Advertising Your Affiliate Programs
With most affiliate programs you will receive textual ads and banners for online advertising placements. There are several free ways you can use these ads and banners.
One of the most popular ways are Traffic Exchanges. You register with various traffic exchange programs, upload your text ad or banner, and your banner will appear on various registered web pages throughout the world. The number of times you banner or text ad will show will depend on how many points or clicks you accumulate through “surfing” the traffic exchange. The more points or clicks you have the more your ad will be shown to others. This is a very effective method of advertising. It can be time consuming but doesn’t have to be…you just need to organize yourself to do 5-10 different exchanges each day.
Once you sign up for a traffic exchange bookmark the signup page in a folder with all exchanges. Then using Firefox as your browser, right click the folder, where it says “open all in tabs” click on that and all your exchanges will open. Sign in and start to surf.
Traffic exchanges are relatively easy to use and FREE!
The other two types of advertisement placements are online classifieds and paid placements.
The Quest-Free Advertising-Part 3
Finding locations to place free ads is a continuing process. The Internet does not stand still. Sites that may work for you one day will be ineffective the next. New sites crop up continuously. The more practice you have looking for these sites, the more efficient you will become with the process.
The mistake a lot of newcomers make when starting free advertising is that they get a list from their upline and only use that list. Here is an analogy that I use quite often. I am a avid fisherman, I fish winter, summer, spring, fall. When I go on the lake in the early morning and see a bunch of boats in one location all with their rods over the side, should I go to that same spot or find a new spot that is not being over fished? If I go to the popular spot the fish look at my bait and swim on by; but if I pick a new spot away from the crowd the chance of that same fish taking my bait increases. Can you see the point of this analogy and free advertising?
It is all right to check the spots out that your upline gives you, but you need to find your own.
Elements of Free Advertising: Part 2
No matter if you are using free advertising or paid advertising all online advertising is composed of four basic elements.
1. You need an ad
2. You need a website address (URL) to point the ad to or an email address
3. You will need to prepare for the posting process
4. You will need a location to place the ad
Most affiliate programs have pre-written ads for you to place at various ad sites. You will need to read the guidelines for each program to make sure you follow them. Use the URL given to point the buyer to the appropriate website. If you have a website of your own, some affiliates will point their ads to that URL.
For most people writing these ads is the hardest part of affiliate marketing. Even though most programs have their ads set up, there are still some that don’t. Take a moment to thoroughly check out the website you want to promote, then take a few key points and you will have your ad. Write them down in notepad, and play around with the wording until you like the ad. Then try it out. Just remember it is not rocket science, if you have ever written an email to a friend you can write an ad. It really is that simple!
FREE Advertising-Does it Work? Part 1
People come to affiliate marketing from many different circumstances and all walks of life. While the more fortunate have significant money to invest in advertising their new business, some have no money to invest at all. Some time ago I read about an affiliate with a large company being homeless. He would go daily to the local library and access the Internet in order to work his business. He was determined to improve his life and the last I heard he did through patience and perseverance!
As with all things, the more you have to invest, the easier and quicker it will be for you to build your business. But affiliate marketing can be done successfully without any financial investment, if you must approach it that way. I have used a variety of free advertising methods for years and have been able to grow my business steadily.
For those who do have money to invest in paid advertising, you should learn the ropes of free advertising. The learning experience is valuable and will help you be more efficient with paid advertising. Also, learning the ropes of free advertising will enable you to teach your downline members who do not have money to invest in advertising.
Nancy Kraska Owner of Home Work For You, The Work At Home Connection. Avid reader. A food-alcoholic. Sometimes Crafter.
Stay tuned for Part #2—Elements of Free Advertising
Free Advertising and Web Site Submission
How to get ideas for your articles.
The hardest part of writing an article is getting an original idea. There is so much written on work at home business, home business, home opportunities, and every other combination that come to mind, that it is hard to write something new and informative.
For the newbie one good way of getting ideas is to research several articles by the “experts”, then take the main talking points of the articles and write in your own words how those talking points has helped or will help you with your home business.
One of the ways I find subject matter is to do something relaxing. For instance, I love to fish. From April through November I fish every opportunity I get. Living in Michigan I am surrounded by water and lakes, so there is plenty of opportunities for me to indulge my favorite past-time.
I take a small notebook with me, and as I am sitting in my boat waiting for that one fish to come eat its lunch, I let my mind drift along with the boat. You would be surprised at the ideas that pop into my head. Not all are printable! For most of these ideas I will take the time, as the fish aren’t hungry, to write down key points of the thoughts.
If I thought of a new way to market a product, or a product itself, this gets written down in my little black book along with other tidbits I don’t ever write about. I think you can see where this is leading.
