Useless Affiliate » affilate marking terms

Affiliate Marketing is a Scam?

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:12:05 +0000

I get this a lot from people and we get into a conversation that leads no where. There are some things that I always get confronted with

Affiliate Marketing is Illegal!

Hold on for a second. First of all I dont’ want to repeat the question again asking you how you found out its illegal. Let me explain the legal issues. There is a catergory called, BlackHatSEO. This one is the illegal way to earn revenue. Most of it is bending the rules and hiding it and some are just wrong. There are some affiliate that do this but not a lot. There is whitehatseo which is purely legal. The way you are suppose to. Is adding a link with a banner and your affiliate link illegal? There are millions of sites that do this and no it is NOT illegal.

O yeah smart guy I will snitch on the IRS

So what? Go ahead but let me post a video of it on youtube and we can all laugh on how you will get pwned. Seriously. We get TAXED. I had to do my taxes for these. You can even get a LLC to do business take or a SP. Its the same thing as a contractor from a construction site.

Its a scam like that google bucks web site where it promises you income.

No.. they are legit too. And they don’t PROMISE anything. They give you to secrets but 99% of people are lazy

Its a pyramid scam

You sign up for offers by your own will through an affiliate network. No one tells you to refer people. No one is on a conga line. You have chances to advance when you double triple your earnings. You are a sales person. Sigh..

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What I need to learn for affiliate marketing

admin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:36:24 +0000

I just realized that setting up a blog, setting up a web site, iframing a site, signing up for affiliate networks, and desinging a web page isn’t too easy. In the beginning I was just like everyone else. I always refer back to a point where I was so frustrated at dreamweaver when I still new. I downloaded dreamweaver and then I bought my first domain which was commonsickness.com. My goal was to make a medical site and throw some adsense in it to make some revenue. So when I got to dreamweaver, I tested it out. First I wanted to post a picture in the body of the web site. Easy right? NOO!! It was so hard just to post it the way I wanted it. Believe it or not it took me 3-4hours to figure it out. That was how much I was a newbie back then. I also had a problem of getting the web site from my computer to the internet. That took another hour or so! But now I can do it very quickly since I learned from pure experience.

What do we need to know? The answer is simple but the task is difficult.

EVERYTHING!!

html!

HTML .I recommend starting off with very simple things like learning html The most basic internet essential out there is learning how to change the font and color. Then adding on to posting pictures in html. You do not have to necessarily know the code by heart but that will help you speed up the process in the future.

Photoshop

Learn Basic Photoshop. There is no way to avoid this. Just learn how to do web 2.0 graphics and change the color of fonts with designing. Just google “photoshop tricks” and there should be thousands of web sites that show you step by step. It is not hard. Most of the graphics that you see from web sites are easy to make and capable for newbies. It is just putting everything together to get one picture. Advance photoshop is something that takes so much practice. It is not essential to make money online. Advance techniques of photoshop is usually for designing and artists.

Firefox ftp logo

FTP/UPLOAD. Great! You have a design of a web page and its stuck in your computer. Now you can actually post it on the internet. I only use 2 programs which are firefox ftp and cute ftp. Firefoxftp is great! It is a small plugin for firefox and all it does is upload all the files from your computer to your hosting. Cuteftp is a program that is a little more than uploading. It gives you the ablity to edit files and do some last minute coding. So both these programs dominate each other in one way or another.

Google.com

Google. Please..seriously. Use google.com for your research tools. 99% of the time what you need or what you are looking for is already online because someone in a forum asked how to do it. Or somebody like me posts something about your subject that would teach you.

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How to Make a Landing Page

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:28:21 +0000

As an affiliate marketer you need to learn this skill. There is no way you can go far without learning how to make a landing page. Sure people can buy landing pages and premade web sites. A nice way to cheat your way up to professional web design but after a while you start to get problems along the way. Maybe something happened and an image won’t load. Maybe the whole .index won’t load at all. Or maybe you want a new color or theme. You can either buy a landing page for another $20-$100. (jeez..) Seriously people do pay that much for a landing page and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone paid for $150+ for one. Show me the page you want and I can make it without breaking a sweat. I’m still noob at web design but I can probably get the same conversion rate with a $50+ landing page

So if you are not lazy unlike thousands of people out there, I can teach you a thing or two on how to create one.

A Landing page is basically the same set up on how you would show people what you are offering. For this post I won’t go over what the contents are but I will go over in detail how to at least set one up. There are so many ways and this is the way I have mastered.

Things You Need

1) Adobe Photoshop w/ image ready

2) Dreamweaver (doesn’t matter which version)

3) Ftp (I recommend Fireftp for ease of use)

4) Domain / Host

5) Your Brain

First of all you need a domain and a host. I can hook you up with a good deal. I’m suppose to make around $100 with every referral but since I help everyone a lot I’m going to use up the $100 on your guys. (Free domains + disk space with package). Domain is the name of your web site. So my domain name is obviously “uselessaffiliate.com”. Domains are important because if you are selling laptops you would NOT want “potato.com”. Maybe depending on your niche you can use “laptopsonline.com”. I just threw those examples so don’t worry about clicking or checking. Domains are cheap but make sure you don’t get all those extras. Unless you are running some major web site with tons of traffic, you don’t need most of the extras. So don’t spent more than $8 for a domain. Hosting is next. This is where the domain is going to be hosted. This is basically where all your files will be located. This will normally take a day or two for everything to be approved / hosted. But for me I can set this domain and hosting in under 24hours.

Next is the page itself. You can use adobe photoshop to make a page. Select the size you want. I normally use 800 x 600 as a landing page. Make your design and have your banners , header..etc. etc. Make CLICKABLE BUTTONS which is where people will click and see your offer page. Something like “click here” wouldn’t be a good idea. . We will take ringtones. Select Carrier : att , verizon. Make a button for att and verizon and people will click it since that is what they will be looking for.

This is a very basic landin page

BTW i got the image off my old blog

Following me so far? Now flatten image (don’t really have to) and move to image ready on photoshop. I wish I had the time to post pics but I’m short right now. Get your Slice Tool. Slice the area where people will be clicking. So slice around the att , verizon buttons you just made. Good ? Now “save optimized as..” html / images.

Good job you made it this far. Open up dreamweaver and open the saved file. It should be a .html file. In dreamweaver you can edit your web site title under the codes. I should go in deep details with this but you will end up getting bored and click the “x” on your browser. Dreamweaver is where you can add all the codes you want and text. All set? Now save in dreamweaver. Make sure the web page is index.html. When you do this, it will tell the browser to open up that file and load everything. There has been so many times where people don’t do it and get an error. Everything is up but the browser will search the directory and we like.. uh-oh no index.html and will error.

Open up firefox and go to fireftp. This is where logins sucks. You will get many values and you will be like WTF is ftp. Well for ftp just use ftp.yourwebsite.com. Username and password is the username you given access to the web site. This step is hard for most people but you just have to go back and remember what the ftp access account you set up was. Now you should had been able to connect. Under the web site folder which is “yourwebsite.com” open it. Now drag your index.html and images in that folder. MAKE SURE that you upload in public_html but if you don’t have it just upload it to the root or where the FTP takes you. This is just a common problem that messes everyone up because of different hosing.Open another window or tab in firefox and see if your web site loads. It should had loaded if not there is like 100s of things to check but usually its not a problem. As long as its index.html.

And there you VERY VERY basic FAQ on how to make a landing page..

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Common Affiliate Mistakes

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:51:02 +0000

Just like everything in life, we make bad choices while we think it is better. Earlier today I had a collection of about 2,000+ keywords that I have been waiting to test out. So I was being aggressive because if I wanted to meet my goal this week I have no choice to to let it go. New landing page, new links, new beginnings was what I was thinking. As the day goes by I’m like getting confused. I set out 2,000+ keywords and I was actually thinking, “well if i let about 2,000 keywords go I should have a minimum of 3-5 leads today. My bids were just average and I was going to bid higher tomorrow when QUALITY SCORE kicks in. Remember that if I’m bidding at .50 and I have a higher quality score then you, I’m paying for clicks CHEAPER. So it was average because I’m on a budget. Just about 12 hours pass and I spent a lot of money on clicks already and I was thinking..what!? No leads. I was aware of the # of impressions and which keywords were being clicked. Hmm.. still no leads. Now I see it!! Quickly! Pause all campaigns! . I repeat Pause all campaigns!!

It seems that my new landing page was working properly. But 2/3 of the campaign was through a directory link so I can test out a new landing page. So I have tested 2 landing pages at once. 1/3 was on my main site which proved that it was able to convert and the other was through a directory www.uselessaffiliate.com/(landingpage here.html). So 2/3 of the clicks was going to the directory and it was going to a 404 page!! Affiliate Marketers worst nightmare!. So the 1/3 was getting traffic but the majority was in my new landing page in the directory. As of right now I’m trying to fix all my links and make sure they work properly. I also found out that in that move, I also messed up my tracking. I made a new campaign and multiple ad groups so all the links are all the same and that was the cause.

I hope that made sense to everyone. I’m like half asleep right now and in a state of panic.

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Affiliate Marketing Prerequisites

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:41:16 +0000

In the past month I have made a few hundred USD. I tell people everyone who I talk to, if they are interested. I filter out people who wants to do it and who doesn’t. Believe me , I can tell who wants to start and who just wants to do it. There are two different types of people. One person jumps on it and read everything I posted and wants to get started. I will be impressed if someone IMs asking me “how do I start PPC?”. If I have to push someone then its a burden on them to get started. Basically its two groups of people. One is someone who wants to start and another who wants to earn a few bucks and handle it like a job. Here we go again with Employer vs. Employee. I am an Employer while someone who isn’t as motivated is an employee waiting for me to give them a job. When my business flys (yes it will i believe in me) then I can give you a job to do while I spend my vacation in cancun. I just don’t want to waste my time on someone who is interested and who just wants to jump with me and other affiliates in deep cold water not knowning what happens when you surface.

I’m more than happy to help someone start, don’t get me wrong. But its hard to help someone who doesn’t want to start. Its the real world, no one tells you whats the best way to retire. Honestly I do plan my life but i have no idea WTF a 401k is or the # of work hours social security will pay you. But not to discourage anyone who wants to learn, I will help you. I don’t want to keep people from getting an education. Anyways the point of this post was to help anyone who wants to get started.

1) Please. Seriously, Read my blog. I know its not that much information but its gets you the mentality.

2) Before jumping in cold water PLEASE READ!. Seriously I can’t emphasize enough. I get people who’s trying to start ask me questions that are explained better in blogs than asking me. Just GOOGLE IT!!!

3) Know the following :

USE OF GOOGLE.COM OR YAHOO.COM !!! Html , Adobe Photoshop, dreamweaver, use of FTP,

Please search for the information you need. Thousands of bloggers like me have post this numerous times. I see people buying landing pages and they could had just spent about an hour or 2 making it themselves. Just know the VERY basic. I have not mastered any of the above and I don’t want to because knowning the basics will go a long way. 90% of you probably have a myspace and know what HTML is and some photoshop to crop your myspace pictures. Dreamweaver is a whole new ball park. It took me 2-3 hours to find out how to insert a picture on my first time. FTP is just moving files from your computer to the internet. Same thing as posting a picture on photobucket or myspace. They just make it easier for you so you don’t have to login and do all that easy stuff.

4). Buy Domain and Hosting ( Total Estimated Cost : $80 / year.)

Domains is your name. I bought www.uselessaffiliate.com for like $6. Hosting, I got mine for one year prepaid. If you need any of it, just let me know. I can probably hook it up with 2-3 free domains + 20-30% more disk / bandwidth space. I’m suppose to earn around $100 a referral but I’m just going to give it back to you guys so I don’t earn anything but able to get you guys started.

5) Sign up for affiliate Links. If you look in the right side I have links with my referral. I earn a very small amount for each referral. If you find this informative you guys can sign up and I can thank you. If you just hate me then just go to the web site itself. ( Sign up with me and I’ll help you more ). My income is not through referrals so I can careless of referring people.

6) Sign up for paid traffic. As of right now, just “google” free credits for adwords, msn, yahoo paid traffic. I have a link on my blog and you can sign up through me.

7) All set? Check if you have everything from steps 1-6.

Make a Landing Page ( will post in detail later on). The landing page is just links to your offers. You are the salesman, saleswomen of your company. Make it look NICE!

9) Get some tracking on the landing page. There are a bunch out there. Google it and find out which suits you well. I would recommen Tracking202

10) Add keywords. Keywords are gold coins and the source of your income. It is also the ugly duckling when it comes to getting the wrong ones. Just TEST TEST TEST.

Alright I think I covered it very briefly. There are more to it but this is the structure on how everything works. If you have any questions just IM me.

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Affiliate Marketing Dictionary

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:24:23 +0000

In the beginning I had a hard time figuring out what stuff meant. It seems that once people start making money and blog like me, they neglect to know the vocabulary. Everybody just assumes that everyone who is reading their blog knows what CTR means. Well I’m sorry but not everyone knows the meaning. Don’t feel like such a newbie because we all started out like that. Sometimes I read a blog and I still need to google what the term they are using is. This post might be one of my “Useless Posts” but I made it specially for newbies. Well here we go. And if you still don’t understand, feel free to drop a comment or send me an email and I will further explain it. Its all self-explanatory but everyone learns in different ways. Maybe you learn by definition and somebody else learns by demonstration. Either way I hope this post helps at least one person.

Advertiser - The person who is trying to make a few bucks by driving traffic through a web site through promotion. You are promoting an offer and you will get $$ if a customer buys it.

Advertisement – This is seen all around you. It is an attractive picture/video that helps lures the customer so they will buy the product.

Affiliate – This is YOU. Someone who is the middle man. You help get the merchant some customers and you will get a certain amount of commission depending on the product/ offer.

Affiliate Link - This is the link that is specially made for you so if a customer buys the product you will get credit from their sale or lead. There are ways to cloak your affiliate link from the customer and from the publisher so only you know the information.

Affiliate Manger - Once you sign up with a network, you will be assigned an affiliate manager. Somebody who will give you advice and tips on which offers to run. Word of caution, they can even steal all your traffic and commission if they know your keywords and referrer links. Don’t worry there are ways to hide the referrer links.

Affiliate Fraud - The amount of revenue that was obtained illegally under the TOS of the affiliate program.

Affiliate Tracking - These track your keywords so you know which keyword is converting to make you money. There are many keyword tracking software. Some are free and some cost money. I would recommend

http://prosper202.com/apps/

Well it helped me a lot and I talked to the creator. He could had made a lot of money off this but he made it free so the least I can do is post it on my blog.

CTR (Click Through Ratio) - The amount of clicks divided by the total number of visits. You want this number as high as possible. The CTR is traffic goes to search for your web site and it’s the amount of how many of them clicked to get into your web site. In simple words, out of XX many people, what is the ratio that would click a link.

EPC (Earnings Per Click) - The earnings per 100 clicks. It would be nice to see this one the product you are selling because it shows if there is potential in the product or not. Every 100 there will be an average that the traffic is turned into sales.

Commission – The amount of revenue that an affiliate earns that’s paid by the publisher. It can be a lead or a sale. Most of the time, commission at the sales level is always going to be a certain %. However in lead it is a fixed value.

Recurring Commissions – Commission that is paid to an affiliate if a customer pays for reoccurring costs. For example, phone service, internet hosting, domains.

Unique Click – A click that is new to the web site or web page. It is tracked by IP address.

ROI (Return on Investment)- As affiliate marketers, we use this as a main guide to see if we are profiting in a campaign. We as pay per click marketers, pay for each click if somebody clicks. We are hoping that the Costs of clicks is less than the amount of commission we will earn. So Revenue – Total Click Expense = Net gain / Net loss.

Residual Earnings / Residual Income – We love this terms because when you market online, you get the joy of having this type of income. It is the income that is made by an affiliate that keeps on reoccurring for a certain period of time if not, for life.

Super Affiliates – I hope one day I become one. This is the top 1% of affiliates that are earning a large sum of money.

Impression – The amount of times an advertisement like a banner was viewed.

Minimum Payout – The amount of revenue that is required to get paid by the affiliate program. Once minimum payment is reach the affiliate has to wait for the ending payment period to request payroll.

Net 15 Pay - This is common practice of many affiliate programs. As you occur revenue and you reach minimum payout and the end of the payment period, they pay you 15 days later.

NET 30 Pay – As you occure revenue and minimum payout is reached by the end of the payment period, you get paid 30 days later

Email Marketing – The method to lure customers into purchasing a product or offer through the use of email service. In my opinion this does NOT work well and usually marked as SPAM.

SEO (Search Marketing Optimization ) – The process of creating a purpose on the internet! Basically the point of SEO is to get to the top 10 rank of that niche on google.

Domain Name – The name of a web site that represents itself on the internet. Think of it has somebody’s name. For example : Uselessaffiliate.com is my name name

Domain Hosting – The place where a Domain name is directed to become active. The hosting is like the body and life of the domain name.
WOW that was a lot..however I will be updating this as time goes by. If there is anything wrong please let me know.

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