Start Making Money with Affiliate Programs - Start a Home Based Business

By Chris Navi

If you have been longing to start a business online you may be coming across terms you've never heard before. You may also have found the opportunities available are overwhelming. Where do you begin?

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS - EASY START

Affiliate programs may be the easiest online business to start running. Why?

With any online business you must have a product or service to sell. First you must create this product or service and then you must be able to fill orders.

Selling your own product or service also means creating a website, learning how to write ad copy, setting up a marketing plan, being able to accept payments online and obviously doing the work. If you're selling a physical product then you will need to make or buy the item, package it and pay for shipping costs. If you provide a service than you will likely have to start by doing free jobs to build your credibility and then when you are charging for your service you are still limited by how much work you can actually handle.

THE MAGIC OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Affiliate programs are a great way to get started in an online business. In fact there are even 'Super Affiliates' who are making fabulous incomes from affiliate programs. I absolutely recommend you buying the 'Super Affiliates Handbook' before you spend time trying to make money with Affiliate Programs on your own. It will save you a huge learning curve and teach you how to make a lot money utilizing some very unique marketing techniques. It is by far the best book I have read on the subject!

SO, WHAT ARE AFFILIATE PROGRAMS?

Affiliate programs allow you to sell another company's service or product and make a commission on every sale or lead. You do not even need to build a website or handle the transaction. Your job is to drive traffic (customers) to your affiliate link.

An affiliate link is a special URL code that will identify customers coming to the company's site from your advertising. It will likely be the website address with a code attached to the end.

Some affiliate programs also have tiers. That means if someone who is interested in SELLING the product comes through your link and signs up you will also get a small percentage of THEIR earnings.

HOW DO I CHOOSE A PROGRAM?

You should research the popularity of some of your interests. Try to determine if people are buying that product or service online. There are many sources for finding that information including free ones such as the Overture keyword tool.

When you have found an area that is popular then type the subject along with 'affiliate program' into your search engine and see which programs have services or products for that area. You can also use an affiliate program directory.

When you have found a program that looks interesting you should read the terms of the program. Make sure that pay outs are not based on a high commission earning or you may never see your money. Also try to choose programs with high commission rates. Often you will find ebooks and downloadable software has the highest rates as there is no physical product to make or ship. If you are satisfied with the terms then you need to sign up - usually a simple process.

START MARKETING

The reason affiliate programs are so great for beginners is that you only need to focus on marketing - not making - your product.

Many affiliate programs have information on how to market and give you tools such as banners, product feeds and more. You can also look for other information on marketing including writing articles, creating pay-per-click campaigns, commenting in online forums etc. As you gain experience marketing you will make adjustments to your selling and start creating a wonderful income!

Chris Navi I am a true freelance internet advertiser who dabbles in website design. You can check out resources for having a profitable travel cruise business at my website http://www.getpaid2workfromhome.com/affiliate-programs/

Also check out the 10 best places to advertise online that are completely FREE at: http://www.advertisesmallbusiness.com//free-online-ads

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Navi

Internet Money Making Crazes - The Lesson Of The Storm

By Elaine Currie

Get Paid To Autosurf programs once offered an easy way of making money on the Internet. The surf for cash programs boomed during the year 2005. The golden era of the get paid to surf programs is over and the next money making Internet craze is bound to be just over the horizon.

Autosurfing started out as a means of Internet advertising. You would sign up to a surfing website and, in return for you viewing websites belonging to other members, you would receive credits entitling you to have your website viewed by other members. Actually, you didn't even have to watch the sites: as long as they kept loading, you would earn your credits even if you went away to make coffee or feed the dog.

In late 2003, Studio Traffic, the biggest and longest running get paid to autosurf site was launched. In addition to autosurfing to advertise your website, Studio Traffic offered you the opportunity to pay for upgraded membership which would entitle you to earn 1% of the upgrade fee every day for a full year. For each day that you surfed at least 100 websites, you would earn your 1% and you would get paid at the end of each month.

The rapid growth of Studio Traffic encouraged other entrepreneurs to set up similar get paid to surf sites and the programs were extremely popular. By December 2004 there were about 40 get paid to surf programs running. These programs mostly offered members a return of 1% daily but there were a few sites paying 2% and even up to 5%.

Then a company called 12 Daily Pro opened and offered a previously unheard of 12% daily return. Nobody really expected 12 Daily to survive for more than a few weeks but it did and as time went on it showed no signs of weakening. The success of 12 Daily Pro caused many people to take up autosurfing purely as a way of making money. By mid 2005 hardly any surfers really cared about advertising on autosurf for cash sites, all they wanted was to get paid. 12 Daily's success made easy for new companies to convince people they could sustain unrealistically high returns. By early 2006 there were over 370 autosurf for cash programs and most of them were offering a return of more than 2% daily. There were companies offering outrageous returns of 24% and even 55%.

In February 2006 came what has become known as "the storm" when a payment processing company called Stormpay destroyed 12 Daily Pro and ended the autosurf for cash boom. The details of the storm are well documented, so I won't repeat them here. The broad outline is that Stormpay insisted the surf for cash companies must move all their cash over to Stormpay immediately and use it as their only payment processor. Once they had all the money, Stormpay blocked all the accounts so none of the surf companies could access their accounts to pay their members. Then Stormpay (after earning many thousands of dollars from transaction charges) called in the SEC and claimed the autosurf for cash companies were in breach of SEC regulations. There are more questions than answers about the storm. Some of the top unanswered questions are: "Was Stormpay secretly bankrupt and created this mess to hide the fact?" and "If the autosurf companies were acting illegally, why did Stormpay insist on taking over all their transactions instead of distancing itself from them?". The very top question is still "What happened to all the millions of dollars Stormpay took from surfers?". Stormpay is no longer a licensed payment processor.

A handful of honest surf for cash companies survived the storm but they had to struggle hard to keep going. At the same time, new get paid to surf sites were being opened just about weekly and closing down just as regularly. Some of these companies failed through poor management but many were outright scams on the part of owners who scooped up as much cash as possible in a short time and then did a vanishing act.

Surfing for cash was an easy way to earn money on the Internet. There was always a degree of risk in surfing for cash: a return on your money was never guaranteed and there were a few crooks running dubious surf sites but, in the end, it was human greed that killed the industry. If people had been less greedy and a little more prudent in their investments, the cash would not have been drawn away from the more sustainable 1% and 2% paying autosurfs, 12 Daily Pro would not have found such fantastic success, Stormpay would not have been able to grab millions of dollars from surfers and surfing for cash would still represent a small branch of Internet advertising.

When the next easy money craze comes into view, will people remember "the storm" and exercise caution? Unless there has been a dramatic change in human nature, the answer is no and hoards of desperate ex-surfers will be paddling out to meet it.

Copyright 2006 Elaine Currie

Elaine Currie has a Work At Home Directory Full of Ideas, Programme Reviews, Articles, Tips and Free Resources for everyone who wants to work at home.
http://www.huntingvenus.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elaine_Currie

How To Make Money Online With Elance

By James Burchill

Do you write? Can you string together words and sentences – like this? Would you like to make a few extra bucks (maybe more…) without the hassles of a traditional job? You would? Then welcome to the wonderful world of freelance writing on Elance.

-- What is Elance?

Elance is a website forum, a marketplace that allows people from all over the world to actively participate in buying and selling their products and services. As a freelance writer you can offer your writing services with very little effort on your part. If you can surf the web, use email and generally communicate in English (yup, it’s the principal language used on Elance) then you are pretty much good to go.

-- How Does It Work?

It’s quite simple; Elance is a subscription based website that charges you a small fee to become a member. At the time of writing basic monthly subscriptions begin at $30. Once you’re registered you can browse all the active (open) projects and bid on the ones that interest you. As a member you can even set up a personal store front (profile) and showcase your products and services to potential buyers (and it’s not unusual to get direct enquiries from buyers this way.)

-- If Your Bid Is Chosen

If your bid is selected you will get the chance to decide if you want to proceed with the project or not. If you decide to go ahead then you and the buyer enter into an agreement (Elance provides templates and samples at no charge.) You provide the services to the buyer and the buyer pays you what they promised – simple.

Elance gets a small commission on all projects that are awarded. But don’t worry, there is no cost to you for winning projects – that’s the buyers responsibility and the buyer will be billed directly (it doesn’t even come out of the agreed project payments!)

-- So How Much Work Is Available To You?

That’s a good question; after all if you are going to spend at least $30 a month on a basic subscription, you really need to figure out if the subscription is worth it. The number of open projects varies, however it’s not unusual to find between 150 and 200 writing projects available at any given time.

-- And How Much Are These Projects Worth?

There are currently two types of project postings on Elance: BASIC and SELECT. If you have only chosen a basic membership then you can only bid on Basic projects. You will need a Select membership to bid on the select projects.

And the reason you would buy a select membership is simple – select projects pay more, are less likely to end without being awarded (yes there are people on Elance who post projects to “get a feel for the market” and have no intention of actually awarding the project!)

So back to the main question – how much are the projects really worth? Again, this data varies over time (I cover this and more in my new report on www.ElanceExposed.com), however here’s a quick ‘rule of thumb’ that I’ve found to be fairly accurate: If you multiply all the number of open projects by $250 and multiply that again by 70% you will get a fairly good idea. For example, 200 open projects X $250 X 70% = $35,000

-- But What About the “Big” Projects?

There are big projects on Elance, they get posted infrequently but they are available. As you might imagine these projects are usually posted by companies – not people – and they usually pay 5 to 10 times what a regular project pays. With this kind of payout you can imagine the competition is quite high, however pitching to a business is not the same as pitching to a person.

-- What About Gotchas And Other Issues?

There aren’t too many. The biggest one that springs to mind is that Elance currently does not offer a refund policy on their subscriptions. You actually have to get on board and sign up to get a feel for the Elance market. And to be quite frank, you really need to give yourself a fighting chance and sign up for three months.

If you signed up for a three month Select membership you would currently pay $150 USD. That’s not a huge amount of money, but it is a bit steep if you find out that Elance is not for you.

-- Here Are a Few Elance Quick Facts:

* 100,000+ potential buyers visit Elance Online every week

* Web's #1 consulting site and top 1,000 most visited site

* Awarded Best of the Web by Forbes (2003)

* Reliability Certified by the Better Business Bureau

-- And Here Are a Few Neat Benefits of Using Elance:

* Easily market yourself to a global pool of prospective clients.

* Pitch your services at prices you establish.

* Make a profit as an independent consultant.

It’s true, thousands of service firms and individuals take advantage of Elance as a marketing channel. And Elance actively supports your efforts with aggressive online and offline marketing delivering high volumes of traffic.

-- Remember, You Can Win Work 3 Different Ways:

(1) Answer the phone after people check out your online profile and work samples.

(2) Develop pre-priced ‘buy now’ packages that buyers can purchase instantly.

(3) Bid on projects – many buyers post their requirements directly online.

-- Conclusions

Before you dive into Elance you might want to do some digging on the Internet to get a feel for what others have experienced. For instance you might want to find out more about the bid success ratios, the real differences between Basic and Select projects, how many projects will pay you more than $1,500 and so forth.

You can make money on Elance if you know what you are doing, and quite frankly all it takes is a little time and patience. Good luck, and happy bidding!

JAMES BURCHILL is an experienced Internet Marketing & Business Development specialist providing strategic and tactical solutions to select clients seeking to architect their on and offline marketing success. James is a published author, a passionate advocate of technology and the Internet, as well as an avid study of classical advertising and marketing strategies. Prior to establishing his own unique consulting practise, he served as VP of Professional Services and VP of IT & Consulting and implemented multi-million dollar solutions for Oracle, the British and US Governments, Rolls Royce UK and many others. James even taught Computer Science at one of Toronto's leading colleges and continues to coach private clients on a select basis. For more articles and information visit James' blog at http://www.jamesburchill.com/blog or checkout his main site at http://www.jamesburchill.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Burchill