Common things new affiliates overlook when starting their online business..
Affiliates are giving away their GOLD!
Traffic is GOLD on the internet. Not just because web traffic can generate sales and signups for your online business … Traffic also gives a website credibility and ranking. Are you giving away gold? …eg: sending all your traffic to a site that you do not own?
Your affiliate link or free landing page is not part of your business nor is it part of your website. Why spend hours of your time and hard earned money building another persons business? Even when you don’t get a single sign up, the website owner will benefit greatly from having thousands of affiliates just like yourself …marketing, advertising and promoting their business. (that’s big part of why you see so many free blogs out there)
On top of that, replicated sites (where your affiliate link goes) are seldom very good sales pages all on their own. This means you need to ‘pre-sell’ visitors first, before they are sent to your replicated site. (continued below..online business mistakes)
|
The same thing can be said about lists! .. Are you building your own -or building one for someone else?! Free Course AND Free test drive. Avoid Online Business Mistakes Videos Every Step Of The Way How To Build A Massive Subscriber List Find Content That Quickly Builds Powerful Email Campaigns How To Get Use Auto Email To Get Repeat Traffic How To Write Compelling Messages …Learn about the cheapest autoresponder on the internet with the best deliverable rate. (emails don’t end up blocked or in the junk folder) “The Money Is In The List“
AWeber proves it to thousands of businesses every day. Learn how email marketing software can get you more sales, too.
|
-online business mistakes-
There’s no denying the fact that your response rate and your profits from whatever you choose to promote will multiply when you promote it with your very own unique site! Always send the traffic to your website first and share valuable information with them so that they can make informed choices!
Affiliate programs come and go. eg: Those invested in Cherry Shares profit sharing program watched their investment go up in smoke. …Prepaid Legal is talking about going private ….thousands are on the edge of their seat. ……. Pay plans change all the time. eg: Swom: Feb 9, 2011 – Changes to Community Points: (points = money) …You may even become interested in something else. Don’t let the gold slip through your fingers. Own your own piece of internet real estate. Be rewarded for your time and effort.
Top 2 social sites to meet like minded people
who want to make money online
Newbie Mistake. Expecting too much from a free blog or thinking it will be around forever.
A huge problem with cheap and free hosting/blogs is they get abused by the spammers and your sites don’t get found! ((That host owns a block of ip addresses …. That block is often given less attention by the search engines because of misuse )) eg: I made about 15 Blogspot blogs … and it seemed like my blogs were just a brochure in a box in my basement! (few found them) 
I have also put hundreds of hours in free WordPress blogs that generated traffic and rank… but got shut down for one reason or another.
My favorite host is *GDI Click Here (or in the menu up top) It is the only host that offers WordPress and an income for life for just $10 a month. (no extra costs) They also have a “site builder” for the complete newbie. They have been around for 11 years and they send me a check every month. (unlike godaddy and hostgator …I pay them each month)
Lack of a sales funnel.
What is a sales funnel? Online sales funnels offer potential customers something of value …generally a solution to a problem ..It builds trust …some of the visitors in the funnel will become customers of entry level products … but it doesn’t stop there … as time goes on, the sales funnel will continue to educate them about your specialized product or service … that are often at higher prices ….. filtering out those who are not interested and finding the direct matches. All on autopilot.
As all good things do .. It takes time to develop a highly refined sales funnel. (a free offer, products, a website, landing page, sales copy) …However being in the right place at the right time (in their inbox) .. is priceless!
The Sales funnel I use comes ready made and is a part of a free duplication system that guides prospects through a time tested (10 year) …well optimized channel.
1. Go to http://freehits2u.net.tc/
2. Submit your link to an affiliate network of over 300,000+
3. Congratulations! You now have your own viral sales funnel. Simply login to the members area. >Find your affiliate link under tools >affiliate link …and promote!
Affiliate link theft
Most new affiliates or M L Mr’s are not aware of affiliate link theft. Much to often the internet savvy will strip the affiliate extension off the end of the link. …who knows why. They think they will get a better deal or, maybe end up closer to the top of the pyramid. Word of warning! Some cloaking services can cause problems! ALWAYS test your links to make sure you get credit!
How do you hide your affiliate links?
http://bit.ly/ will shorten your link and track your clicks.
However a simple redirect on your site looks better and is more reliable than some services I have found.
How to make a redirect
Paste in this code:
<html>
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”Refresh”
CONTENT=”0; URL=’http://your affiliate link/id’”>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
Name the text file FreeTrial.html
Upload it to your server … your cool link www.Yourwebsite/FreeTrial
NOTE: for SEO purposes .. I like to put them in a folder eg: “go” then mark it as no follow …or use a nofollow no index meta tag.
Important site building tips
1. Pick one thing (niche) AND OWN IT!! …Like the commercial on our local TV station “you don’t take your furniture to a lumberjack when you want it repaired” The search engines … just like people ….prefer the advice of an expert!
If you want to get search engine traffic to your online business …and have repeat visitors ..keep the content of your site closely related! Entrepreneurs often join every affiliate program under the sun and put all the links and banners on their one site.
To get better results … consider specializing in one thing. Include the niche in your website address …. include the niche in the site name and affiliate links. Eg: dog collars use www.dogcollars.com “the site for safe dog collars” Versus …. www.johnswebsite.com “stuff everyone wants and needs”
A well done niche site will get more traffic and sales in one week .. than a ‘cluster site’ will in a lifetime!!
2. Link building. We have all heard it. “YOU NEED LINKS TO YOUR SITE TO GET SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC!!” But! …they need to be from RELATED sites that Google LIKES! trusted sites. For example .. if your home page is about dogs … you may want to exchange links with others who have content on that page about dogs. …If one of your pages off of the dog page is dog collars … you may want to exchange links with others about dog collars. You will want the surrounding content of your backlink to be about dogcallers. A long time ago it was thought the more links that pointed to you the better. Not the case today if they are from the wrong places! eg: P.or n sites …G,am bling Sites.. ..link farms ..link dumps ..auto linking sites …poorly designed directories …even paid links, the end results can be detrimental to your search engine results.
3. Content. You must have quality content on your blog/site. Search Engines rank unique and trusted pages higher. They have become very good at detecting copied text! (duplicate content) If your site/pages contain the same “stuff” as other sites … chances are less likely that you will show up in the search engine results. (for those that have adsense …their accounts can be terminated due to a TOS violation)
Let’s make more money with our online businesses!!
Newbie Network Marketing Mistakes
I think we are all the same. Most of us set out looking for real ways to make money online, but do not make a lasting commitment or investment. Must be a funny human nature thing. People join 50 programs over a few months ….and never actually focus on a single one of them! In a years time they will be telling others how the net is full of scams and con artists or that running an online business is too hard!
Is this the case for you? It was for me. ..Blame it on that darn ‘human nature” thing. I to joined 100 free programs and studied others “instant success” programs … but didn’t do what it takes to get my online business to the next level. When I finally focused on one program, I began to make real money with my online business.
….Would you be more inclined to buy from a site that is highly focused and specialized in the product/service you desire? Your own website is an investment that makes a statement about your online business.
Global Domains International (more info .. still this blog)
Are you considering a program that only requires your investment?
Look out for the warning signs.
Newbie Network Marketing
online business mistakes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
http://www.sec.gov/answers/pyramid.htm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt057.shtm
Is Easyhits4u Waste of your time? (some others show same results)
Have you ever spent $2,000 on your online business in hopes to generate more sales and not make a single dime? That’s enough to make anyone discouraged. Would you give up? Try another product or program?
I read this about an online marketer describing his involvement in a ‘cycling’ “no need to recruit”(just invest
) advertising program….
“”This is turning into a disaster. All this talk at the start about ‘earning without referring’ is very wrong.
I had two other accounts under this one that I have had to cancel. I can’t keep paying $50/month. I have been using the advertising – I had more optins for other programs from the text ads, but no sign-ups. I have tried some clickbank products with no sales. With my initial deposits and the monthly payments, I am about $2000 out of pocket now. This is really hard – I can’t promote this program because it is not working. Nobody using free advertising would join a $50/month program anyway. I can’t afford paid advertising because this thing is sending me broke. I can’t cancel or I lose every cent I’ve paid since April last year.”"
This story is sooooo common!
Though many feel free advertising is junk … I think it is the way to go (educating yourself) Use http://freehits2u.net.tc for advertising and building your list. (a list is all most online businesses or affiliates have control over)
Newbie Mistake
For the longest time …. I bought into the belief that my success was completely
dependent on picking the absolute perfect “ground floor” opportunity at just the right time. That approach will always put you in the poor house over the long haul. Seems to be one of the most common online business mistakes for M’LMrs
Clickbank Fine Print .. What a CROCK of … Enjoy my $50 ..Thanks for the blog contenet.
Read and avoid one of these Newbie online business mistakes.
http://ifounda100dollars.com/onlinebusiness/gdi-global-domains-international#comment-1
I have been aware of nofollow for a long time. Never gave it a thought to check that on the Hubpages!! (i did a couple of there in attempt to direct the search engines to my pages/sites)
Looks like SFI was an online business mistake for me. SFI is a global product oriented company in business more than 13 years. When I don’t get credit for my efforts … it’s pretty much a deal breaker.
1st time:
Nichole at SFI: Thank you for contacting SFI Marketing, how may I assist you?
Ben: I’m curious why I’m not the sponsor when I use these links http://www.sfi4.com/11113199/EE or http://www.eyeearn.com/11113199
Nichole: Using these URLs, you should be the sponsor of the person who is signing up. Do you have an example?
Ben: I used an extra email address to test it and I’m not the sponsor
Nichole at SFI: You won’t be able to test it out on your computer, we have cookies in place preventing you from referring yourself.
Ben: And a friend on swom tried for me
Nichole at SFI: If there are no cookies from them visiting someone else’s site, they will join under you.
Ben: But that wouldn’t explain a new name each time he tried it
(it acted like it sent them right to the eyeearn coop)
Nichole at SFI:Then you should be using a different gateway if you want to maintain sponsorship of your affiliates.
for a list of all, please go to https://www.sfimg.com/MyAccount/GatewayList.sfi
Ben: Yeah I have been using the others. I like the eye earn concept and splash page, but each time someone signs up they get a different sponsor.
Nichole at SFI: Then they must be going into the EyeEarn pool. Sorry!
Ben: Is it fixable?
Nichole at SFI: That is the way it is programmed
I don’t think the programmers will change it, no
Ben: So why even have a affiliate id number on the end of the splash page address?
Nichole at SFI: I don’t know
Ben: Is it the same way with the business cards?
Nichole at SFI: The business cards have a different website on them. EyeEarner.com
then they are asked to enter your ID number in. I assume you maintain sponsorship of these. You’d have to test it to find out
Ben: ok I spent alot on facebook ads and ads on craigslist and so forth. Wish I knew earlier that the affiliate id doesn’t mean anything.
=========
I liked the idea of the co-ops aimed at helping out those that can’t sponsor. I tried them both. The one was $25 a month. For that I got 1 to 5 people that would not confirm their email from SFI. (I tried to get them to confirm as well) … I think out of all of them .. maybe 1 or 2 was from the US.
The second SFI co-op was eye-earn. Guaranteed 1 person per month. (1 time payment of around $30) .. Guess that went up in smoke. There was talk of revamping it … SFI said they would send out a new kit in the mail ??? um ‘poof’ gone?
You need to make purchases and/or maintain points to be eligible to be an affiliate. Each night I logged into SFI to get my points. The other night it said “invalid login” So I requested my password. It sent another user ID and password (id was different than mine) …It said that was was invalid to! …..Just to test it I tried my affiliate link with an extra email. (i should get a “new sfi signup” notice) …. Nope … No Notice. Wonder where that SFI signup would have went???
Another newbie mistakes in online marketing. Not reading the affiliate agreement fine print! Here’s a great example for what to look out for when you are running your online business. I was a Response Magic (autoresponder) user for about a year. I love autoresponders and this system came with a year of pre written emails with special offers and upsales with my user id automatically inserted. The service was a little on the pricey side …all the better for fat commissions right?
. …Thing is, I sponsored a few people … they where in for a few months … and I didn’t make a single cent! Turns out … to be eligible for commissions THEY HAD TO BE AN ACTIVE MEMBER FOR A WHOLE YEAR! Yup. Guilty of making a newbie online business mistake!
Looks like responding to thumbtack.com was an online business mistake. I spent about half of an our describing our hosting service and how I don’t charge for my time.
This was the invitation/spam email I got:
I’ve been looking for Scranton services, and I was excited to find you.
It’s too hard to find trustworthy, quality service providers, and Thumbtack is changing that. We’re growing really fast, we need more services, and I think you’re a perfect fit! Posting on Thumbtack is a great way to advertise yourself and it’s completely free for service providers like you. We’ll create a permanent website for you (for free) so you’ll never have to re-post your ad.
All you need to do to post your information is visit thumbtack.com.
Thanks!
Next day I went to look at my listing and….Service Deleted …Sorry, this service has been deleted. Investing 30 minutes of my time with thumbtack.com was an online business mistake!
Added a screen shot from a social site today of a fellow on line marketer that had her blogspot blog shut down. I know first hand just how frustrating this is!
Something else about blogspot blogs, Kristal and I did some testing when I was working on building them. We updated a free blogspot blog and a free WordPress blog every night. For some strange reason the WordPress blog would show consistently in the search results. The blogspot blog would be sporadic! Crazy I know, considering who is hosting them. But then again…
I still think one of the biggest newbie online business mistakes is not following! I realize few people are ready to take that leap and get their own autoresponder, however there are some great free contact managers you can use.