Website Design, Templates, and Blogging Information

Three Affiliate Blogging No-No’s

If you’re monetizing your blog by promoting an affiliate product, here are some basic tips on what NOT to do:

Do NOT promote more than 1 or 2 products:

If you look like you’re a big spammer online, Google, and other search engines are going to throw you out of the results faster than you can say “I’m not a spammer!”. Good, informative content is where your money is, and it’s best to stick with one product per blog. This also keeps you focused on learning about the product, instead of just saying “Buy this

product!”, which is a big turn off.

Do NOT use sales page material:

This one is pretty controversial because most affiliate marketers with ClickBank or Commission Junction don’t want to purchase the product, therefore, they don’t have any information on it. So they use the sales copy on another person’s sales page. This is not only tacky, it makes you look robotic, and without passion.

Do NOT forget to cloak your affiliate links:

One big no-no is putting your affiliate link on the internet. It can get stolen, not to mention it just looks bad. No one wants to click a link that looks like “http://imanaffiliate.clickheretomakememoney.com/youreallydontwantthisjunk2×33mdm. A great way to cloak your affiliates is to use tinyurl.com or urlfreeze.com. If you own your own hosting, and website, use your domain name and a redirect page. That method actually boosts click through rates.

Blogging as an affiliate is about presenting the problem to the person (making them feel like they need something to fix it) and then giving them the solution (the product). Make sure you know about the product you’re promoting, or at least feel passionately about it. This will give you plenty to talk about, as well as a passion in your writing that will make people feel they ought to buy it because someone else feels so strongly for it.

Technorati Tags: Affiliate Blogging, Affiliate Links, Cloaking Links, Product Promotion, Sales Page Content

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5 Reasons You Should Already Have Your Own Blog-

1: Blogs can be free to make.

I’ve discussed how to create a free Blogger.com blog, as well as a free Wordpress blog. Blogs can be free to make, and can automatically place you on the internet free of charge.

2: Blogs can be about anything.

Anyone can build a blog. From kids to adults, a blog is easy to set up, easy to begin posting, and can be about anything you want it to be about. In fact, it’s best to build a blog around what you love. Because you’ll have some ownership over it, you’ll enjoy posting, and you’ll constantly update it.

3: Search engines love blogs.

A great thing to realize about blogs is that they will typically out-rank most regular sites without a blog. Why? Because Google, and most other search engines realize that these blogs are typically updated often, with original content. This makes then extremely valuable in their eyes, and they’ll be boosted in the search engine rankings because of such.

4. Blogs are flexible.

In the new Web 2.0 age we now face, flexibility is key! There are certain extremely powerful tools that can only be utilized by blogs, and not by regular sites. Tools that are built in, such as comments, polls, and other user-attracting widgets that will generate a buzz on your site are typically not found on a regular HTML website. More buzz means more traffic, more traffic means more potential for profit.

5: Everyone is doing it.

This isn’t a “well, if everyone was jumping off a bridge…” No, this means that you can shine in your market and become an “everyone” who knows more than everyone else. Becoming an expert is a key to your success. And looking like everyone means that you can then shine in a market without looking like a spam-artist.

Technorati Tags: blogs, blogger, wordpress blog, free blogs, live journal, blogging

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Really Simple Syndication. Have you ever heard that term? You probably have. It’s the RSS feeds that you see everywhere. RSS feeds are typical to sites that are constantly updating, growing, or changing. And almost every blog on the internet has one.

Why is my RSS Feed valuable?

Your RSS feed is valuable because 1) it keeps your readers constantly updated. And 2) it can make your website accessible from other websites.

When someone builds a website, and they’re looking for good, relevant content that fits with their specific niche, they might go to an RSS directory and search for an RSS feed. When they impliment this RSS feed into their site, whatever that feed is pointing to (blog entries, new articles, forum updates), whoever reads that feed on the new website will be more inclined to click. This gives you a great deal of traffic if you’re the one that website chose to syndicate.

Not only are you getting a great deal of click-through traffic, but you are getting valuable backlinks that will help boost your page rank.

RSS feeds are also very helpful in giving your blog or website constant updates without you having to worry about writing, or paying someone else to write relevant content. Some blogs are automated on RSS feeds, and generate revenue based on those RSS feeds.

So if you ever thought that the little orange icon on the side of most blogs was just there for show, you’re dead wrong. That RSS feed might pull those blogs in hundreds of viewers, and maintains a constant reading base because they are always updated.

So make sure you promote your RSS feed. Think of it as a Mini List.

Technorati Tags: rss feed, newsreader, feedburner, syndication

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