Free Affiliate Marketing Tips and Tools

Quality Back-Links From HubPages

2009-12-21T15:41:00.015-05:00

Quality Back-Links From HubPages

Quality back-links – affiliate marketers need them, bloggers need them, websites need them, anybody that puts content on the net’ that they want people to read or visit needs them, but where do you get them? Hubpages is a good place to start.

Simple question … complex answer. But here’s a key – quality is better than quantity. In the “early days” of search engines, quantity was king, the more back-links you had the more rank the search engines gave you, but the market has matured and the search engines have gotten smarter. Now search engines like Google place more importance on the quality of your back-links than the quantity. A back-link from a site with a 6 or 7 pagerank is worth a lot more than a dozen links from unranked pages, and Hubpages is a PR6 site. Google Search loves Hubpages content, fast index, good link weight.

What is Hubpages.com

Hubpages is a free publishing platform, where writer’s can publish just about any kind of content they want, (within reason, there are some obvious restrictions), whether it’s a poem or short story, or a how-to or product review. But it is a community site with member-based usage and guidance that promotes original content and penalizes spamming and over-promotional stuff, so it’s not the place for “landing pages.”

Your content on Hubpages is called a “Hub”, and it can be as simple as straight text, or as complete as a mini-webpage with pics, graphic, polls, etc. etc. There are some links to sample hubs at the end of this post that show the variety of styles available to you, but let’s move on to why Hubpages will work for you.

Just a short note: besides getting affiliate marketing back-links, you can also monetize your writings with: Google Adsense, Amazon and ebay affiliate sales, and Kontera text-link advertising.

How to build quality back-links on Hubpages

To use Hubpages, you write something about what you want to link to, or about something related to what you want to link to. Let’s say you have an affiliate relationship with an SEO program eBook, we will just call it SEO Tips. You can’t just make a landing-page for SEO Tips on Hubpages. And you can only put two links to an SEO Tips landing-page somewhere else, but you can put those two links, plus a couple more to pages related to SEO Tips.

The key to success on Hubpages is adding content that provides value to the reader. You probably know from experience that if you land on a hype-page, even if it’s not as obvious as a landing-page, you will pretty quickly click away. But, if the “hype-page” provides you with some value, whether it is information, or further links, you will probably stick around long enough to finish the read. So what you want in your content, is value to the reader.

So perhaps your content is about the importance of SEO, with some basic instructions. Your content could include a link to your SEO Tips landing page, and it can also include a link to another blog or article about SEO Tips that also includes a link to the original landing-page for SEO Tips. Sort of a round-about way to get another link to the landing page. Then you can also include a links module that allows you to include a list of links in your content. This is where you can put your second direct link to the SEO Tips landing-page, plus links to other related sites/articles/posts, that would themselves include links to the SEO Tips landing page.

And there you have created multiple back-links to your landing-page, and multiple related sites.

Step by Step Instructions to build affiliate marketing back-links

By the steps, here’s the process:

Sign-up for a Hubpages account
Determine what link(s) you want to promote
Use a keyword program, (like Google’s Keyword Tool), to find the keywords you want to use in your content.
Use the Hubpages search box to look for “Hubs” with your intended keywords. This will tell you: if your keywords are already saturated on Hubpages, and it will show you some examples of hubs that others have created for your keywords, which can also give you ideas for your layout.
Determine how you will present your content: straight product review, content article related to product, or content article related to product category
Plan the content and flow of your article: points you want to make, links you want to use, and a conclusion with a summation and call to action.
Create and publish your content Hub.

Notes:

Remember it is vital to the success of your hub, and thereby the strength of your back-link, that your content provides value along with your links. Keyword and link-stuffed content won’t be successful and could even be penalized as overly-promotional.
Content should be a minimum of 400+ words, and at least include a picture or two.
You will need to promote your Hub just like you are promoting your other activities. The more traffic your Hub gets, the more value your back-link has.

Tips for creating quality strong affiliate marketing back-links:

You should finish your content with a “Comment” module, this allows readers to add input, which refreshes your content for the search engines.
After the Comment module, add an RSS news feed module for your content topic, this will guarantee that your Hub will always look freshly updated when the search engines crawl it again, and since it’s at the bottom it probably won’t distract your readers from your links.
After the RSS feed module add another links module with 8-10 links related to your topic. Just do a Google search and put in some of the results. This will give you additional link-weight by adding related content and keywords, but because it is in a links module, AND at the very bottom where no one but the search engines will probably see it, it will not distract your readers from the links in your article that you DO want them to see and click on. BUT – THE LINKS MUST BE RELEVENT TO YOUR TOPIC. Sorry about shouting but that’s an important point.

Ok, here are those links I promised to some sample Hubs I created:

Sample Hubpages articles

Increase Your Chances to Get Pregnant

This is an information Hub that includes links to:

Product Landing-page
Product category Blog that has links to landing-page
more information articles that also include 1 & 2 above, creating a circle of self-referring links

BlueHost Web Hosting Service

This is a straight product review Hub, of the service being promoted. It includes links to the product landing-page and my profile.

Home Espresso Coffee Makers

This is an example of using a physical product review using an Amazon Affiliate relationship. This Hub provides links to sales of the product through Amazon, and links to related affiliate hubs, and my content profile.

Good Luck with your affiliate marketing efforts. See you on HubPages, check out

Appletreedeals on Hubpages or my personal rants on G.A. Anderson Online

Related Posts: Publishing - HubPages

Ebay Seller’s Tips – Hubpages for your listings

Other High-Authority Publishing sites for back-links:

Squidoo

EzineArticles

GoArticles

Constant Content

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Get a Free Google Back-link to Your Web Site(s) or Blogs

2009-12-02T16:39:00.010-05:00

Get a Free Google Back-link to Your Web Site(s) or Blogs

Just a short post to let you know you can get a free back-link to your site(s) or blogs directly from Google. A Google feature called 'Google Profiles' allows you to create a profile for yourself. This is just like profiles you would create elsewhere, but it also allows you to place your links in both your profile Bio, and in a links list that shows at the top of your profile page. Don't let this freebie slip by you.

Just go to www.google.com/profiles

and create your profile. Only takes 5 minutes and gives you a free Google back-link to all the sites you list.

Related posts: Quality Back-Links from Hubpages
Publishing on Hubpages

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Make Money Online With Bidvertiser - An Adsense Alternative

2009-12-02T00:43:00.009-05:00

Make Money Online With Bidvertiser - An Adsense Alternative

Are you an Adsense affiliate that has been dropped by Adsense? Forget about getting your affiliate account back. Once Adsense drops an account it's almost impossible to get reinstated. Hell, it's almost impossible just to get a contact response from them. And since Adsense tightened their rules for acceptance, and changed their pay-out program, there are a lot of unhappy people. Both affiliates and publishers. But there are alternatives to Adsense ...

A lot of Adsense alternatives have popped-up, but one that stands out from the rest is Bidvertiser. There are several features that make the Bidvertiser CPC program a good alternative to Adsense, or even an addition to Adsense. Most importantly is that it is easier to become a Bidvertiser affiliate, but here are some other good reasons to check out Bidvertiser as an alternative CPC affiliate program:

Lower pay-out threshold - $10.00 vs. $100.00 for Adsense
Easy account set-up
Affiliate referral program
You get paid for every click - without a QPC formula

Just like Adsense, they have an account referral console, and they pay-out monthly.

You can make money three ways with Bidvertiser:

Affilliate Advertiser Referrals - when you refer an advertiser, you get $5.00, and when that advertiser spends $50.00, you get an additional $20.00
Affiliate Publisher Referrals - when a publisher signs up under your referral you get $10.00, when they earn $50.00, you get $40.00 more
Become a Bidvertiser Publisher - Monetize your web site or blog with Bidvertiser and you get paid for every click on a Bidvertiser ad.

You can see that you can make affiliate money coming & going with their programs. Just monetize your site and get paid per click, then you can also include a Bidvertiser referral button and get paid for sending referral advertisers too!

Just use the links below to check the Bidveriswer details to see if it might be right for you.
Promote your eBay auctions with BidVertiser. Get $20 in FREE clicks.

Place your ad on thousands of sites with BidVertiser. Get $20 in FREE clicks.

Or if you want to monetize your site with Bidvertiser, check this link:
Make money from your Website or Blog with BidVertiser

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Hubpages - Content publishing for affiliate marketers

2009-09-17T20:21:00.037-04:00

Hubpages - Content publishing for affiliate marketers

As an affiliate marketer trying to make money online from your home-based business, one of the toughest jobs for new affiliate marketers is finding ways to promote their products. Whether it is a landing page product, like a web hosting plan, a physical product referral, like an Amazon affiliate link, or identity promotion, like your affiliate marketing web site, finding places to get the word out, and get backlinks can be a daunting job.

One way is content publishing. This is the creation of articles that will contain links to your products. They can be product reviews, how-to's, or just essay type articles, but the purpose is to provide value to the article reader and at the same time you are providing links to make you some affiliate money. The most used methods are email lists and blogging, but another method, very similar to blogging is publishing content articles.

Content placed on free content publishing web sites is another way to get a presence on the Internet. The most well known might be Squidoo or Hubpages. These sites allow you to create what are essentially one-page web sites, know as "Lens" or "Hubs".

Another very important feature of these free platforms is that they are revenue-sharing sites. They use Google Adsense, and Amazon and eBay affiliate programs on your content pages, and they share this income with the owners of the pages. So you get a free place to promote yourself and another affiliate income stream.

These "hubs" can contain limited html, pictures, and best of all hyperlinks. Each of these sites are community-based. Meaning there are forums and groups, and lots of interaction and help from the site members themselves. They also contain extensive help and how-to information to get you up and running with your first pages within minutes of signing up.

I will do an affiliated post with detail for each site, but for now here are some links to check them out.

Here is the sign-up link to check-out Hubpages

Here are a couple Hubpage "Hub" examples used to promote Amazon Affiliate links

Buy cast iron skillets online

Buy Frontline Plus Fleas and Tick Online

Here's an example of a "Hub" used to promote an affiliate link landing page.

Hostgator - Internet web hostin company

Hubpages is more of a serious writer's platform with a lot of excellent users and talent.

A little on the lighter side, but still accomplishing the same task, is Squidoo, another free content publishing platform. Squidoo calls their pages "Lens". Essentially they have the same features and capabilities as Hubpages, but the theme and community are a little more casual.

Here's where you can check-out Squidoo

And here's an example of a Squidoo "lens"

Related posts: Quality Hubpages Backlinks

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Pick your Product Niche - David Bailey's Plan

2009-09-09T11:40:00.017-04:00

Affiliate marketing plans that show you how to make money online are all over the internet. Niche products to write content, find new promotion channels, use the social networks, submit articles, and drive traffic to your promo pages range from the very good to the very bad. Unfortunately there are a lot more in the very bad category than there are very good ones.

As an affiliate marketer I live or die by my credibility, so I don't want to promote any of the "trash" programs that for only $97.00 or $67.00 or some other amount ending in 7, (soneone actually did studies on this), they promise to make you part of the internet millionaire's club making tens of thousands of dollars per week. You've seen these landing pages. So I was a little surprised when I stumbled on David Bailey's product page. It wasn't "glitzy" and his price was only $29.00! That got my interest. Not only that, but he seemed like a humble guy in his videos.

But, (probably just like you), I'm tired of spending my money on programs that turn out to be just a rehash of all the other online material. Been there, done that.

And my success rate for getting refunds is only about 50%. (yes I do ask, and sometimes demand refunds) on the programs I felt didn't live up to their hype. But the $29.00 price point got my attention so I watched all the videos in his promo and the one about Squidoo got my attention.

Just like other affiliate marketers I'm always looking for promotion channels to use for my product content articles, and I hadn't used Squidoo yet. I had heard of Squidoo but just hadn't gotten around to checking it out. Anyway, David seemed like a humble guy, his $29.00 price seemed to reasonably buck the trend of ending your price with a 7, and I was going to end up checking out Squidoo anyway, so I decided to check out David's 4-Day Money Making Blueprint. But I wasn't ready to spend my money yet!

After you have been on the net for awhile you learn how to find web page owners and their contact information. So I found David's email address and dropped him a note about my interest and asked him if he would be open to answering a few "interview" questions for an article I was going to write. (this one of course). Not only was he willing, he seemed really appreciative that I would give him the opportunity to talk about his blueprint plan.

Note: Before I tell you about his plan, or his interview, let me admit that David ended up giving me a copy of his 4-Day Money Making Blueprint. I don't know if that qualifies as a bribe or not.

David's plan is definitely for new affiliate marketers. It starts with the basics of all the concepts, organization, resources, steps to take and how to take them, different beginner strategies and how to choose one right for you, and some common pitfalls to avoid. He then goes to the next level and tells you how to refine some of the strategies to suit your particular product niche. You can get a lot more information from his promo page, I won't go into a complete summary in this paragraph.

Here are a few of the things I talked about with David:

ATD: Why did you create the 4-Day Money Making blueprint?

David: I wanted to make some money. Why else? I like helping people too, it makes me feel like I have accomplished something, but I still need to make money. Don't we all?

ATD: Ok, can't argue with that, but why the plan?

David: Because it was something I knew. When I first started doing affiliate marketing I bought a couple of the "make you a millionaire" programs and each time I only got vague information and ended up feeling gyped, and was "gun-shy" from then on. So I started teaching myself. You won't believe how many nights I was online until 2 or 3 am just searching and reading, and how many really bad articles I wrote. And how much time I wasted without making any money. It was 3 or 4 months before I made even $25.00 in commissions. And I was working hard at it.When I got that first $25.00 commission check from Clickbank I was motivated again! Disappointed, but motivated. I mean only $25.00 for months of work. Who wouldn't be disappointed?

I kept at it. started getting more hits on my promo articles, started writing better articles and developing new plans for the promo channels I was using, and eventually I was making the $25.00 commission in one day not 3 months.That's $125 - $175.00 extra a week! I was feeling pretty good about it. it wasn't the thousands of dollars those hype-pages promised with their programs, but I thought it was pretty good.

Anyway to make a long story short. My affiliate income streams were getting better and better, and the best part was that I wasn't working so hard anymore. I was really liking the affiliate marketing work.

ATD: That's great David, but except for the "good money" part that doesn't sound very different from a lot of other affiliate marketers. We've all spent those hours online reading and researching. Specifically what made you develop your 4-day Money Making Blueprint?

David: (laughing) You're right. I still wanted to make more money, and developing my own product was the next logical step. I looked at a lot of choices before I realized it was right in front of me. Like you said, a lot of people were doing the same thing I did, but without it working for them. I had all my experience in getting started. I was lucky that I'm generally a very organized person so I had all my bookmarks and resource materials that I had developed. I had tons of other people's work that I had referenced and turned into my own techniques. And best of all, I still had all those "failed" efforts to remind me of the changes that I made to turn them into successes. All I had to do was pull it all together and put it into a how-to format. And that's how the 4-Day money making Blueprint was born.

ATD: I like that answer, but I'm curious, why the $29.00 price point?

David: Because I had spent too many $97.00 and $67.00 bundles on crummy programs. I thought if I placed a realistic value on my product it would be more credible than those "industry-standard" prices. Besides I did the math, it would be a lot better to have 1000 people buy it at $29.00 than it would to have 10 people buy it at $97.00. (which I think is way too much for a how-to course)

ATD: Thanks for talking with me David. I hope you'll follow-up and read my article.

David: Thank you too. Are you going to buy and use my program before you write about it?

ATD: (laugh) Are you trying to turn this into another sale? Honestly... I haven't decided yet. I will if I decide to do the article of course, but I'm still on the fence about recommending another affiliate marketing program.

David: I'll make you a deal. If you will write this up as a promo article and link to my promo page, I'll give you a copy of the program to review.

ATD: Done! Thanks again David

And that was part of my talk with David Bailey. I really felt good about this guy. He was honest about his motivations and he didn't make outrageous claims. And he did give me a copy of his program.

Overall I'm glad to rate his program as very useful and well worth the $29.00 price. There were a lot of things in it I already knew, but that was because I've been doing this for awhile. For a new affiliate marketer that same information would be invaluable in time-savings alone. I think his presentation technique is excellent, and the process he outlines is a well-documented step-by-step tutorial that will do just what he says... have you on your way to making affiliate marketing commissions in 4 days.

4 stars - you will not be disappointed by this program, and the price is right.

go check-out David Bailey's 4-Day Money Making Blueprint

ps. I know you've seen all kinds of testimonials, but take a look at this one. I think you'll see why I think David and his program are different from all the hype you usually get.
4-Day MMP Testimonial video ,

If you want more more info, here are two Free Hubpages Hubs that talk about getting started in affiliate marketing:
A Beginner's Step by Step Guide to Affiliate Marketing
and
How to Pick Your Product Niche' - A beginner's Guide

Ok, Now go check-out David Bailey's 4-Day Money Making Blueprint
G.A.Anderson

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Affiliate Marketing Beginnings - Pick your Product Niche

2009-09-08T17:42:00.016-04:00

Affiliate Marketing Beginnings - Pick your Product Niche

As a new affiliate marketer you will need to pick products to promote. Your product choice will depend on the method you plan to use to promote your links. Different types of products will respond to different types of promotions. Let's look at the basic product categories and the promotion methodsmost generally suited to them. ps. Let's use AM as an abbreviation for affiliate marketing.
There are 4 basic affiliate product types: (but lots of sub-types)

Information - ebooks, reports, data, how-to's, etc.
Services - reporting, data tracking, auction listing, web hosting, etc.
Physical products - blenders, golf clubs, jewelry, etc.
Referral commissions - also known as per-click or impression commissions. like ebay or Amazon or Adsense

Information Products: The most common AM information product is How-to courses that generally come on Cd's or Dvd's. They are usually bundled with several bonus's of associated reports or services. The more professional packages include physical items like cd's, dvd's, and or printed material. The least professional packages are all ebooks. Although the subjects of these how-to packages are limitless, (everything from internet money making to gardening and cooking), the majority of the affiliate packages available deal with how to make money on the internet and work from home programs.

The most common sales point for these products is a landing page. This is just a single web page that does not link to any other web pages. We have all seen this type of page; it's glitzy and impressive, very visual with pictures and graphics, contains bullet-point lists of benefits, customer testimonials, and usually a list of included bonus' at the end. Generally a landing page is a create-and-forget AM tool that you place and then promote through various promotion methods. It is not like a blog promotion that is constantly updated.

Promotion for information products is not limited to landing pages. Blog posts and content articles will also work, but even these generally end point the buyer to a landing page link.

These types of products usually have a very generous commission rate, 33% - 75% of the sale price, but this is because the conversion rate is pretty low. Landing pages are generally viewed as the "Used Car Salesmen" of the industry.

One of the most popular sources for these affiliate links is Clickbank.com, an information product AM network. You can do a Google search for others.

**Clickbank was where I found David Bailey's affiliate program. I was convinced to try it first because it was not a "glitzy become a millionaire" landing page. It was a video promo landing page that seemed kind of humble. You can see my article on David's program here or take a look at it yourself on his 4-Day Money Making Blueprint Page.

Service Products: are just that... they provide a service for the buyer. It can be anything from an auction lister service like Auctiva or Vendio, a data mining and reporting service like HammerTap or Channel Advisor, a web hosting company like BlueHost or HostGator, to non-ecommerce services like leased software applications for business'.

The sales point for Service products is usually a content article or blog post that link to the services web site.

The are almost always subscription services that pay a generous one-time sign up commission, but they can also include residual commissions for service renewals. An example would be HostGator Web Hosting which has a $100 sign-up commission, but no renewal residual commission.

Service products affiliate links usually go through AM Networks like Pepperjam or Commission Junction, but they can also be directly from the product provider too.

Physical products: are just that, blenders, golf clubs, jewelry, etc. The sales point for these products is almost always a web site. And the promotion method is also almost always a testimonial or how-to content article, although "New Product" blog posts are also very effective if they have good search engine characteristics.

Most physical products affiliate links are through AM Networks like Pepperjam or Commission Junction, but many can also be attained directly through manufacturer contacts.

Physical products commissions are usually the lowest of the mentioned categories, but these products are also the easiest to sell because most of the time your visitor has already decided they have a need for it.

Referral Commissions: are commissions from people clicking on links to go somewhere, like to ebay or Amazon. Click commissions are usually paid for bundles of clicks, like X$ per 100 or 100 clicks. You need to be generating a lot of web traffic to make any significant money with referral commissions.

So which one to pick?
Those are the basic categories. As an AM you will end up utilizing all of them. They will all become part of your overall income stream picture, but as a new AM you should just pick one to focus your efforts on, and then add more as you become more experienced and have more time.

You must evaluate your strengths, and how much time you can devote to your marketing efforts. AM is selling! You will have to be constantly writing content, both articles and posts. You will be spending a ton of time in forums and groups, social networks and blogs. Every where you can you must be doing things to promote yourself and your affiliate links.

It does get easier, but the start is a lot of hard work and hours of computer time. So your best chance for success is to be doing something you like. Or at least something you already know something about. You will get the opportunity to expand your efforts into all areas of AM, but the start will be a lot easier if you don't feel it is total drudgery.

I have found that the most successful affiliate marketers have branded themselves with name recognition and credibility. They provide content that is seen as valuable and helpful to their readers, and in exchange, their readers feel a lot more comfortable clicking on their affiliate links in the articles. Affiliate marketing has become so pervasive that most net surfers have developed what is being called "Banner Blindness". We have so many banner ads scrolled, flashed, and blinked in front of us that it's easy to at best, no longer really see them, and at worst, be completely turned off by them.

Advertiser's know this too. They have started providing other methods like text links that blend into your content or page design and styled design links that no longer look like banner ads.

So what if you hate writing content, or blogging? You can buy or get free content all over the net. You just add your affiliate links. I don't recommend this, but it is an option.

The answer to the "what product do I pick" question for a new affiliate marketer is... pick a physical product(s) in the niche you have chosen. It is the easiest to sincerely write content for. Needs the least persuasive ability to get started. It is the easiest for you to begin establishing your brand credibility with.

*** This was another area in David's plan that I really liked. He showed exactly how to write content articles and where to put them. I used his "Squidoo" video as a tutorial to create content lens for some of my ecommerce activities. Squidoo links have driven a lot of traffic to my eCrater and Bonanzle stores accounts.

Ok, where do I get these product links? I like Pepperjam.com, Commission Junction (cj.com) is a good source too, but I think PepperJam is more up-to-date and customer friendly.You can also do a Google search for your product niche and look for individual companies have affiliate programs.

You can see a follow-up article on this subject on Hubpages in the articles; Affiliate Marketing - Pick Your Product Niche, and Affiliate Marketing - Beginner's Guide

Interested in writing content-articles, or publishing your own work online? Try Hubpages.com, a free content-article publisher.

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