Wallet Relief Blog

Knowledge is Wealth

Selling products or services isn’t the only way to make money online.  What you know can earn you a nice income.  People are always looking for information to help with a problem, to educate them, or to entertain them.  There is big money in information products on the Internet.  The potential for huge profits are great because you have low startup costs and no inventory. 

The most common information product is an eBook.  An eBook is simply information in an electronic rather than paper format.  Other information products include:

streaming video viewed on a web page
audio files on tape or CD
pod casts
access to web pages where info is stored
printed books, CDs, DVDs sent to buyers.

Computer + Topic = Information Product

Big money in information products happens because the process is very easy to create.  Choose an interesting topic, put fingers to keyboard and in a little while you’ve created an info product.  If the topic is really hot, you may start earning income hours later.  Internet technology provides 24/7 sales and delivery of product.  Automate your site so you can sell the product, process the payment, deliver the item via email, and follow up with the buyer later to check on customer satisfaction (and sell more stuff!).

What makes a good information product?

Practically any subject can net big money in information products.  How to start a business, self-improvement techniques, career advice - if you can think of a topic, there are probably people willing to buy the information product you put together.

Use your interests and expertise for subject ideas.  Search online forums to locate people who might be interested in your information product.  Offer to send them a free copy of your info product. This will spark sales and lead to referrals for you.

No writing experience needed.

You don’t have to be Pulitzer Prize material to create information products.  There are millions of works in the public domain that you can republish and sell.  These include non written items such as art, photos, old films, and historical speeches.  You can even hook up with a talented writer to help you create an information product and pay him a flat fee or percentage of the profits.

You could make a video of yourself or another person demonstrating a skill (cooking, crafts).  Budding musicians can record their songs and sell them as an mp3 download.  There’s even a guy who records himself reading nursery rhymes and sells the CD to parents with small children.

Product Promotion

A lot of fledgling book authors and musicians sell their books and CDs from the back of their car trunk.  For online information products, your web site is your car trunk.  Create a site specifically for selling your information products.  Participate in affiliate programs to increase site traffic and sales for your items.

Sources

“The Best Product to Sell Online,” (entrepreneur.com)

“Selling a Product on the Internet,” (2createawebsite.com)

“What is The Perfect eBay Product???,” (skipmcgrath.com)

Do your homework to determine the best affiliate programs for your web site.

Affiliate (aka Associate) programs are a win-win situation for everyone involved.  Internet-based merchants hook up with affiliates to generate traffic to their web sites.  Affiliates get paid if the traffic from their site visits the merchant web page.  The smart Internet entrepreneur does some research to determine the best affiliate programs for her business.

Where to Look

Affiliate networks are the middle man between affiliates and web sites with affiliate programs.  Look for affiliate networks that provide all the tools needed to set up and maintain an affiliate program.  AssociatePrograms.com is a popular directory with information about merchants that pay you to sell their wares.

Commission Junction is a free network that offers access to thousands of the best affiliate programs.  Commission Junction combines all your affiliate earnings (product sales, on-line ads, links) into one monthly check.  One caveat, however, is not to sign up before you are ready to start promoting products, because some programs will disenroll you if you wait six months after sign up to actually get  your sites and promotions up and running (networks do not want to have hundreds or thousands of inactive members cluttering up their affiliate program software and complicating their statistics).

What to Look for

The best affiliate programs will be those that target your customer base.  An on-line florist would get little traffic from a pet supply website.  You want an affiliate whose business is similar or comparable to your product.  Avoid affiliates with low quality products.  Ask to speak to existing affiliates to find out if a company is reputable.

Referral traffic may link to the merchant site and not buy initially but return to make a purchase weeks later.  Look for affiliate programs that remember your site was responsible for that customer.  The best affiliate programs remember you for 60 days by using cookies to tag the customer’s computer when he visits the merchant site.

The best affiliate programs offer reliable support such as ads, logos, and sales advice.  Good programs also provide timely updates on click through sales and earnings, and, respond to questions or problems within 24 hours.

Getting Paid

There are three common affiliate payment plans.  With pay per sale, the merchant pays when the affiliate sends a customer who buys from the merchant’s site.  The payment could be a set amount or a percentage of the sale.

In a pay per click set up, the affiliate is paid based on the number of people who visit the merchant’s web site regardless if a purchase was made.

With pay per lead programs, affiliates are paid based on the number of people who sign up as leads.  A lead would be a visitor who filled out an information page on the merchant web site thus becoming a potential customer.

Multi-level payment plans allow affiliates to earn commission on sales, clicks, or leads from their sites as well as commission based on activity generated by affiliate sites they refer to the merchant site.  Another form of payment is residual commission.  Affiliates continue earning money after the original sale has been made.  This is common in situations where customers pay monthly fees for merchant services.

The best affiliate programs pay at least 25% commission with some going as high as 50%.  Payments should be made at least once a month although some affiliate programs pay quarterly or twice a year.

Honorable Mentions

There are hundreds of good, reputable affiliate programs.  Three that stand out among the best are Neil Shearing’s affiliate program which pays some of the highest commissions and conversion rates; Ken Evoy’s 5 Pillar Program which offers excellent marketing and educational information; and My TemplatesStorage, a good site for web development merchants. Each of these, however, has its own plan details that may or may not be best for you and your situation, so be sure to read up on how any affiliate program works, and what is required for payment.

Sources

“How Affiliate Programs Work,” (howstuffworks.com)
“Best Affiliate Products for Maximum Profits,” (bestaffiliateproducts.com)
“Affiliate Programs,” (buildwebsite4u.com)

Affiliate programs are a great way to increase traffic to and sales for your web site. There are several affiliate tracking software solutions that keep track of sales, clicks, and commissions.

Affiliate tracking software solutions come in a variety of packages.  Software for a click-based program allows you to pay affiliates a set rate for each visitor to your web site.  Look for click-based software with helpful features including click-through tracking, link code generation (keep banners current and linked correctly), referral tracking, and detailed stats.

Other software lets you set up a commission or flat rate pay for each potential customer sent via your affiliate member.  You can also customize the commission schedule for individual affiliates.  Commission-based programs can be more economical because you only pay affiliates when their referrals generate sales.  

You don’t have to choose between click-based or commission affiliate tracking software.  Programs are available that let you use both pay arrangements.

Many affiliate tracking software solutions now have private affiliate network capability.  This feature is helpful for those with multiple web sites.  It lets you run one affiliate program for all your web sites on your own private network as opposed to setting up affiliate programs for each site.

How does it work?

The basic premise of affiliate programs is the same for all affiliate tracking software solutions.  An affiliate joins your program by logging into the member area on your web page.  There the affiliate can get the tools needed for linking to your site such as banner codes, text links, and product images. 

When a visitor clicks from the affiliate’s web page to yours, the tracking software places a cookie on the visitor’s computer to track him as he browses your web site.  If the visitor buys a product or service from your web site, the tracking software notes the affiliate responsible for said visitor and records the sale in a database.  The Administrator and the affiliate are both notified of the sale via email.

Affiliate software makes its easy to monitor the success of your affiliate programs by tracking the number of times banners or links are displayed, number of visitors who linked to your web site, and how many of these visits resulted in a sale.  In addition, the software keeps account of commissions earned by and payouts to affiliates.

Helpful Features

Software packages are easy to install and manage.  However, software companies will gladly lend a hand to technically challenged web entrepreneurs. Look for affiliate software tracking solutions that provide reliable tech support and don’t charge setup fees or monthly charges.  The software should be easy to customize for your specific needs.

Other helpful features include:

Unlimited affiliates categories
Automated fraud protection
Performance rewards for your best affiliates
Lifetime upgrades
Multi-level marketing (affiliate program promotes itself and your web site).

Sources

Cosmicperl (cosmicperl.com)
Affiliate Wiz (affiliatewiz.com)
Quality Unit (qualityunit.com)

Can you get rich selling e-books?  While Bill Gates’ type of income isn’t guaranteed, you can earn you a very nice income selling e-books online.

E-books are electronic versions of printed material that can contain text, sound, and images.  The profit potential from selling them is high because start-up and operating expenses are very low.  The biggest expense is purchasing books for sale. 

You can earn even more money if you write some of your own e-books. Your writing skills don’t have to be stellar.  There are online sources that will take your research and craft an  e-book for you.  Some of these companies even take care of marketing, payments, and shipping.

Buying  e-books for Sale

You can purchase e-books from authors online.  eBay is another source for e-book buying.   Purchase e-books with resell rights.  This allows customers to sell the e-books they buy from you themselves thus providing an incentive for them to do business with you. 

Make sure the e-books you buy (or write yourself) are full of useful information and resources.  Some e-books are nothing more than ads and sales pitches for the writer’s products.  These “ad books” will turn off customers and decrease repeat business.

Do your research to determine what types of information people are seeking.  Getting rich selling e-books will depend on the topics covered, customer base, and marketing campaign. 

Before buying an e-book for resale, do an online search for the title.  If lots of web sites are selling the book, it’s probably a popular title and will be a good seller.  It also helps to sell e-books that cater to a specific market niche.  Search online forums and other group sites to locate potential target markets for niche titles.  Contact these groups with a short email inviting them to visit your site.  Offer an incentive such as 20% off first purchase to increase site traffic.

E-books about current trends or hot topics will generate more income.  Your income will really get a boost if you can spot the “next big topic” and write or purchase e-books to sell before the competition saturates the market. 

Marketing Extras

You can use a common template for your e-books’ web site or sell them on an existing site you already have. However, to stand out from the competition, create you own web site to sell e-books.  Always add new titles to your stock to keep old customers coming back and to attract new ones.  Use email to notify customers of new titles and special sales.  Offer discounts on slow moving titles.

Affiliate programs are another way to get rich selling e-books.  The affiliate pays you a commission for his or her e-books you sell.  To earn extra cash from e-books you write, start your own affiliate program.

There are plenty of online and print books that will help you learn how to get in on the e-book sales bandwagon.  A good place to begin reading is “Make Your Knowledge Sell,” by Ken Evoy and Monique Harris.

Sources

“About Making Money with E-Books,” (about-the-web.com)

“Make Money Selling Ebooks,” (christianet.com)

“Make Money Selling Ebooks,” (homebusinessmag.com)

“Is Your Dog Selling eBooks Too?,” (marketingsource.com)

Traffic on the freeway is bad.  Traffic on the Internet is good.  With over 60 million web sites on the Net, you need a solid strategy for steering customers to your home business web site.

Search Engines

Search engines are the yellow pages for a home business web site.  Over 80% of Internet surfers use search engines to find information on the web.  To get the most traffic to your site, list with the big search engine players Yahoo, Google, and MSN.  Smaller search engines also get results from the big three so you’ll be covered in case customers visit less popular engines.

Looking Good

Your home business web site can be simple or complex but it must be functional and attractive.  Make sure your site does what it is supposed to do - provide customers with concise, useful information about your product or service.  Be wary of making things too complicated.  The site should be easy to navigate or customers will look elsewhere.

Your home business web site should also look professional, not cheap.  If you aren’t design savvy, spend money on a good web designer.  The investment will pay off by attracting more people to your web page.

On-line Ads

The Internet has many sites where you can list your home business web site for free.  To guarantee the greatest exposure, place your ad on several (20 or more) sites and repeat the process every month.

Banner advertisements can be as effective as TV spots in increasing customer awareness of your business.  A banner ad should be direct, i.e. promote a benefit of rather than just the name of the product or service.  Try participating in a banner exchange program such as LinkExchange that connects your home business web site to other company sites that have similar customer bases.

Affiliate programs offer an excellent opportunity to promote your home business web site.  Affiliate businesses post links to your web page on their sites.  You pay them a commission or set fee based on the amount of traffic sent to your web site.  Pay arrangements vary and can be based on the number of people who visit your site or the number of customers who purchase your product.

Bloggin’ It

Bloggers are the hot new information medium.  Getting them to write about your home business web site is an excellent way to gain exposure to potential customers. 

Technorati Blog Directory provides a listing of blogs by industry.  Do your research here to determine which blogs might be interested in writing about your business.  Send a short, personal email to a few blog writers describing your web site and asking the blogger to write about it.  Offer the writer something in return, for example, free product or a link back to his blog on your web site.

Off-line Ads

Cruising Down the Highway

Your car is a moving billboard for a home business web site.  Window decals and bumper stickers are inexpensive ways to get the word out about your web site.  Spend a few extra dollars for a personalized license plate with your web address.

Old Media Standby

Regardless of what the bloggers say, people still read the printed page.  Run ads in the classifieds of large and small papers, trade magazines, and free weeklies.  Your choice of print media will depend on the product or service offered and whether you do business locally or nationwide.

Sources

Gaebler Ventures, “Advertising on the Web” (gaebler.com)
Data Synthesis, “Internet Solutions for Today” (ictks.com)
“Top Ten Ways to Promote your Website” (agora-business-center.com)
“Using Blog PR to Promote Your Site” (sitepronews.com)

When you base your home business opportunity on online marketing, you will be able to tap into a large number of resources that each promise to give you access to a whole different segment of the market. There is a plethora of online marketing opportunities that will permit you to introduce your home business to a wide audience. Conversely, if you find that you would have a hard time marketing your business to a large audience, perhaps this business opportunity needs to be revised a little bit in order to appeal to a much larger segment of the market. Here are some tips for getting the word out about your home based business opportunity via online marketing.

Build a professional-looking website. Too often individuals make the mistake of going overboard when creating a website, and the result is a site with too many ads, pop ups or pop unders, and streaming videos that take the viewer’s eyes away from the business itself. Unless you know how to design a website yourself, this is a task best left to the professionals. Keep in mind that a well-designed site will permit potential customers to visit your store and learn about your business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You want to put your best foot forward when it comes to website based marketing.
 
Purchase email addresses. You need to take great care that you do so from a reputable business so that you will not be accused of spamming, but once you have found such as list, use it! This is a great opportunity for emailing out newsletters, recipes, memorable quotes, and special offers. If your newsletters are witty, you will be able to add new subscribers by folks who liked what they read when a friend forwarded it.

Set up an affiliate program, and permit others to receive a little profit from sending visitors to your website. You might even specify that the commission will not be paid out until someone signs up for a newsletter or places an order.

Change your email signature to showcase your business. Think about how many emails you send out every day, and you will be amazed how many potential customers you can reach simply with your signature.

As you can see when you base your home business opportunity on online marketing, you will be able to attract customers on a daily basis, even when you are not online. In addition to the foregoing, because of the many times that emails get forwarded when they contain witty or important information, you will be able to capitalize on your email investment many times over! So go ahead and give it a try; you will not be disappointed!

Home business Internet marketing has become one of the favorite businesses of stay at home parents. The reason behind this popular choice is that online marketing does not cost as much capital as putting up your own store and keeping inventories. If you are one of those who are contemplating setting up your own home Internet marketing business and earning a living out of it, it might be good to consider affiliate marketing.

Most affiliate marketing programs do not require you to put up capital to sell their products. All you need to have is a website where you can put the logo of the merchants and provide a link to their site. Like all other business–be it home business, internet marketing, or the traditional brick and mortar form of business–there are many challenges you need to contend with in order to succeed and earn good money.

The first thing that you will need to contend with when you opt to incorporate affiliate marketing in your home business internet marketing is that some merchant sites are rather difficult to navigate. Customers are often turned-off from buying their products because it is difficult to browse through. Often times, merchant sites, which are difficult to navigate, also have complicated payment systems that people who do not have the patience to deal with complications may just leave the site without buying at all. You as an online marketer often don’t have any say on the merchants website. The best thing you can do is screen out merchant websites properly before displaying their logo on your own website. It would be best for you to try and navigate your merchant’s website to gauge whether or not a buyer would easily find what he or she needs. Only provide links for those merchant websites that are user friendly if you hope to sell something and earn a commission.

Another thing that you will need to focus on when you are engaged in home business Internet marketing is that most merchant sites are not very attractive to online shoppers. You will need to market their sites aggressively in you website by providing information to buyers. When you sell the products of your merchant, it would be best to use text link instead of banners. Moreover, relationship marketing is a good tool, which you must use to earn good money in home base internet marketing. The cardinal rule in relationship marketing is that you build a good relationship with your clients and gain their trust. When a client trusts your judgment, they will be more open to buying the products you are endorsing. Building trust could take a long time but the returns are good if you have that kind of relationship with your clients.

Just to let my readers know that Paul Barrs, the Australian Internet Business and Home Biz Master, has released a “Three Ways” to Home Business Success Audio eCourse that is free.  You can sign-up for it at this URL:  http://www.walletrelief.com/paul-barrs-home-business-success.  Enjoy!

When it comes to Internet based businesses, one of the best ways of generating traffic and sales is to go with an affiliate program. This is one effective method to keep up on the marketplace and carve out your place in the online market. It is no secret that the best way to start affiliate marketing is to go with a topic with which you are very familiar. This does not imply that you are going to immediately strike it rich. It does, however, give you the means to build a great site. Knowing what you are selling or promoting is the easiest way to ensure that people will look to you for information.

This in turn allows for you to add little pieces of information that you may find pertinent to the product. You can add personal flare and even have unbiased opinions thrown in for good measure. When setting up an affiliate site, the first thing to avoid is the temptation of banners. People steer clear away from banners, and quite frankly they make a site look truly unprofessional. If you are going to go with a merchant on your site, it is extremely important to have one that is directly related to what you are promoting. Having more than one can surely not harm either. Just make sure you realize that this is not the beginning of a fortune either. Affiliate programs are not a guarantee to riches; they come close to a guarantee that your site will be seen more often. This is what you are truly striving for–it is all about the traffic.

More and more sites these days are focused around content, which is the information and educational aspect of a promoting a product or service. This has become a successful endeavor, and is far easier to establish than a product-based affiliate program or general website. Whenever you are building one of these sites, it must be kept in mind that the entire goal is to ensure that people are actually clicking on the merchant’s link in order to generate sales from which you will receive commission or percentage. If you cannot generate traffic to your affiliate’s site the entire premise has now been a waste of time and money. Another site that can be successful is the data driven web sites, or data product info sites. These sites have no information on them that one could muse through—they simply present the basic goods: cost, description, images, and the basic showroom. What you want in turn from one of these sites is to force feed the affiliate site or the merchant’s goods to the viewer, making them go immediately to the affiliate site for purchases. This generates income in your pocket by advertising the merchant’s goods, and promoting them. © 2006 Wallet Relief Blog – WalletRelief.com

Don’t forget the Special Sale, which will be ending soon (!):
The Insider’s Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet

If you have been thinking about starting to work from home on the Internet to make more money, then you should consider affiliate marketing. Executed properly, with the right products, it is a great online method of generating funds without taking on a huge caseload of work to get it done. Having an established site that is already making money is the best way of ensuring you will be in the thick of the cash flow as well. There is a good chance if you own a web site that interests another Webmaster they will ask you to do a link exchange. Deciding whether or not you should link to their site or not may as easy as you think. You do not want to link too just anyone. You want to make sure this is the type of business that you want linked to you and it brings in the type of customers that you seek.

If the answer is yes, then you can move on down the list and actually consider this site. If this site has absolutely nothing to do with what you are promoting in any way do not bother. You are looking for a targeted market. If you link to a site that has absolutely nothing of interest to your visitors and the Webmaster’s visitors have none in yours it is moot to even bother. The point is to be able to generate a targeted market whose wants match what you offer. There are several ways to approach this goal. Links that deliver relevant traffic are one example. There are also natural links that someone just posts because they like your site. This is great but should not be relied on solely. You want good links that are relevant as well. Target specific keywords on the search engines to see what the top ranking sites are and see if you can link with them.

The affiliate promotes a merchant’s site with a link on his or her web page. The merchant’s products and services are promoted through the link. When a customer clicks on a link and makes a purchase the merchant gives the affiliate a commission. This is because that visitor found the link from the affiliate. The merchant and the affiliate will agree prior to the link being posted what the actual commission will be for a particular sale. The affiliate needs to make sure that the product and services he or she is promoting are related to each other. You want to have a targeted audience and to be able to promote these products and services on the affiliate site. If an affiliate has several types of businesses to promote they need to have their own sites independent of each other. This will keep things organized and only get the visitors who will generate sales. Make sure that all the pages you have are themed and easy to find on the popular search engines. You want to make sure that you are attracting potential buyers who are specifically looking for what your merchant(s) offers.

Of course, if you want a very in-depth look at the entire affiliate marketing process, and how to maximize profits from it, I still highly recommend Derek Gehl’s Insider Secrets Course, which I mentioned in my June 19th post is currently on a time-limited sale with great bonuses. Click here to read about it (if you missed it the first time):

The Insider’s Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet

While he offers a guarantee on this product, I do not think you will have to worry about using the guarantee. I myself own a copy of the 2006 Version and am very pleased with it. It’s well-organized, loaded and thorough, and walks you through in a step-by-step fashion. If you are trying to start an Internet business without this kind of guidance, you run a very high risk of spinning your wheels (or trying to reinvent the wheel), wasting valuable time and resources, missing profits, and ultimately getting discouraged when there is no need to be. The cost is actually miniscule compared to what a single mistake down the road could cost you. It’s true that nothing will ever change unless you take action, but it is exponentially better to take action wisely with the guidance of this course.