell ‘backend’ products.

3) An increase in your income because of the life time loyalty of the customers referred by your affiliate.

4) An army of sub-affiliates who will sell your products, and in turn promote your affiliate program to their customers and subscribers.

The little extra in affiliate sales commission pay outs will be more than compensated for by the exponential sales increase. This is why the two-tier affiliate program is a guaranteed winner and should be the automatic choice for potential affiliates and affiliate program managers.

© John Lynch

For high-earning lifetime and residual affiliate programs go to: www.merchant-account-service.com/affiliate_programs.html

The other night I had dinner with a friend who mentioned knowing quite a few people needing websites for their local businesses. Despite being a software engineer, my friend is not a web designer nor does he know enough about servers to actually host (store) websites. On the other hand, he suspected there was a way to translate contacts into some money on the side. That’s when I told him about reselling.

Reselling is basically the business of selling web space that is already established by a web space provider (known as a host). A host sells you their space and, in turn, you sell it to your client. This arrangement is like buying at wholesale and selling at retail prices. It’s also like subletting an apartment for more than your own rent. In terms of websites, the ideal reseller scenario is one where you buy web space at a low enough rate so you can sell it to your client at your own price and make a profit.

More specifically, if you purchase a web hosting plan for $5 per month and sell it to your client for $15 per month, you are making a 200% profit instantly each month. Who wouldn’t like spending $5 in order to make $10 profit? Ten such arrangements bring in around $100 per month or $1,200 per year. Sounds like easy money on the side.

But what exactly is required of a reseller? This article isn’t meant to provide quick ways to simply make money off your friends and business contacts. It’s a legitimate way to provide them with something they need for a fair price. While you need to have a basic knowledge of what a host does, you won’t have all of the answers, not a first. This is where the experience and professionalism of your host comes into play. For instance, if your client has questions about setting up an email account, you need to respond in a timely manner with the answer. If you don’t know the answer to a support issue raised by a client, this is where you host can assist you.

I have seen the roles of resellers vary depending on the host. One host may have direct contact with your clients and answer all their questions. This could be dangerous for you (the reseller) as one day your clients may wind up a direct client of the host and leave you out of the arrangement completely. More commonly, the web host has no dealings with your clients at all. The host bills and supports you (the reseller) and, in turn, you bill and support your clients. If your clients have a problem you can either handle it directly with them or, if you’re not sure of the solution, you can ask the host who will take care of it for you. Once you have been reselling for a while you will likely notice two things. First, you will find that clients ask the most questions early on. Once your clients have been setup and their site is running smoothly, you probably won’t hear from them much. Secondly, after you field some of the more common support questions from clients and see how your host handles them, you will soon be resolving many issues on your own.

Now that we have established what is involved in becoming a reseller and the importance of good customer support, let’s talk about how to widen the profit margin. At the beginning of this article I mentioned my friend was not a web designer, but what if he was?

What if you are a web designer looking to earn more money? Why build a website and then hand it over to someone else to host when you could be offering that service to your clients? Becoming a hosting reseller would be the perfect match for you. The more services you can provide your clients, the more money you will make. Earlier I mentioned that with only 10 reseller accounts you could be earning $100 per month. Imagine if you added fees for web design. The cost for web design is often a one-time fee, but if your client requires monthly updates to their site you could be adding $50 to $100 per month to your monthly profit. Add a few of these type arrangements and you could be earning $500 per month or more.

If you have access to people interested in starting websites they can quickly become a paying client. Web hosts are there to handle everything you don’t know how to do; including the management of servers, ensuring your client’s data is not only backed up, but protected from natural disasters and hackers. Just because you don’t have a degree in server management doesn’t mean you can’t get into the web business.

Many hosting companies offer reseller packages and most are unique arrangements so shop around and find out which works best for you. Reselling can be very rewarding in that you are genuinely helping others get a website and also you can quickly start earning some money on the side. The trick is to partner up with a host you can trust, one that provides you with the same quality of service and professionalism you want/need to show your own clients.

Copyright 2005 Anthony Vita

Anthony Vita started his own successful web hosting business, Web Feat, Inc, in 1997. Since then, Anthony has been helping businesses and individuals worldwide ahieve their online presence.

Contact Anthony today:
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Satellite TV has exploded on the scene during the last decade, providing expanded channel offerings and new technologies that were not previously available from regular television. When the "mini-dishes" were developed and the satellites put in place by Dish Network and Direct TV, satellite TV became available to almost everyone. Now, more than 23 million households subscribe to satellite TV with thousands more joining all the time.

The major players in satellite TV have moved some or all of their operations online, prompted both by the cost-effectiveness of automating systems and the relatively inexpensive advertising market available. Many satellite TV providers have developed affiliate programs to increase their visibility and sales online, and that is why you are reading this article. Below are five things to consider when building a satellite TV affiliate website. This list is not comprehensive, but will at least get you started down the right path.

Identify and cater to your audience. Satellite TV service is relatively inexpensive, and there are few Americans that seem to be able to go without a television blaring somewhere nearby. The result is a huge, very diverse market for you to target, including people with different socioeconomic statuses, geographic locations, and programming desires. If you try to cater your affiliate website to everyone, you risk not effectively targeting anyone. Choose one demographic to target and provide them with the type of information and content about satellite TV you expect hem to ask about. If you can resolve some of their doubts before they click through to he sponsoring website, you will have increased your likelihood of receiving a check.

Mask your affiliate links. This may seem like a no-brainer to some of yo, but don’t risk losing a potential sale simply because you forgot to mask or camouflage your links. Some people shopping around online for satellite TV service may not be wary of affiliate links, but others may, so it is best to be overly cautious. Searching in Google for "mask affiliate links" will yield several tutorials of how to do this important task.

Publish quality content. Do you subscribe to a satellite TV provider? Perhaps you know more about one service than you do about the other. Put that experience you already have to good use by writing quality content about the service you use. As potential customers find your website and have many of their questions answered by you, they will be more likely to click through the link and make a purchase. Without copying and pasting from the sponsoring company’s pages about their products, you can use their information to create quality content of your own. Remember, for every dollar they pay you in commission, they are earning several themselves. It is in their best interest that you succeed.

Stay up-to-date on sales and specials. The satellite TV market is so big and so lucrative that companies are constantly offering reduced rates, different equipment deals, and other special offers. Don’t lose commissions to a competitor just because you don’t have the most recent deal or best offer available to your visitors. Check with your affiliate manager often to make sure you’re staying current and on top of the game.

Give people a reason to come back. No matter how good of a deal you are able to offer on your affiliate website, subscribing to satellite TV service represents a big investment that people may not be ready to commit to after just one visit to your website. Don’t give up on them. Give people a reason to come back to your site - maybe you can blog or offer a news feed, or perhaps you can promise and deliver new content published weekly. No matter what it is you do to keep people coming to your site, a few of the repeat visits will translate into commissions for you in the long run.

Affiliate websites are still a great way to make money, and there are few other markets that offer the generous payouts that the satellite TV industry does. Work hard and be patient and the success will come.

Nick Smith is an internet marketer specializing in network marketing. For more information about satellite TV or to order, visit Dish Network Products.