Many people have told me that they want to make money by selling ebooks, but they don't want to write an e-book. If this describes you, I have great news for you! You can still make money by selling e-books written by other people by using affiliate marketing.
What is affiliate marketing? Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant (the person who wrote and owns the ebook) and you (an affiliate). You agree to use your web sites and blogs to promote the merchant's e-books and to link to the merchant's web site. In exchange for this, the merchant pays you a commission on all sales that were generated by the affiliate web site. A referral occurs when a customer clicks on your product link and makes a purchase.
So now that you know what affiliate marketing is, start looking for a few affiliate products that you would like to sell. You might already know someone whose ebooks you would like to sell, and who has an affiliate program. In this case, just register for this person's affiliate program, get your affiliate links and start promoting the e-books.
If you don't know of anyone who has e-books and an affiliate program that you can use to sell them, just use your favorite search engine to find them. For example, if you are looking for e-books on gardening that have an affiliate program, just type in gardening e-books affiliate program into search engines. Chances are, you will find what you are looking for.
Once you find e-books that you would like to promote, start promoting them. Here is information to help you promote them:
Create good web marketing copy for the e-books on your web site. It is not enough to list the e-books on your web site and then link to the seller’s web site. The people who come to your web site are not looking for links to other sites; rather, they are looking for useful information for themselves. Having useful information on your web site increases the changes of your web site visitors buying the e-book, and will generate affiliate commissions for you.
Once you have good web site copy, start promoting your web site online and drive traffic to it. One way to do that is by optimizing the site for search engines. Search engine optimization is the process of modifying web page content and meta-information to improve the search engine ranking of the page. Successful search engine optimization will greatly increase the number of visitors that come to your web site. The more visitors to the web site you have, the more affiliate products you will be able to sell, and the more money you will make. Make sure you optimize every page of your web site for search engines, especially the ones that provide the information about the e-books and sell the e-books; that way you will get more web site visitors.
Another way to drive more traffic to your web site is by creating a blog to promote it. A blog is your business diary, in which you share the information about your web site, as well as the e-books you are promoting. Your blog is an excellent tool to let the world know about the affiliate products and to connect with potential customers who would want to purchase them.
In order to bring the most online traffic and make money with your blog, make sure that your blog consistently and create blog posts that are of interest to your past as well as potential customers. Regular posts that are interesting to read is what will keep your readers coming back and buying from you.
Use the tips discussed above to make money selling e-books written by others. That is an excellent way to make money online.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Online Payments
The World Wide Web has become an integral part of our lives. It has penetrated so deeply into our daily living that people now turn towards the World Wide Web for buying clothes, books, electronic equipment etc. For an online seller, then, it becomes imperative to find means to make an online transaction as easy and painless as possible. Since most people prefer to use their credit cards while shopping, webmasters need to integrate this service into their online shopping websites. An answer to your online payment needs can be a payment processing company.
Most online shopping sites enter into a business alliance with payment processing companies. However, you should diligently comb the market for the best deal before you sign up with a service. Make sure that they are not overcharging you. Also, check out their reputation in the market – are they known for their fair minded financial and business transactions? This kind of a company operates through two types of services – one id intended for companies with merchant accounts with their banks and the other for companies who do not possess this kind of a bank account. The first kind of service is generally used by fairly large financial institutions and organizations dealing in independent sales.
The advantage of having a merchant account is that you can receive payments within a few days of the transaction. However, if you do not have a merchant bank account, the payment processing company receives the payment on your behalf initially. The mode of operation is that the buyer will fulfill the transaction not on the seller’s website, but on the site of the payment processing company. (If you choose the former service, the processing company will help you enable your website to receive payments from the buyer directly.) Also, it is only a few times in a month that the processing company will forward you the payments.
There are a couple of steps which need to be completed before your website can host the facility of receiving payments through a credit card. Firstly, you will have to host an order form on your website. You then need to establish a gateway. This kind of service transfers the customer’s payment and credit card information to the payment processing company. You would then need to establish the facility of a shopping cart on your website. If your site already hosts this function, the payment processing company will surely be able to integrate its services with it.
Most online shopping sites enter into a business alliance with payment processing companies. However, you should diligently comb the market for the best deal before you sign up with a service. Make sure that they are not overcharging you. Also, check out their reputation in the market – are they known for their fair minded financial and business transactions? This kind of a company operates through two types of services – one id intended for companies with merchant accounts with their banks and the other for companies who do not possess this kind of a bank account. The first kind of service is generally used by fairly large financial institutions and organizations dealing in independent sales.
The advantage of having a merchant account is that you can receive payments within a few days of the transaction. However, if you do not have a merchant bank account, the payment processing company receives the payment on your behalf initially. The mode of operation is that the buyer will fulfill the transaction not on the seller’s website, but on the site of the payment processing company. (If you choose the former service, the processing company will help you enable your website to receive payments from the buyer directly.) Also, it is only a few times in a month that the processing company will forward you the payments.
There are a couple of steps which need to be completed before your website can host the facility of receiving payments through a credit card. Firstly, you will have to host an order form on your website. You then need to establish a gateway. This kind of service transfers the customer’s payment and credit card information to the payment processing company. You would then need to establish the facility of a shopping cart on your website. If your site already hosts this function, the payment processing company will surely be able to integrate its services with it.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
How To Make Money Without Leaving The House
Becoming an affiliate is one of the most popular career moves of the decade. People are learning to use the internet as their tool by making money off of websites, a job that doesn’t even require leaving the house.
So what exactly is an affiliate? Basically, an affiliate owns a website and refers visitors to other websites, called “merchants.” When these visitors make purchases, the other websites pay the affiliate a commission, which is determined by internet tracking devices that keep track of web users’ purchases.
If you decide to be an affiliate, you need to make careful choices about which websites to refer your visitors to. First, they need to be websites that you’re sure will be around a long time. Look at records to make sure they’ve been consistently successful - in other words, make sure they won’t go bankrupt after you put your time and energy into seeking out customers for the product.
Secondly, choose the websites based on what they offer, and think of the product long-term. For instance, an online library membership is something you can sell to a person one time, but people go back to the same places to buy clothes they like. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t link to an online library, you just need to be aware of its differences from the clothes company. Take into account the fact that libraries may be more popular than one clothing site among thousands. If you can, research the company’s records to see how much money they’ve made.
You also want to choose websites based on what your website is about. Think of what kind of people come to your site, and then imagine what type of sites they would want links to. If your site is about American history, it would be better to advertise a website that sells history books or American paraphernalia than a website offering contact lenses.
Something many affiliates don’t think about at first are consumer tracking methods. Some companies use the cookie method - putting a cookie on the customer’s computer. This isn’t as reliable as the site putting your affiliate information in the database along with the customer’s record. The cookie method is popular and may be completely safe, but it doesn’t have the successful track record of the other method, so choose only after you’re well-informed.
To advertise the product on the other website, write a recommendation. Research the product and test it out. If it’s purchase-worthy, write a few lines explaining why. Think of who would be most interested in the product and try to target them. For instance, if you’re advertising a face wash and you think women would be most likely to buy it, talk about how clean and fresh it leaves your skin feeling and smelling, and how your spouse loves how soft it leaves your face.
A direct advertisement is a teaser. This gives people an idea of the product and entices them to click through for a closer look. Remember, if you’re advertising for a large website, it most likely has other affiliates, so make your teaser stand out from the rest to get more customers and thus more commission. Creatively target the product’s market.
Becoming an affiliate is a great way to make money, but it does require work. However, if you put in time and effort, you can make money from the comfort of your own home.
So what exactly is an affiliate? Basically, an affiliate owns a website and refers visitors to other websites, called “merchants.” When these visitors make purchases, the other websites pay the affiliate a commission, which is determined by internet tracking devices that keep track of web users’ purchases.
If you decide to be an affiliate, you need to make careful choices about which websites to refer your visitors to. First, they need to be websites that you’re sure will be around a long time. Look at records to make sure they’ve been consistently successful - in other words, make sure they won’t go bankrupt after you put your time and energy into seeking out customers for the product.
Secondly, choose the websites based on what they offer, and think of the product long-term. For instance, an online library membership is something you can sell to a person one time, but people go back to the same places to buy clothes they like. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t link to an online library, you just need to be aware of its differences from the clothes company. Take into account the fact that libraries may be more popular than one clothing site among thousands. If you can, research the company’s records to see how much money they’ve made.
You also want to choose websites based on what your website is about. Think of what kind of people come to your site, and then imagine what type of sites they would want links to. If your site is about American history, it would be better to advertise a website that sells history books or American paraphernalia than a website offering contact lenses.
Something many affiliates don’t think about at first are consumer tracking methods. Some companies use the cookie method - putting a cookie on the customer’s computer. This isn’t as reliable as the site putting your affiliate information in the database along with the customer’s record. The cookie method is popular and may be completely safe, but it doesn’t have the successful track record of the other method, so choose only after you’re well-informed.
To advertise the product on the other website, write a recommendation. Research the product and test it out. If it’s purchase-worthy, write a few lines explaining why. Think of who would be most interested in the product and try to target them. For instance, if you’re advertising a face wash and you think women would be most likely to buy it, talk about how clean and fresh it leaves your skin feeling and smelling, and how your spouse loves how soft it leaves your face.
A direct advertisement is a teaser. This gives people an idea of the product and entices them to click through for a closer look. Remember, if you’re advertising for a large website, it most likely has other affiliates, so make your teaser stand out from the rest to get more customers and thus more commission. Creatively target the product’s market.
Becoming an affiliate is a great way to make money, but it does require work. However, if you put in time and effort, you can make money from the comfort of your own home.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Home Web Business Made Easy
Everyone wants to start their own business and become their own boss, but many are not sure how to do it. There are several types of home businesses. Service businesses, selling products, and web based home businesses, just to name a few.
In this article I am going to guide you through the process of starting your own web-based home business. I will try to take some of the mystery out of the process. By following this guideline, you will be up and running in very little time without having made a huge investment.
First, you need to know what your business is going to do. Will it provide a service? Are you planning to sell products? Those are the two general types of web-based home businesses I will be discussing in this article.
If you plan to provide a service, what type of service will you be providing? Will it be provided to people who own websites? Will it be a service that anyone can use or will it be confined to your local area?
Ask similar questions of yourself if you plan to sell a product. Will it be a product you sell and deliver locally, nationwide, or internationally? If you choose worldwide, do you know anything about shipping your product overseas? The same applies to nationwide delivery. Do you know the costs associated with delivering your product everywhere in the nation you live in?
Once you have answered those questions, you will have more of an idea about how your home web business will eventually be shaped.
Next, you will need a domain name. Most people think their company name is the best way to go for a domain name, however, a generic domain name with keywords that are associated to your product or service will serve you much better. You can also register your company name as a domain name and point it to your website, but it is not necessary.
The generic domain name can help you with search engine traffic and can be more memorable. It is only one factor of many that will help you with search engine optimization, but it is a step you should take when getting started. Example: cars.com is a better domain name than ford.com, even though ford spent millions to advertise and brand their name. Even cheapusedcars.com is better because people will search for that.
You need to find a good domain name registrar, not a cheap domain name registrar. Cheap means cheap in the area of domain names. Your domain name is important. Spending $25 per year to registrar that provide more services and quality VS spending $10 or less at a cheap registrar is what we are talking about here. If that extra $15 per year is going to make or break your home business, then maybe you should not start one.
Next, you will need a web hosting service. Again, cheaper is not better. There are good hosting services for $100 per year or even a little less. Anyone that is offering you hosting for less than that should raise a red flag. Choose and pay for your hosting for at least a year, just like you registered your domain name for. If you are going with a monthly plan, you probably aren’t fully committed to your new home business.
Now, you have your domain name and the hosting for your new website, but where is the website and how do I get that? You have several options. You can learn html and build your own. You can use a WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage to build your own website. You can hire someone to build your website for you.
First, we will talk about learning html to build your own website for your home business. There is a learning curve here. This is the best option of the three I mentioned above, but it takes time to learn. You will probably not be up and running in just a few days with this option. In the long run, it will save you a lot of money to learn html and build your own websites. The more websites you have in your portfolio, the more likely you will have at least one that is a big winner. Writing your own code means you can build a new website as often as you want.
Next, building your own home business website with a WYSIWYG editor. (What You See Is What You Get). These editors are similar to making a document. Everything is visual and you do not need to know html. The learning curve for these editors is much less than that of learning to actually code your own website.
However, these websites do have limitations. Since the code for the website is auto-generated, it tends to have mistakes. In addition to that, you have to make sure your hosting has the proper extensions to host your website. FrontPage Extensions is the example if you use the FrontPage WSYIWYG.
This option will get you up and running faster, but you need to hire someone at some point to fix the code for you so the page will always load correctly and optimally. How your website is viewed in different browsers, how fast your website loads, and how your website looks are all design factors that make a difference to your customers, so weigh each option carefully.
Next, hiring a web designer to build your home business website is another option. A professional web designer knows how to give your website the look and feel you want it to have. However, be careful when choosing a web designer. I’ll add some things you need to be aware of here;
1. If they say they will register the domain name for you, say no. Registering a domain name is not technically difficult. Do this yourself. Many web designers register the domain name at the cheapest place they can find then charge you $100 or more per year for the domain name. Then many of them register it in their own name! This will cause you huge problems if you ever decide not to use their services anymore. The domain name should be in your name always.
2. Ask them what program they use to build your website in. If they are going to use FrontPage or Dreamweaver or other WYSIWYG editor, you may as well build your own home business website. If they do not write html from scratch, then they shouldn’t be in the web design business.
3. If they wish to charge you monthly to run your website for you, be careful. Do not sign yearly contracts. Their job is to build you a home business website. Let them stick to just that. Most designers are just designers. They are not search engine gurus, business managers, or anything else. Hire a designer to design and others to do what they are good at.
4. Do not let them talk you into features you do not need. Just like used car salesmen, they will try to get you to add on a lot of bells and whistles you don’t need.
5. A brochure website is one that is basically designed to just let people know what products or services you provide and to contact you to get more information. Usually, that is a main page, an about page, and a contact page. That shouldn’t cost you more than $500.
6. If you are going to add the ability to buy your product or service by paying for it through your home business website, then it becomes an e-commerce website. Again, watch out for the bells and whistles that the used website salesman tries to sell you. PayPal is a good option when you are first starting out. You can get a PayPal account easily. You can create your own buy buttons and insert them into your website with the code they provide without being an html guru. You can even configure shipping costs and everything else through PayPal for free. They charge small percentages per sale, but the services they provide are worth it. Besides, they have no setup fee or monthly fee like other e-commerce solutions. When your sales volume reaches into thousands of dollars per month, you can look for a better solution, but until then, use PayPal.
7. An old saying among those who make money on the web is “You build the first one for show and the rest for dough”. What that means is this; You will likely be very concerned about the look of your website in the beginning, however design is the LEAST important aspect of your home web business. Many will disagree, but who cares. Let me repeat, design is the LEAST important aspect of your home web based business. A beautiful website with no traffic gets uglier by the day. An ugly website with traffic that makes money gets more beautiful by the dollar. Create a total budget for your home web based business. Spend no more than 30% of that budget on design. Spend the rest on promoting your website, advertising, and other actions that bring you customers. Don’t let some designer talk you into thinking his design is more important than your home business’s success.
Now that you have your domain name, hosting, and website up and running, you now need customers. Where do you get them? I have my website, won’t they just find me now? NO, they won’t.
There are several things you can do to get traffic. Do not fall for all the scams out there that tell you they can send millions of hits to your website for just a small fee. There are a lot of traffic scams. The traffic is usually auto or bot generated traffic and will do you no good in selling your product or service.
You can buy Adwords from Google, MSN (coming soon), or Yahoo. That sends you traffic from people who search for specific keywords. Be careful about bidding on these and set your spending limits low until you see which keywords are paying off for you.
You can purchase links on popular websites that are related to your product or service. Again, start with a small text link and a small budget until you find which of those links are actually sending you traffic that is converting to sales. If one is producing sales, expand on that one. If one is producing nothing, drop it. It’s like running an ad in the newspaper, on TV, or on radio. If it isn’t bringing you business, you get rid of the ad.
You can write articles on topics related to your products or services like the one you are reading now. Your links go into the box below, just like mine here. You submit your articles to article submission websites. They provide it to other webmasters that want to use your article as free content for their website. Each one that picks up your article becomes another link to your website. This is the best method of marketing in my honest opinion.
Posting in related forums and blogs with your home business link in your signature can produce more targeted traffic for your website. More traffic does not mean better. Targeted traffic means much more and converts to sales more often than traffic you might get from unrelated websites, so stay focused on blogs and forums that relate to your topics.
I hope this article has helped you realize what it takes to start your own home business on the web!
In this article I am going to guide you through the process of starting your own web-based home business. I will try to take some of the mystery out of the process. By following this guideline, you will be up and running in very little time without having made a huge investment.
First, you need to know what your business is going to do. Will it provide a service? Are you planning to sell products? Those are the two general types of web-based home businesses I will be discussing in this article.
If you plan to provide a service, what type of service will you be providing? Will it be provided to people who own websites? Will it be a service that anyone can use or will it be confined to your local area?
Ask similar questions of yourself if you plan to sell a product. Will it be a product you sell and deliver locally, nationwide, or internationally? If you choose worldwide, do you know anything about shipping your product overseas? The same applies to nationwide delivery. Do you know the costs associated with delivering your product everywhere in the nation you live in?
Once you have answered those questions, you will have more of an idea about how your home web business will eventually be shaped.
Next, you will need a domain name. Most people think their company name is the best way to go for a domain name, however, a generic domain name with keywords that are associated to your product or service will serve you much better. You can also register your company name as a domain name and point it to your website, but it is not necessary.
The generic domain name can help you with search engine traffic and can be more memorable. It is only one factor of many that will help you with search engine optimization, but it is a step you should take when getting started. Example: cars.com is a better domain name than ford.com, even though ford spent millions to advertise and brand their name. Even cheapusedcars.com is better because people will search for that.
You need to find a good domain name registrar, not a cheap domain name registrar. Cheap means cheap in the area of domain names. Your domain name is important. Spending $25 per year to registrar that provide more services and quality VS spending $10 or less at a cheap registrar is what we are talking about here. If that extra $15 per year is going to make or break your home business, then maybe you should not start one.
Next, you will need a web hosting service. Again, cheaper is not better. There are good hosting services for $100 per year or even a little less. Anyone that is offering you hosting for less than that should raise a red flag. Choose and pay for your hosting for at least a year, just like you registered your domain name for. If you are going with a monthly plan, you probably aren’t fully committed to your new home business.
Now, you have your domain name and the hosting for your new website, but where is the website and how do I get that? You have several options. You can learn html and build your own. You can use a WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage to build your own website. You can hire someone to build your website for you.
First, we will talk about learning html to build your own website for your home business. There is a learning curve here. This is the best option of the three I mentioned above, but it takes time to learn. You will probably not be up and running in just a few days with this option. In the long run, it will save you a lot of money to learn html and build your own websites. The more websites you have in your portfolio, the more likely you will have at least one that is a big winner. Writing your own code means you can build a new website as often as you want.
Next, building your own home business website with a WYSIWYG editor. (What You See Is What You Get). These editors are similar to making a document. Everything is visual and you do not need to know html. The learning curve for these editors is much less than that of learning to actually code your own website.
However, these websites do have limitations. Since the code for the website is auto-generated, it tends to have mistakes. In addition to that, you have to make sure your hosting has the proper extensions to host your website. FrontPage Extensions is the example if you use the FrontPage WSYIWYG.
This option will get you up and running faster, but you need to hire someone at some point to fix the code for you so the page will always load correctly and optimally. How your website is viewed in different browsers, how fast your website loads, and how your website looks are all design factors that make a difference to your customers, so weigh each option carefully.
Next, hiring a web designer to build your home business website is another option. A professional web designer knows how to give your website the look and feel you want it to have. However, be careful when choosing a web designer. I’ll add some things you need to be aware of here;
1. If they say they will register the domain name for you, say no. Registering a domain name is not technically difficult. Do this yourself. Many web designers register the domain name at the cheapest place they can find then charge you $100 or more per year for the domain name. Then many of them register it in their own name! This will cause you huge problems if you ever decide not to use their services anymore. The domain name should be in your name always.
2. Ask them what program they use to build your website in. If they are going to use FrontPage or Dreamweaver or other WYSIWYG editor, you may as well build your own home business website. If they do not write html from scratch, then they shouldn’t be in the web design business.
3. If they wish to charge you monthly to run your website for you, be careful. Do not sign yearly contracts. Their job is to build you a home business website. Let them stick to just that. Most designers are just designers. They are not search engine gurus, business managers, or anything else. Hire a designer to design and others to do what they are good at.
4. Do not let them talk you into features you do not need. Just like used car salesmen, they will try to get you to add on a lot of bells and whistles you don’t need.
5. A brochure website is one that is basically designed to just let people know what products or services you provide and to contact you to get more information. Usually, that is a main page, an about page, and a contact page. That shouldn’t cost you more than $500.
6. If you are going to add the ability to buy your product or service by paying for it through your home business website, then it becomes an e-commerce website. Again, watch out for the bells and whistles that the used website salesman tries to sell you. PayPal is a good option when you are first starting out. You can get a PayPal account easily. You can create your own buy buttons and insert them into your website with the code they provide without being an html guru. You can even configure shipping costs and everything else through PayPal for free. They charge small percentages per sale, but the services they provide are worth it. Besides, they have no setup fee or monthly fee like other e-commerce solutions. When your sales volume reaches into thousands of dollars per month, you can look for a better solution, but until then, use PayPal.
7. An old saying among those who make money on the web is “You build the first one for show and the rest for dough”. What that means is this; You will likely be very concerned about the look of your website in the beginning, however design is the LEAST important aspect of your home web business. Many will disagree, but who cares. Let me repeat, design is the LEAST important aspect of your home web based business. A beautiful website with no traffic gets uglier by the day. An ugly website with traffic that makes money gets more beautiful by the dollar. Create a total budget for your home web based business. Spend no more than 30% of that budget on design. Spend the rest on promoting your website, advertising, and other actions that bring you customers. Don’t let some designer talk you into thinking his design is more important than your home business’s success.
Now that you have your domain name, hosting, and website up and running, you now need customers. Where do you get them? I have my website, won’t they just find me now? NO, they won’t.
There are several things you can do to get traffic. Do not fall for all the scams out there that tell you they can send millions of hits to your website for just a small fee. There are a lot of traffic scams. The traffic is usually auto or bot generated traffic and will do you no good in selling your product or service.
You can buy Adwords from Google, MSN (coming soon), or Yahoo. That sends you traffic from people who search for specific keywords. Be careful about bidding on these and set your spending limits low until you see which keywords are paying off for you.
You can purchase links on popular websites that are related to your product or service. Again, start with a small text link and a small budget until you find which of those links are actually sending you traffic that is converting to sales. If one is producing sales, expand on that one. If one is producing nothing, drop it. It’s like running an ad in the newspaper, on TV, or on radio. If it isn’t bringing you business, you get rid of the ad.
You can write articles on topics related to your products or services like the one you are reading now. Your links go into the box below, just like mine here. You submit your articles to article submission websites. They provide it to other webmasters that want to use your article as free content for their website. Each one that picks up your article becomes another link to your website. This is the best method of marketing in my honest opinion.
Posting in related forums and blogs with your home business link in your signature can produce more targeted traffic for your website. More traffic does not mean better. Targeted traffic means much more and converts to sales more often than traffic you might get from unrelated websites, so stay focused on blogs and forums that relate to your topics.
I hope this article has helped you realize what it takes to start your own home business on the web!
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