Online Income Avenues

Building a profitable affiliate website requires the understanding of basic website and marketing principles. (If you don’t know how to build a website that will be covered here) First of all you need to build a website that sells. It is vital to create a website that is focused on your niche product and not filled with endless amounts of information. This is just one tip to help you create a lucrative website.

Whether you are just stepping into the world of earning money on the Internet or a seasoned professional, you will want to read this section to ensure that you are maximizing your websites profit.

Following are six tasks you must complete correctly in order to craft a profitable affiliate website:

Task #1: What is your niche market?

You need to identify your potential customers and clients. It is critical to find your niche and market it to its full extent. Focusing on your niche market will reel in more customers because you aren’t barraging them with extra information that they don’t need.

Shy away from websites that cover a wide range of topics. You want to establish yourself as a leader in a niche market that is under served online. You should find a suitable niche market that currently has less then one million websites on the Internet. This drop in competition will help you grab more of the customers that search for your keywords and phrases regarding your product or business. Plus, you have a better chance of a higher search engine ranking.

Task #2: Create a website of substance.

A website is not merely a reserved parking spot on the Internet, but a means of communicating the services and products you have to offer. Potential customers are interested in your niche area and will also crave informational articles about your product or service. Therefore, you need to provide web article content.

It is comforting to a customer to see that you have invested time in supplying them “free” information through these articles. Plus, you will improve your free search engine ranking by incorporating niche keywords and phrases into your website content.

Where can you find articles to post on your website and how much do they cost? The good news is that you can find FREE articles on the Internet through a wide variety of sources. The vast supply of free articles will keep your website filled with pertinent information on a daily or weekly basis.

Following are a list of websites where you can access a plethora of free website articles:

• www.article-emporium.com

• www.ezinearticles.com

• www.articlecity.com

• www.goarticles.com

• www.articlesource.com

• www.ideamarketers.com

• articles.simplysearch4it.com

• www.freezinesite.com

• www.articlesubmission.com

• www.valuablecontent.com

Task #3: Seek out the cream of the crop affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs can definitely build your bank account. That is, if you join the BEST affiliate programs. Don’t just join affiliate programs on a whim, though, join the ones that will make you money.

Confused about which affiliate programs to become part of? You’re in luck because I have created a list of the affiliates you should join.

CREAM OF THE CROP AFFILIATE PROGRAM RESOURCES:

Following is a list of affiliate programs that you should join:

LinkShare – This affiliate website is worthy as it is used by several highly profitable, recognizable companies.

Commission Junction – This affiliate is the leader in selling products such as clothing and computers.

SECOND PLACE AFFILIATE PROGRAMS:
While not the cream of the crop, these affiliate programs are still worth considering. They include:

ClickxChange – This affiliate program is comprised of several small advertisers.

WebSponsors – This affiliate runs a lot of email offers with “free” extras.

Performics – This affiliate provides quality brick & mortar based business opportunities.

ClixGalore – This affiliate offers a multi-leveled network that has a respectable amount of diversity.

Peruse these affiliate program resources to find affiliate programs to invest your time and energy into. You can speed up this process by checking the Earnings-per-Click” (EPC) for each program and select the program that has the highest EPC rating.

Task #4: Offer Incentives for Customers

Customers will flock to what they perceive as a great deal. A rebate off the regular price is a great way to do that. Many times popular products have earned name recognition. Customers often type the product’s name into search engines in order to find your affiliate product.

When they do find your affiliate website, you can hook them with a rebate. You could feasibly offer a product to customers at a 25% discount off of the regular price. A customer will jump at the chance to receive a discount.

Don’t give the discount immediately however. Offer a 25% rebate instead. Why? Offering the 25% discount up front will guarantee that you sell them the product for a lower price, but a rebate of 25% on the other hand is not often utilized. For one reason or another people do not often follow up on the rebate. Only about 15-20% of customers remember to send in the rebate. This is to your advantage.

As example, let’s say the product costs $100. Your commission is 60% so you will earn $60. You can offer a rebate of 25% that amounts to $25 off. Therefore, if the customer takes you up on the rebate offer then you will make $35. However, like I said, most customers do not follow through with the rebate so you earn $60 even though you initially hooked them with the 25% rebate.

How should you offer the rebate? Explain that if the customer orders directly from your website link that the rebate is valid. Request that they send in a receipt regarding their purchase. State that the rebate is valid 60 days after purchase. You'll want to make sure to wait until 60 days have passed to make sure they haven't already requested a refund. It is very easy to pay a rebate through Paypal or by old-fashioned check.

If you are risk taker you can increase the rebate amount. It is up to your level of risk aversion and experience.

It is true that anyone could purchase a program through their own affiliate link and have massive savings up to 75%. But guess what?