affiliatemillions.com Blog

Affiliate Millions Newsletter 5/18/2007

June 30, 2007 on 8:57 pm | In Newsletter Archives | No Comments

Hi Tony,   

Okay, we are having some technical difficulties getting the discussion board working, but I swear it will be up and running by this time next week. 

I can’t get started without first mentioning some big news this week in the Affiliate Program world.  I received notice this week that eBay is changing its payout structure.  Most of the changes are positive, but one change is troubling.  As of June 1^st, eBay.com will no longer allow search marketers to link directly to the eBay.com site.  Up until now, eBay has been one of the most search marketing friendly programs on the web, and one of the largest, too.   

Hopefully, this experiment will show eBay just how effective their search marketing affiliates really have been, as the cost of writing and running ads on an almost infinite number of keywords relative to their product line, and the hassle of constantly adding new ones, becomes better known.  If eBay declares this experiment a success, however, other internet giants – and smaller companies as well – could follow suit. 

Whatever the future holds, however, you can rest assured that Affiliate Millions will do its best to help you adapt to the changing environment.  In next month’s newsletter, I will try to put together some advice on creating simple landing pages to link to eBay with (a practice still allowed under the new rules). 

New Affiliate Networks & Programs 

This week’s focus is on Affiliate Networks whose application processes are most friendly to Search Marketers (that is, those of us directly marketing other sites, without a site of our own).  These networks do not require a website URL to join, and quickly review and approve submitted applications. 

ClickXchange – With hundreds of quality affiliate program offers, high conversion rates, and a sign up process that is both quick and easy, ClickXchange is a great place to get started.  

AzoogleAds.com – Another vast network of affiliate programs with competitive payouts and high conversion rates, also with a quick and easy sign up process. 

Search Engine Marketing Tips 

Search and Content Networks 

Right now, I myself am not working with any search engines but Google and Yahoo!  For those of you with more experience, who understand the challenges that these third tier search engines present, but believe you can improve your bottom line with an increase in volume, you can see a complete list of recommended search engines at www.AffiliateMillions.com, but otherwise you should start with these two. 

Google AdWords – The pioneer in pay-for-performance search marketing. Google’s AdWords program is one of the top pay-for-performance search engines. 

Yahoo/Overture Sponsored Search – Yahoo! represents one of the largest and oldest search engines on the web. They are currently running a promotion offering $25 worth of free advertising to new customers.  That could translate to as many as 250 free clicks through to the affiliate programs you choose to advertise.  Click on the link below to take advantage of this great offer. 

Yahoo! Sponsored Search connects businesses and customers online. Sign up and get a $25 credit.  

Website Design & Marketing Tips 

The bulk of my success with affiliate programs has been with search marketing, and I believe it is the easiest and quickest path to profitability, but considering this week’s announcement from eBay, it may be that landing pages are the future of search marketing.  With this in mind…  

Website Promotion 

One thing to keep in mind when you are promoting a website of your own is that there are many different options, some of which are not available when using search marketing just to promote affiliate programs.  Search engine optimization (SEO) is a good example.  With a site of your own, you should focus some of your efforts toward getting your site to appear in the natural search engine results.  If you can successfully climb near to the top of a few key searches, you will begin getting the best kind of traffic…  FREE!  Add to that the relevancy of the traffic you get from appearing at or near the top of a few relevant search phrases, and you will likely have established a significant revenue stream. 

A great book about promoting your own website that I read in preparation for launching the Affiliate Millions website is Insider Seo & Ppc: Get Your Website to the Top of the Search Engines, available now on Amazon. 

Website Templates 

As I have mentioned before, one of the services we are providing that I am most proud of is our FREE website templates.  These templates are professionally designed, and include simple instructions for incorporating your own affiliate advertisements into the html code.  Simply download the files from my site and unzip them to your root directory on your web server.  Don’t have a web server?  Don’t worry, just skip down a few paragraphs and you’ll find affordable and reliable web hosting services you can use to publish your new website. 

Presently, as Affiliate Millions is only just getting started, we have only one template available.  It is a template for an online college degree selection site, and it is available at www.AffiliateMillions.com/web-design.html.  You can view a working example of the website at www.Great-Colleges.com. 

I strongly suggest Affiliate Fuel for your source of education offers to list on this site, as they have a large number of high paying, high converting college degree offers. 

Good Luck, Affiliate Millionaires in training! 

Anthony Borelli