Affiliate Is Not A Dirty Word

When I first started out on my journey to become a successful Internet marketer I used to wonder about all the advertisements I came across that begged me to join an affiliate program. They made huge claims about how much money I would earn if I joined them so I just ignored them. That is until I started to understand more about affiliates and affiliate programs.

WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE?
An affiliate is someone who promotes other people’s products or services. When you become an affiliate you have a money making business opportunity but you have none of the worries or expenses of a typical business. You’ll never have the bother of dealing with processing or shipping an order or be involved with customer care. You will however receive money for your promotional efforts. When someone purchases a product or service through your efforts you receive a commission on the sale. All you have to do is promote and wait to receive your payment checks.

WHERE DO I FIND AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM?
There are literally thousands of affiliate programs to choose from. Many of them will tell you that you will earn thousands and thousands of dollars per month if you join them. They will state all the amazing benefits to you and how new and fabulous their particular product or service is. I’m sure you have seen these advertisements everywhere on the Internet. If you type in affiliate programs into your search engine you will see what I mean. You will also just come across them as you are surfing.
It can be quite over whelming to make a choice.

HOW DO I DECIDE WHICH AFFILIATE PROGRAM IS FOR ME?
There are three approaches to choosing the right program for you.
Choose something that has a high demand
Choose something that you have a passion for
Combine the above two points so you will have a product that is in high demand and you are passionate about it.

I personally think a combination of these approaches is the best.
If you choose something that is in high demand then there will be a market for the product or service. It is essential to have a market otherwise you will find that no one will be interested in buying from you. The down side here however is when there is a high demand there is also a lot of competition.

If you choose something you are passionate about then you’ll have more fun and you’ll be more passionate about what you are promoting. When you have something you can put your heart and soul into you will generally do better than if you are promoting something you don’t care about or know nothing about.

Make a list of what you are passionate about. Then do a search on the key words to see how many other people have this same interest. You can do this by using a key-word search. Wordtracker offer free software you can download. Use this to search for the information. Just type in the key word and see how many results come up, i.e. how many people searched for those word over the last month. Then use your search engine to locate your affiliate program.

For example my personal primary interests evolve around living a better life. This means I am interested in health, wealth, developing better relationships and emotional and spiritual well being. Because I have these fundamental desires I searched for an affiliate program that helped me to attract more of these things into my life.

You may decide to go with just one program. The ideal situation would be to find one program. Understand how it works then branch out to include a few more that connect to your primary interest. Once you’ve understood what’s involved in promoting your primary program it will be only a little more effort to hook up with other programs and start increasing your monthly checks! You may also find that as you go along you will need to buy a few things for example, web hosting and domain names. You may then see the value of adding these services to your affiliate list too.

For example once I found my primary program I realized I had to advertise in order to get customers. I also discovered that I really did need my own website even though I had acquired several free ones when I joined my affiliate program. So I learned all about web hosts and domain names and website design. As I went along I picked up a few more affiliate programs. After much trial and error I came to develop an understanding of the concept of organic search engine optimization. I loved the whole concept so I added this to my list of programs too. I have also developed a deeper understanding and appreciation for how Internet business works.

HOW DO I MAKE AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM WORK FOR ME?
The big thing is PROMOTION. You will need to promote your affiliate products or services. When you join an affiliate program you will usually be given one or more free websites and some links and banners. When someone clicks onto the links or banners and purchases the product or service you will receive a commission. This is how affiliate programs work.

Regardless of which program you are involved in, advertising and promoting your links and banners will become your number one priority!
If you are not prepared for this you will not be successful.
It is that simple.
There is no way around this.

The best way to do this is by becoming educated in the right things to do.
You have a choice of paying for advertising or not paying for advertising.
A great place to start is with understanding how organic search engine optimisation works and how to get it to work for you. This method of advertising is time consuming to get set up if you do it manually but once your done it will provide you with an endless source of free targeted traffic to your website. There are soft-ware programs you can buy that will get you set up if your short on time.

Unfortunately the truth is that 95% of Internet entrepreneurs make no money. There are lots of reasons for this. Some of the more serious and common reasons are that many people just don’t understand how to promote. Many still don’t even realize that they have to have their own websites. Many spend more money than they are comfortable with because they head down the road of paid advertising and they aren’t in a position to afford this.

My best advise to you is that you enjoy your affiliate programs. Get your own website. Learn about organic search engine optimization and spend your money wisely.
I hope this article will help position you for great success with your Internet marketing.
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Eugene Rivera is an internet marketing protégé. He is the webmaster of Secrets of Online Success. Learn about all the money making techniques to achieve success on the Internet. Click on our webpage at http://www.secretsofonlinesuccess.info
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Information Overload

The good news; at last, you have achieved your dream. You've escaped the traditional, away from home work force and are now self-employed whether it be part-time or full-time. Now, the bad news;You are now self-employed. It is both good news and bad news. That is, if you are not prepared to deal with the information overload. There you sit, in your spiffy new office - whether it's in the corner of the sitting room or in a converted bedroom surrounded by your equally spiffy new toys...your computer, desk and some strategically placed shelves. Your new multi-function center will print stuff, fax stuff and copy stuff. (It won't hang out the washing, but hey, you can't have everything.)

You've even got work coming-in and the immediate worry about making a living has vanished. Hooray! You really *can* work from home! At first, working at home is pure bliss. Then you get a week when everybody and their dog seems to want your services. After putting in a few late nights, you meet all the deadlines and think; phew...I'm glad that's over! You decide to relax and give yourself a day off. After all, you worked all through the weekend and earned it, right?

Unfortunately, the following week you find yourself off to a bad start trying to make-up for your day off. Before you know it, you find that you are dropping further and further behind. You reflect gloomily that when you were working for someone else, at least at the end of the day you were finished...what didn't get done didn't get done!

Well, it's time to take heart and set a few simple strategies in place that will keep you in control of your time...and your sanity.


=== 1. Do NOT Accept Any New Work This Week. ===

Take a good look at what you have on your plate now, and carefully plan the week ahead. Your aim is to regain control. Tell new clients that you are fully booked, but you can put them on a priority list to be phoned next week. (This will not only allow you to catch up, but make your services appear highly in demand.)


=== 2. Build In Time For Leisure and Rest. ===

Not only for this week, but EVERY week. A half hour walk; a twenty-minute break in the sun with a cup of coffee; a quick swim or a movie outing with friends - all these activities can recharge your batteries. You will find that you can achieve far more when you are rested and alert. (How many times have you sat at the computer staring at the screen, achieving very little, because you're over-tired?)


=== 3. Tackle Urgent Tasks First. ===

If you're behind, your first step must be to contact all clients and arrange firm new deadlines. Make sure you base these new deadlines on what you CAN achieve, not what you HOPE you can achieve. If any existing client needs your services or products urgently, bump them up the queue.


=== 4. Prioritize Remaining Tasks. ===

Scrap anything that is not essential, and delegate what you can. Consider involving family, business associates or friends to handle some tasks. (Warning: do not hand over tasks that must be carried out only by you as the principal of the business. Your reputation is important.)


=== 5. Set Achievable Daily Goals. ===

If you finish a task ahead of schedule, begin the next... but adhere to a definite cut-off time each day. What you are doing this week is establishing a system that will continue to work for you.

Getting out of trouble when your business is in overload is just like getting out of debt. Your business rating is similar to your credit rating - nothing can be gained by denying that a problem exists. Nothing can be gained by slipping deeper into the mire. Call a halt; contact the main players; set workable strategies in place and you can quickly regroup.

Before you know it, your home business dream will be on track once more.
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Eugene Rivera is an internet marketing protégé. He is the webmaster of Secrets of Online Success. Learn about all the money making techniques to achieve success on the Internet. Click on our webpage at http://www.secretsofonlinesuccess.info
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Your Home Business Only Needs One Thing To Succeed

Haven’t you read countless times that the key to success in your home business and offline is marketing and promoting? I am sure you have come to believe such statements 100%

But wait.

The real secret to success in any home business is only one. “It is your mind”. You can never take off on the Internet without knowing this secret. Some people (even You and me) did not know this secret but they have used it unknowingly to take off on the Net. Those have been a bit lucky.

There are a lot of free ebooks, and articles like this one out there telling you how to succeed with your home business. But doesn’t it surprise you that one reads them and follows them to the letter, yet achieve no significant success?

It is because these books and articles haven’t been telling the real key to success online. Now in this article, I’m telling it to you again. “You need only your mind to succeed with your home business.”

Yes, it is your mind. The other tools, ebooks, articles, software and Online marketing and promotion information that you may buy or get for free is useless if you do not have a positive mind.

When your mind is programmed for success, it will use many ways to keep closer to success. You will meet the right people, get lucky breaks, and receive useful free ebooks for online marketing and promotion, get training from a qualified mentor, find a need to fill, become focused, take the right actions at the right time, take risks, be willing to sacrifice, have the right attitude etc.


That is the only truth and key to success with your home business. It will continue to be this year, the coming years and it has been the past years. You must get your mind right at first; the rest will be done with ease. You will even enjoy doing them.

Success mentors have said that you must 100% want to succeed and be wealthy. Not 99.9%, no grain of fear, hidden doubts and dislikes. You must honestly desire to be rich.

Here is what I read from an article:

Examine your self; are you on the road to success? Is your mind programmed for success? If not, when your mind is finally changed, success will finally come gushing into your life, seemingly from nowhere. You will wonder where it has been hiding all those years. It was hiding behind your own self-doubt.

With your mind tuned and programmed for success in any home business, you will steer clear of poverty, sniff any scam and avoid it. Your mind will steer you clear of poverty thoughts, and the wasting of your time, money, friends and talents. No more wasteful preoccupations and wastefulness. Others will watch in awe and wonder, as it seems that things always turn out in your favor. You will begin to freely give, as your newfound wealth spills over to other people’s lives.

But it all starts with your mental programming. Very few know, or will tell you this fact. With the right mindset, you can become fabulously wealthy. It is all in your mind. It is mental. That is the truth and success about wealth and success in any work at home business. It is the most important tool you will need to succeed in a home business this year. Even to be successful in your home business marketing and promotion efforts, you need to have a mind that has already been programmed for success.

If you had never know this fact, all the marketing and promotion tools, tips and information you read on home business would be useless. You would easily get discouraged; you would think that you need a good product or company that will make you instantly rich. You blame other people if you will experience home business failure. You blame your parents that they are not wealthy, you believe that there is something out there that can really help you succeed with your home business and in life.

No! Success lies within you and it starts in your mind. When you fully digest this secret, nothing will stand in your way. I discovered this secret and my work at home business took off so easily. Despite the fact that you may live in a remote country with few privileges for online success. You will manage to make it and here I have given you the key. Use it as the primary tool and then use other tool and implement what I and other experts teach you, you will then and only then achieve the success that you have always wanted with your home business.

Your mind and attitude is the most important home business marketing tool you will need to succeed online this year.
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Eugene Rivera is an internet marketing protégé. He is the webmaster of Secrets of Online Success. Learn about all the money making techniques to achieve success on the Internet. Click on our webpage at http://www.secretsofonlinesuccess.info
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On the road to working from home

When you take your first tentative steps into the world of online home business you’ll soon find yourself inundated with a veritable smörgåsbord of options, and this is where some of the problems start. You may soon find yourself joining countless programs, to the point that you can’t remember who offered what, and receiving an inbox full of emails promising you the chance to earn even more money if you subscribe to yet more programs.

It won’t be long before you’ve either spent way too much money on programs that have promised you the world but failed to deliver, or you’ll be so confused that you won’t know which way to turn and wondering just why you wanted to set up your work from home business in the first place.

The problem is that so many people rush into things after reading that they’ll earn millions of dollars within a month that they forget the old adage that slow and steady wins the race.

To truly start earning an income from your home based business you need to be prepared to put in a little effort: take the time to look into the different methods available, be it affiliate marketing, niche sites, using ebay, answering surveys or a myriad of other examples; once you’ve decided on which avenue you’re going to take, look around and see what’s available, there are some helpful sites that will guide you through the process. Always make sure you read up on all aspects of your chosen program: some may have certain requirements you are not prepared to meet, expect you to pay after a trial period or limit your other opportunities in some way.

Of course once you’ve chosen your avenue it can then become a matter of trial and error, the affiliate plan that works for some may not be right for you. Do a little testing: advertise your plan using traffic exchanges, safe lists etc. Make sure you set up all the tools you’ll need to promote and respond to any inquiries. Try not to get swayed by all the offers out there, give yourself a little bit of time to get your business on track before scattering yourself too thin and joining too many programs.

Eventually you’ll hit on the perfect work from home business and while it may not happen overnight you’ll soon start seeing your efforts being rewarded and you’ll start wondering why you didn’t start working from home earlier.
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Eugene Rivera is an internet marketing protégé. He is the webmaster of Secrets of Online Success. Learn about all the money making techniques to achieve success on the Internet. Click on our webpage at http://www.secretsofonlinesuccess.info
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The Home Business Journey: The Preparation

You might now be tossing the idea of establishing your own business. You might be imagining freedom, and if you have a 9-5 job you might be saying to yourself that this kind of job was never meant for you. If you are a student you might be saying to yourself that you will never put yourself under somebody else's authority and generate profit for somebody else.

If you are serious then you should prepare yourself for the journey. When you are going for a journey you start listing the things you will need.

To have your own business then you must really be prepared. The first thing you need to know is to prepare yourself. Yes, you must prepare your mind as the journey will not be full of roses. The garden of Eden is your destination along your path.

Because of the huge obstacles that may be extremely difficult to overcome at this point in time in your life, you know that you will not have access to resources that will enable you to open a Franchise or your own offline operation. At this point your mind might be set at venturing into an online business because of the limited amount of investment needed for such a business.

The first thing that you need to prepare right from the beginning is your expectations. A home business is still a business and all the rules of business apply. Why I am saying this?

Most of the people who start searching for a home business get so excited when they read and hear about all the different opportunities available online. They forget that they have started the search for a business and they start expecting to get rich within few months. If that was true then you would have found all those big corporations are empty and out of employees.

This fact should not disappoint you, on the contrary this means that you will be among the very few who understand the real nature of home business and it will enable you to continue the journey while finding others returning after a couple of hundred yards and sticking to their jobs.

If you know this fact, then you will be able to mentor the people that you will eventually sponsor according to this fact. You will have an organization full of people who know the real nature of home business. This organization will have solid foundations and will be able to grow much better than most of the organizations in this field.

The second thing that you need to prepare yourself for is that you will have bad days or even bad months. This should not mean that the business is not working. Your home business is an online business, and one of the major differences between online and offline businesses is the location.

In an offline business you might be the only one who is providing this business in the neighborhood. In Online Business the internet is the neighborhood.

In an offline business you might choose a location with high traffic with many by passers who would be able to locate you easily. In an Online business you can only choose a product or service of high demand, but to create traffic is your own job. Accidental traffic is never something that you can depend on in online business.

Therefore, the momentum of traffic has to be built one brick at a time, and this needs consistency, time and patience especially when we do not have enough funds to overspend on advertising.

You need to think about those two things a lot, and you need to prepare your mind before you start your home business journey. The first is to Prepare and control your expectations. The second is to survive the bad times with consistency and patience.. These two gold nuggets will be the ones that will help you to survive this thing called the Internet.

This way you are prepared to start your home business journey with the right mindset.
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Eugene Rivera is an internet marketing protégé. He is the webmaster of Secrets of Online Success. Learn about all the money making techniques to achieve success on the Internet. Click on our webpage at http://www.secretsofonlinesuccess.info
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Firing Your Boss: Starting Your Own Internet Business From Home

Everyday millions of people are making a living online with their very own Internet business. They do not have to get up with the rest of the rat race and sit in traffic to go to a dead end job making somebody else rich and barely being able to pay off their mortgage or car. People who work from home can have the freedom to do what they want and spend money without the fear of becoming homeless. Did you know that most people are 2 months away from becoming homeless if they lost their jobs today?

Does starting your own Internet business from home and leveraging money in your favor sound appealing to you?

Below are some of the some of the major reasons people decide to start up their own Internet business :

1. Extremely low start-up costs

A business in the real world is a big liability. You have alot of overhead and bills to pay. Starting your own Internet business from home only requires you to have a Internet connection, Domain name and a website. All of these things can be purchased for under $100 plus you can deduct expenses on part of your house when operating a home business when tax time comes. And the best part is you don't need to pay employees and deal with the headache of hiring and office politics.

2. You get to work from the comfort of your house or apartment

You will wake up in the morning and not have to stress over getting ready and not being late to you job. Your bedroom will be your office and you can work at your own pace without a boss hanging over you and pressuring for you to get done because he doesn't want to pay overtime. You choose when you want to work, take break and eat lunch. No more dealing with back stabbing at the office and working hard for less money.

3. The entire world is only a click away

All of your prospects are only a click away and you have the whole world right in front of you on the computer screen. The Internet is growing by the millions every year with people looking to earn extra income from a Internet business.

4. You get to spend more time with your family

By starting you own Internet business from home you will get to see your family and friends more and build a better relationship with them. Most parents are struggling to make money and have to work 2 or 3 jobs just so they can pay their bills and send their kids to school. By working at home you will be able to spend more quality time with your children instead of coming home after working hard all day just to go to sleep because you are so tired from the commute and stress at the job.

5. Your Internet business can be fully automated

After a few months of starting you home business you can set it up so it can be fully automated making money for you 24 hours a day! Once you set it up on automation you can spend time searching for other opportunities to make you more money. The money you will be making is residual, it will grow over the years and give you security a regular job cannot guarantee. The reason their is such a explosion of new millionaires in the world is because of the Internet as a resource to make money.

6. You can turn whatever you are passionate about into a business online

Just about any conceivable topic can be turned into a Internet business. There is a demand for information online and people are willing to pay a big price for it. Just think of something in your life that fills you with passion and you will be on the way to making a living online.

7. Internet businesses have low operating costs

Some Internet businesses can be set-up to have no expenses. A bit of advice when first starting out is to not get overwhelmed by all of the information being thrown at you. If you start signing up for every program and buy every software that guarantees success you will put yourself in a hole fast. Just stick to what you are doing and have a routine. Experiment and find out what works for you and what does not so you can minimize your advertising costs.

8. You can have multiple Internet businesses

You can have as many Internet businesses as you want running online making you money 24 hours a day! They will never call in sick, give you an attitude or demand a raise. Since the operating costs are so low once you get one going on auto-pilot you can work on setting up another one and going through the whole process again.

9. The Internet is an extremely huge market growing every year

According to InternetWorldStats.com the number of people online as of today is 1,407,724,920. It has grown 290% from 2000-2008. The number of U.S. home-based businesses generating an income last year reached 13.8 million; 9.7 million were generating the primary income of their households.

So does starting a Internet business from home appeal to you? Given the reasons above I am sure you can come to a conclusion if working from home is right for you and your family.
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Eugene Rivera is an internet marketing protégé. He is the webmaster of Secrets of Online Success. Learn about all the money making techniques to achieve success on the Internet. Click on our webpage at http://www.secretsofonlinesuccess.info
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Google Adsense: To Blend or Not To Blend?

For those who don't know, Google Adsense is an advertising medium presented by the number one search engine Google. The basic concept of adsense is that you use coding provided by Google to place on your website, blog, or what have you. When your account is approved for adsense ads then the most relevant ads will show on your webpage. When a visitor or hopefully visitors click the ad, then voila! You have a nice amount of supplemental income.

The use of Adsense is often in great debate in most popular SEO forums. The majority of the topics are on how to place the ads on your site to get the most out of a page hit. Some SEO's (Search Engine Optimizers} say that the ads should be towards the top of your page to get a higher CTR (click-thru-rate). Of course other SEO's say the bottom is best for the ads.

My opinion is that top or bottom it really doesn't make a difference. You should always place an ad in a spot on the page where it can be seen without making the visitor feel like the ads are interfering with them reading your page information. Remember, they are at your site to get information on a service or product. Also the, placement of the advertisements should be in a spot where it must be read, or glanced at without making the visitor feel overwhelmed. Remember, that we all still have that ole phobia of visiting banner only sites.

One of the next topics discussed are the facts of blending the adsense ad to the rest of your site or not to blend it in with your site. Some SEO's say that you should blend to not disturb the visitor and also it seems more like a part of your site and will make them believe they should click for even more information. This is not always true when the ads are placed on a site that doesn't offer information in the first place. Then on the other hand if you make an ad that sticks out they feel it will draw attention and get more clicks. Other SEO professionals feel that this will only irritate the visitor and may cause them to leave the site.

The major thing that you must learn is to use your blending and placement together in a manner where you can say yes to the following questions:

- Did I place the Adsense ads where they can be seen?
- Did I place them where they aren't obstructing what my visitors are originally there for?
- Did I blend the text color of the ad to make it look like its part of my page?
- Did I match the background and border color in a way that would raise the ad off the page, giving it a slight 3-D affect?
- Did I place the google adsense ad in a place that is in the line of the visitors reading path?
- After looking at my page, was the placement and blend at least where I would read the adsense and possibly click?

If you can answer yes to yourself and be very truthful then your adsense ad is in a good spot for now. Don't forget that you should experiment when you get your traffic up. Find out what works better for you and your pockets. If you would like a good idea of how this should be done just pay a visit to my site.

Have fun out there!
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Eugene Rivera is an internet marketing protégé. He is the webmaster of Secrets of Online Success. Learn about all the money making techniques to achieve success on the Internet. Click on our webpage at http://www.secretsofonlinesuccess.info
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