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Blogging is the latest buzzword in online marketing and PR.

But with so many marketers jumping on the blogging bandwagon, few people are giving a thought to whether blogs are really up their alley, or taking the time to consider the best ways of going about it.

If you are planning to start a business blog, ask yourself these questions before you take the final plunge.

1. Do you really need a blog?

Writing and maintaining a blog takes a certain degree of commitment, as well as a passion (or at least a liking) for stringing words into a decent sentence. If you don't enjoy writing that much, you could always create an audio or video blog.

But would your business objectives really be served by starting a blog? Or could other methods of online marketing - like SEO, ezine advertising or newsletter publishing work just as well, if not better?

2. Whom do you want to reach with your blog?

The first step to reaching your audience is understanding where they go to find information about your products.

If your audience largely consists of people who live in your town or use products that they search for in the newspapers, offline advertising might be more suited to your purpose.

If however, your target audience belongs to one or more of these segments, a blog might be just the thing to boost your business.

- Internet users

Does your target audience really use the internet? If not, then starting a blog (or any online activity, for that matter) will just be a huge waste of time and effort.

- Blog readers

Does your target audience read blogs? Or do they prefer to get their information in their inbox? If the latter is true, then an email newsletter might be a better option than a blog.

- Search engine users

A blog is an excellent way to boost your search engine rankings and get listed for a lot of your target keywords. If you know that your audience uses search engines to find information, a blog will increase your chances of getting their attention.

3. What do you want to achieve with your blog?

There are a lot of things that a blog can do for your business. Blogs can help you -

- Increase your visibility and search engine rankings

- Brand yourself, your products, your services, your company

- Build a community and network with people who have similar interests

- Expand your reach to those outside your current sphere of influence

- Establish your credibility as an expert or thought-leader in your field

- Put a human face on your business

- Reach out to potential customers and stakeholders

Deciding exactly what you want to achieve with your blog can help you get focused, so that you can spend your time and effort in activities that help, not hinder your business objectives.

4. How much time can you spend on your blog?

Serious business bloggers not only spend time writing their own blogs, but also spend a great deal of time reading up on current events and browsing other blogs in their field for information.

If you are prepared to put in the time and effort required to do that sort of research, your blog will serve as a good branding tool for your business.

If not, you should either hire someone to do the research or seriously rethink your decision to start a blog.

5. What blogging platform will serve your needs best?

Deciding your blogging platform is an important step that you should take only after becoming familiar with the features and benefits of each option.

The reason it is so crucial is because it can be extremely difficult to migrate an established blog to a new platform once you have started it. Moving your blog can result in you losing your data, search engine listings and readers, so don't take this decision lightly.

Decide which platform will best meet your marketing objectives, time constraints and personal preferences before you make your first post.

According to T.L. Pakii Pierce who writes at "How to Blog for Fun & Profits!" http://blogforfunandprofit.blogware.com, if you are short of time, and want to spend more time writing, then a hosted solution like Blogger, Blogware, Squarespace or Typepad might serve your purpose better.

This might also prove a better option if you want to get started as soon as possible, are new to the internet, or are unfamiliar with scripts or code.

If, on the other hand, you're a control freak (like me) and don't mind spending some time and effort to customize your blog, then a server-installed software, like Wordpress, b2Evolution or Movable Type might be just right for you.

If you don't want to install the scripts yourself, choose a hosting solution with Fantastico, which comes with a one-click install of a number of blogging software.

6. How do you plan to promote your blog?

Why is it good to know this before you start your blog? Because it will help you decide where best to invest your time and effort when you need to build traffic to your blog.

You'll learn more about the methods to promote your blog when you subscribe to the email course below. Some of these tasks can be outsourced, while others you would have to do yourself.

Decide what you want to take on and look out for service providers to handle the other functions so you can start building traffic to your blog as soon as possible.

7. How will you assess the success of your blog?

To determine how successful your blog is in boosting your profile or profits you will have to measure your blog traffic and track sales or leads that have come through it.

Planning this in advance will help you take more informed decisions about your blogging metrics, choice of blogging platform and degree of customization you require on your blog.

Understand that blogging is not for everyone. It's just another form of communication.

Don't get so hung up on the technology that you end up ignoring more appropriate ways of communicating your message.

Some things may be easier to communicate face to face, in a conference room, or even through the good old telephone.

But if you asked yourself all the questions above and decided that blogging meets all your objectives, then a blog may be just what the doctor ordered for your business.

Building niche sites is all the rage these days.

The basic strategy is very simple. Find a niche market that isn't oversaturated. Develop a list of related keywords people are searching on. Then write an article optimized for each one of your keywords. Once you have your articles, upload them to your site. Monitize your site with affiliate links and Adsense.

For this kind of niche site to be effective and make money, it is imperative that you get free traffic, and a lot of it. And that's exactly where a blog can be your best friend.

At its very simplest, a blog is just a structure. It's the bones of a web site. A blog is a simple way to publish and display your content online. Most of us think of blogs as a chronicle of news events, or commentary on news and items of interest. Or personal diaries.

Few people stop to think that you can build any kind of website with a blog. In reality, a blog can be used very effectively to build a niche site. The fact of the matter is, a blog is the easiest way to publish your niche site content. But the biggest reason to use a blog is that it can drive traffic to your site a lot faster than a statically-built site. A niche site built with a blog is a very powerful strategy.

First, choose your niche and research your keywords. Write your first article based on one of those keywords, just as you would when building a regular site. Then set up your blog and publish that article. Your niche site is now live.

To make your site structure the most effective, be sure to choose a blog that allows the use of Categories, such as Word Press or Moveable Type. Use your 10 most important keywords as the name of your Categories. Then file all your secondary keyword articles under those Categories.

Why is this so important? If you keep building your site with keyword-rich articles, eventually you could have hundreds of pages. Each of those pages will have a link to your 10 Categories. And each of those links will use the anchor text of your most important keywords. As a result of all those internal keyword-rich links, your site will end up ranking very well in the search engines for your Category names.

Now it's time to set up your traffic strategy. This is where a blog can really shine. There are many special RSS/blog directories that are hungry for feeds. By submitting your new blog to these directories, you can start getting traffic almost immediately. Quite often these feeds will result in a lot more traffic than all the major search engines combined. This is why it makes so much sense to build your niche site as a blog. You can have twice the traffic, and get it much faster than with a static site.

Here is a list of some of the top RSS/blog directories you should submit your site to: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Once you've submitted your site to the directories, you can get it indexed by Yahoo almost immediately by adding your RSS feed to your MyYahoo page. If you don't have a MyYahoo page, just go to http://www.yahoo.com. Now click on the MyYahoo link at the top and set up your free account. Once you have your account set up, click on Add Content, then add the URL of your blog RSS feed into the Find Content box.

When you go back to your MyYahoo page, your blog plus your first post should be shown. If you go look at your web stats for your site, you'll find that the Yahoo spider has already made a visit! Your new site should be indexed in Yahoo in just a couple of days. This is a strategy that some marketers were selling for $50 just a few months ago. And it works like a charm.

Every time you add a post, you can alert the RSS/blog directories by "pinging" them. There is a wonderful site at http://www.pingomatic.com that makes this very easy. You just have to type in your blog URL and Pingomatic will send your ping to Yahoo and about 15 other large directories. That will bring the spiders back to your site almost immediately!

During the first month, I would suggest that you write and add a new article every day. Blogs that are frequently updated get the most traffic. And you'll find that the major search engines will spider your site every day. At the end of a month, you'll have a 30-article niche site that is already getting a lot of traffic. If you've monetized your site with Adsense and related affiliate programs, you should also be making money already.

Once you've started building your niche sites with a blog, you'll never go back to doing it the old way again!

1. Create an infopacked mini site. Build your mini site for a specific niche audience and then choose affiliate programs specifically for that niche audience.

2. Test and track your ads and promotions for your affiliate programs.

Tracking and testing your ads will show you exactly which ads, promotions and affiliate programs pay off the most for you and are excellent choices for you to continue to promote.

3. Publish an ezine.

Your ezine will give you a powerful way to promote your affiliate programs to your subscribers.

Choose affiliate programs that relate to the content of your ezine and that make it worth your while to promote them.

4. Promote your affiliate programs by recommending their products.

You could recommend your affiliate programs to your ezine subscribers in your publisher's note or you could create a recommended resources section where you promote your affiliate programs in every issue.

You could also recommend your affiliate programs to your visitors by creating a recommended affiliate programs section where you list your favorite affiliate programs along with descriptions of their products or services.

In addition, you could create a best affiliate programs section that helps you build up your second tier by listing the affiliate programs that have paid off the most for you.

5. Write product reviews where you detail the benefits you like about your affiliate program's product.

Make your product reviews honest and hype f~ree and post them on your site along with your other articles.

6. Write your own ads for your affiliate program.

A good way to create your ads is to look at the ad copy on the site of the business you want to promote and also ads they provide for their affiliates to use, and use their unique selling proposition or USP to write your ads.

Their unique selling proposition is a unique benefit that they promote in their ad copy that their competitors don't stress or offer to their visitors.

It could be that their product saves lots of time, is easy to understand, that their product is a complete answer to a problem, or it could involve their price.

Some businesses develop more than one USP so you'll be able to choose the one that you think works best in getting more targeted visitors to their site.

7. Try out the support of the companies you want to promote by asking questions.

This will help you to find out how long it takes them to respond to emails (if they respond to emails) and how professional they are.

8. Create freebies that promote your affiliate programs.

You could offer your visitors a f~ree email course, an ebook filled with your tips or articles or an ebook that provides your visitors with places to promote their businesses.

When creating freebies for an affiliate program that is 2 tier, increase your profits by letting your affiliates in your second tier use your freebies as a promotional item.

9. Create a directory.

Your directory could be an article, ezine, ebook or affiliate program directory.

List your own resources within your directory to increase your commissions. For example, you could add your own affiliate programs to your affiliate programs directory or your ebooks to your ebook directory.

Add a what's new section to your directory to garner more repeat traffic from your visitors.

You could also provide a tutorial on the subject of your directory, or add things to your directory that your visitors can use on a regular basis to get more repeat traffic.

10. Run ezine ads for your affiliate programs.

You could purchase sponsor, feature, classified or solo ads for your affiliate program.

Choose ezines with subscribers targeted to be interested in the products of the business you want to promote.

Run your ads for multiple issues in a row when possible to maximize the profit you get from your ads.

You can also run f~ree ads in ezines as many ezines offer
f~ree advertising on a weekly, monthly or per issue basis to
get more new subscriptions.

Running f~ree ads can help you find out which ads work best,
and which ezines are most responsive before you purchase
ezine advertising.

There will be a million and one affiliates out there who will tell you that the affiliate program they promote is going to be the best one for you.

But have you considered who is really making the money and who gains the most out of affiliate programs.

Let's take a step back and look at the AFFILIATE.

What exactly is the role of the affilate?

* The sole purpose of the affiliate is to PROMOTE the product and/or service

What are the benefits of being an affiliate?

* Get paid a minimal commission that is regulated by the owner of the product/service

In short, As an affiliate it is your responsibility to make someone else rich whilst doing all the hard work. You take on the expenses of advertising, you are the one who usually misses out on subscribers if you haven't first made them your client before they buy the product/service you are promoting.

And all this for what??? Maybe $20 per sale if you are really, really lucky.

You also need to remember that when you are an affiliate, YOU are not the only person promoting that very same product/service.

So what will make your offer any different to someone else who is promoting the exact same product, usually using the same sales technique, offering it at the same price.

To be in the top 5%, which is the amount of affiliates who make more than $100.00 per month, you need to first have a really good, clean, targeted subscribers list of more than 50,000 subscribers, know exactly how to gain targeted traffic, and have a huge advertising budget.

For the other 95%, the only way you are going to make alot of money from and affiliate program is to OWN YOUR OWN.

It really isn't as hard as you might think to set up.

So in conclusion, the best AFFILIATE PROGRAM, obviously is the one you OWN.

So you've joined an affiliate program, but really haven't figured out where you should start? Here are 12 great tips to get you started on your feet and enjoying the new year.

Here are 12 Awesome Ways To increase Your Affiliate Commissions!


Participate in web discussion boards and online forums. When I first joined an affiliate program, I read as much information as possible in the discussion boards http://www.sfidboard.com. This is a great discussion board to lurk in and understand the affiliate program and how things work.

Once you get enough confidence to post your own comments, try a forum more like a Home Business Forum. This forum lets you include a link to your web site and any personal signature you choose, but is monitored. I included my web site link under my comment so that other could click on the link if they chose. Best part was that the search engine spiders took notice too.

Advertise your link in your signature file with every email you write.

Use an attention-grabbing headline for them to visit your affiliate site. Also make sure your signature file doesn't get too big.

Your link should look like this http://www.internet-business-success.biz/free.html. By redirecting your affiliate number and making your address be part of your web site, you will not loose out on any affiliate commissions.


Create unique affiliate program ads and your own banners if possible. If every other affiliate is using the same ad you are using, many web visitors may leave your web site quicker than you think. Give yourself an edge over your competition, by making an ad that makes your website stand out from the others.


Use a personal testimonial ad. You should only use this if you've actually bought the product or service. Tell people what kind of results and benefits you've received using the product. This can be VERY powerful.


Trade links with other webmasters who are promoting the same types of products you are promoting. You want to attract the same type of people that would be interested in buying the product you're reselling.


Some advantages might include more traffic for you and the other webmasters. Once your website gets ranked by Google, you will find more and more webmasters requesting link exchanges to your website.


.Create a newsletter or an electronic magazine (e-zine) advertising your website. Use your newsletter to advertise the affiliate programs you've joined. Or offer a free e-book in your newsletter with the advertisement and links of your affiliate web site. The free e-book should draw your target audience to down-load it instantly. You can also submit your newsletter to directories and start a traffic virus getting people to visit your website.


Offer free online services, utilities or useful website links from your web site. They could be search engine submissions, language translations, web site tune ups. Make sure that the service or utility that you are offering them is something you would personally use and is of an interest to your website. There, make sure to add as many of your affiliate links as possible so that people can see them and click on them.


Start your own affiliate program directory. If you have joined more than one affiliate program, list them all in a directory format on your web site. Advertise your free affiliate program directory to others so that they will want to be part of your directory as well.


Write articles and submit them to websites that do accept them is another great way to drive more traffic and increase your affiliate commissions. The MOST important thing to do is to add a "resource box" in the bottom of every article that you write. This has been used and proven to work by all top marketing gurus online.

THIS is BY FAR the most effective way to increase your backlinks!


Make sure you practice good follow up skills and get back to all of your affiliates within 24 hours or sooner. If you are available to them, they will want to stick around. You will be able to answer questions just like you do with your own affiliate mentors.

Good affiliates can be hard to get. There could be any number of reasons for this, but I am going to focus on what I believe is the one major problem that prevents someone from attracting good affiliates. But first lets look at what the make up of a good affiliate may be. A good affiliate is:

Hard Working

Persistent

Motivated to work their business

Does not need constant reassurance

Makes and implements goals

Overcomes obstacles

Recognizes and takes good advice

And Never, Never, Never quits!

The question some may ask is, "Where are these people at?" I'll tell you. Most of these people are already successful with their own affiliate program. And they are successful for the very reasons listed above. Also, they did not fall prey to the very problem that many searching for good affiliates are causing themselves. And that is advertising hype. They overlooked that and went into the marketing program with a desire to succeed, understanding that it is going to require work and time to be successful. Unfortunately though many are for the first time looking for a home business and don't know what internet marketing is all about. They are vunerable to all the hype infested ads out there.

Now. If a person signs up for an affiliate program with none of the traits listed above for a good affiliate can they indeed be a good affiliate? Yes! But it will be an uphill battle helping them to develop some of the above traits. Even though it would be hard it is still worth it to work with them in hopes they will become the perfect affiliate. Who knows.They may become your best affiliate yet! But I want to focus on getting the good affiliates from the start. Why?

My logic is this. I would rather have one good affiliate that is a real go-getter then ten thousand that do nothing or very little at all. That way you have more time to focus on your own business then spending alot of time babysitting someone who will probably eventually give up. The best route to go is to get affiliates who are already conditioned. Well just how do we do that? There is only one way to do that and that is how your opportunity is presented to prospects.

Most all advertising someone does is loaded with hype. Whether it is their search engine description, classified ads, or email. This is what prevents marketers from getting good affiliates. If possible you must remove all the hype from your advertising and sales letter. Now I know that some of us work an affiliate program owned by someone else. And you may be required to use the advertising and sales letter that they give you. But if possible use the ones that have the least amount of hype. What do I mean by hype!

Hype is where you describe something to the greatest, allowable, extreme possibility. Such as but not limited to the following:

Make a MILLION DOLLARS every time you breathe by just posting a website!!!!!

Earn $15,000 a day by reading emails!!!

Buy my ebook, "125,000 Ways To Get Rich Marketing Salt!"

Now I know these are exaggerations but the point is that while on paper you may be able to prove your claims, most do see these types of ads as exaggerations of the truth. Besides that these ads will not get you those good affiliates your are seeking. What these type of ads will get you are:

Curiosity seekers

Gullible People

Get Rich Quick Hopefuls

If you portray your business as a get rich quick scheme, then that is what you will get. People looking to get rich quick. Not exactly my idea of a good affiliate. Why? Because each person who fits into any of the above groups has their own reason for signing up none of which is to run a business. Most individuals like this sign up and do little if anything. When they realize that they're not going to get a free lunch most will opt out in a day or two. Those who remain will just ignore your emails. By the way. How would you like to go to a job interview and be told you will make $20.00 an hour. You work for 2 weeks only to find out that you have to work for the company 10 years before receiving that amount per hour. You would probably walk out the door feeling you were decieved. That is exactly what happens to people who answer ads loaded with hype. They feel as though they were decieved.

Not only that but it can be costly to run an ad campagin that uses hype. Think of Pay Per Click campagins. Your are spending money on the clicks of those who are not interested in running a business. I would rather get one hit to my website a day from someone who will do what it takes to succeed then a million hits from people who want to get rich by the end of the day.

Rather have an ad campagin that focuses on what the average person can expect. Most people are in this category. An average person. So target your advertising as if everyone who reads it already understands the ins and outs of internet marketing. Portray your opportunity as one that will take years to reach it's full potential. Be honest and up front. Then you will get people signing up who are ready to build a business up over time. Remember. Get Rid Of The Hype. If the average person won't make $15,000 dollars a month then don't say they will. If the average person will probably make $1,000 a month then say that. What's wrong with making a $1,000 more a month then they had before. If you have been able to quit your job because of your affiliate program, prove it. If you can't offer up some type of proof, (copies of checks, real testimonials, etc...) then just keep it to yourself.

The point being made is this. Most people are already aware of the saying, "If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is." There are exceptions to this rule but for the most part it is a true statement. Now if you follow the advice given above you will probably see a significant drop in your website traffic. And also a drop in the amount of affiliates you are getting. But like I and so many others say. "It's not the quanity of the affiliates you are getting but the quality of the affiliates you get.

Leave the hype to those who want to brag about the amount of website traffic and affiliate sign ups they are getting. I'll take a big fat check over hype any time.

So, you have worked really hard to build a fabulous affiliate site. You took the time to add your keywords and relevant information about the products. Your pages load quickly, and your site is even listed in the search engines for specified terms. You look at your stats, and you see a regular flow of traffic coming into your site. You get really excited! You log in to your affiliate program manager, and.... WHAMO! You have very few commissions from sales, and your click-throughs are extremely low. Suddenly, you are asking yourself, "what the heck happened here??" The answer... You might possibly be the victim of affiliate link hijacking!

In this revolving world of the Internet, we are constantly being bombarded by spammers, spyware, viruses, and hackers. Now, we have to worry about link hijackers stealing commissions that are rightfully ours. So, what is link hijacking and how do you prevent it?

In the simplest terms, link hijacking occurs when someone replaces their affiliate ID with yours. The result? They get the commission instead of you. You did all that work, but someone else is getting paid? Yes! You may be wondering how this happens.

Let me explain. I first heard about this phenomenon while visiting various discussion boards on affiliate marketing. Many affiliates had experienced a decline in sales while their site's traffic stats remained high. Common discussions found in affiliate forums include various software programs which "steal" information. Many of these programs download themselves onto a person's computer, either knowingly or unknowingly. These programs can override your affiliate links each time the customer visits your site, therefore giving credit to someone else.

Many times, people download packaged programs that contain these types of software. The innocent surfer may not even realize they have a program running in the background. Anyone who takes part in the Internet community, whether it be a webmaster or a surfer, should stay informed about these programs by visiting parasiteware.com on a regular basis.

Link hijacking comes in various forms... not just from downloads. Let's say your affiliate link looks like this: www.url.com/?123456 , where 123456 is your affiliate ID. A link hijacker is interested in the product and wants to purchase it. He also wants the affiliate commission from the product. He takes your ID 123456 and replaces it with his ID 999999 to look like this: www.url.com/?999999 . The result? He gets the commission from the product purchase. He modified the link to benefit himself. You lose.

Here is another example of link hijacking: A customer comes to your website and sees a link to the product that he wants to buy. When he moves the mouse over your link information, he sees your affiliate url in the status bar of his computer. Instead of clicking your affiliate link, he decides to manually type it into his address bar, leaving off the affiliate referral code: www.url.com. This results in no affiliate tracking information and no commissions for you. You lose again!

So how much money could you be losing? I have read that an estimated 10-30% of commissions are lost due to affiliate link hijacking. (In a recent article from "revenue" magazine, the estimate was as high as 40-50%). Can you imagine the kind of potential revenue that you might be losing right now?

Take Action by Protecting Yourself From Revenue Loss

In the constant search for new scripts and software to improve my websites, I have run into several affiliate cloaking devices. Most of them cost around $50 or more. However, I did run into one cloaking script that is free. It is called Affiliate Link Cloaker (ALC). The site owner simply asks that you subscribe to their newsletter.

By golly, I love free stuff, don't you! If you are interested in learning about this script and how it works, you can visit their site at webmasterinabox.net/affiliate_link_cloaker.html . They have other scripts that you might find useful as well. Now, get out there and protect those links!