By Luis Galarza - Free Internet Marketing.

As An Online Merchant or Marketer You Should Know That A Well Manage Affiliate Program Is One Of The Best Free Internet Marketing Strategies You Can Use!



Understanding affiliate marketing strategies when you are the marketer is all about make it easy to for web publishers and entrepreneurs to know about it, easy to sign up, to promote, and easy to get support. Specially when your affiliate program is open to all type of online marketers. I said this because there are times when a merchant will hand pick the publishers to partners with, and this can be done in-house or by becoming part of an exclusive associate network, for more information about this read my post title: Affiliate Marketing For Merchants: Affiliate Network Success Elements.

So, you can said that when a Internet merchant wants to integrate affiliate marketing as another medium of web exposure, it comes down to the understanding of three imperative elements:

  1. How to start a program successfully.
  2. How to set it up so it works automatically and follow your marketing goals.
  3. How to manage it to increase program productivity and effectiveness, and..
  4. How to promote it to the right audience of active web publishers.


Now, this type of online referral or associate systems can cost little to no money to implement, but if you compare the same type of system in the real world or offline, which will be a franchise or vendor opportunity like Avon can cost you way more money, time, and resources to build a similar program. Thank God with have the Internet, which makes this process very easy for small businesses and even home based businesses.



The Tips!

OK, let me go directly to some of the most important factors I learn about running a successful performance based system:


1. - Expose Originality.

What I mean with this is that you need to have a brand, product or service that is easy to market. And for something to have a good marketing response from your audience needs to be unique, so focus on creating an USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that have that special benefit that is different from what your competitors are offering. Sometimes a word or even a letter is good enough to make you original, think Google Nemesis which is a PPC training course, and iPhone which is the mobile phone by Apple that turn very popular starting from the name!


2. - Offer Good Commissions.

This is a big one, because most publishers "beginners and advanced" will pick a partnership with the merchant that offers the highest revenues, specially if the associate is going to invest in pay-per-click advertising to market your goods. Many top online retailers like Amazon or Dell offer commissions of 2 to 10% depending on the product sold. But, when it comes to digital goods like ebooks or software marketers expect to get paid more, usually 40 to 80% of the sales.

So, when it comes to commissions you need to also think about what is the right amount that will keep your online sales force strong and active.


3. - Gain Trust.

One of the best ways to build credibility is by using some good PR, article marketing, and social media strategies. Simply, keep your company on the news by submitting at least one press release per month, write one article per day and submit it to some top directories, contribute to high traffic forums, and keep a constant activity in some the top social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc., this can help you build trust and become an authority in your niche.


4. - Set Up A System That Works.

Make sure you create a program that works automatically, and provide supporting tips right at from, this will reduce your customer service giving you more time to work on other important areas. You need to have a good set of pre-selling and advertising material your partners can use to promote your products. Also, remember to offer as much information about your company and services, because a good salesperson is the one that is the most knowledgeable.


This type of Internet marketing strategy can be put to work on any type of market or niche, of course there a few hot trends right now, but any online business should have a referral system in place.

To get unlimited advice about "Effective Affiliate Management Techniques" visit the IE Club. Yes, is all about having a good management process!


Recommended Resources.



Like I said before in this post, implementing an affiliate program to have other marketers promote your products or services can cost little or a lot of money. But, if your programs is profitable, is almost like having a complete free Internet marketing system in place. So, focus on managing it effectively.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant In Massachusetts.


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Affiliate Marketing 101: Tips For MerchantsSocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

By Luis Galarza - Free Internet Marketing.

So, Why Avoid Twitter Follower Generator IWantFollowers.com? Simple because it will upset your current friends, and might get your account suspended or in jail like we tweeple like to call it!...


Twitter Spam by Iwantfollower.com
We all love free Internet marketing tools and services, that's why I created this blog to share with you the best resources and tips you can get to start or promote an online small business. But, in the world of the free, some marketers will try to make you paid for their giveaways in unethical ways... One of those services is IWantFollowers!

If you are in any of the groups below you need to hold your horses and please keep reading:

- Are looking to increase the number of Twitter follower or friends?

- Are you looking for some kind of free social media marketing service or tool to
help you?

- Have you heard of the "I Want Followers" free service?


- Are you a current user?


- Are you thinking to apply in the near future?




I Completely recommend you to stay away from this service and any other services that uses the Twitter API to send "SPAM" tweets through your account. I understand if you have to send a RT (ReTweet) mentioning the service you just sign up for at the moment of creating a new member file. But, IWantFollowers think that isn't enough marketing exposure for their tool, so they send automatic tweets to every free member about 2 times per day, making tweeps (People using the social network) upsetting their followers and friends. Because the tweet looks like you send it!

So, they make you look like you are the spammer!

If you know me for quite sometime, you might know that I don't recommend anybody to use unethical or illegal marketing methods, is just wrong! And when it comes to social media the best approach is what I call a "Social Marketing Interaction." To know what I recommend my clients to avoid when it comes to social media campaigns, please read my post titled "20 Bad Twitter Marketing Strategies To Avoid" for more information about the wrong ways to use this social network.


Here is what a Twitter that hates this type of non-permission advertising @ON_DEMAND_TECH (Alicia L. Harris) have to said about those unwanted automatic messages:

Click to enlarge image.

Just in case you can read what the image said, here it is: "I just opted out of IWantFollowers.com to stop the obnoxious automatic tweets on my account. Sorry for the bother friends"



As you can see, people don't like this type of promotion... Looks like whoever is the main owner of the site don't know nothing about social media. They should pay Seth Goldin for a consultation or by his book where he explain the birth of "Permission Marketing". Don't you think?

There are other free services that don't use automated SPAM messages generators that you can use to help you find new friends or future business contacts that have same interests. Don't worry I put a list of useful sites to find new followers without the SPAM or any unethical promotion practices right at the end of this post.


Here is what @RATN_110 another user of this so call free web 2.0 application have to said:

Click on image to enlarge.




Test Got My Account In Twitter Jail For A Week!

I'm always testing new strategies, tools, and services to see if it work as they said they do, so I can share my findings with my readers. But, this time I made an error... Well, the thing is that I have only one Twitter account, and I didn't open a new account to be use as case study. I know, big mistake...

So, I sign up with follower generator in question, everything look OK, they send a tweet promoting the service, and I thought that was OK, almost every other application does the same thing as a tweet or re-tweet. Then, the day after I saw 2 more tweets promoting the application without my consent, so I erase both messages, and just waited while I was doing my daily posting. Then the next morning I saw 2 more of those stupids ads, then my safety bell started ringing, but I decided to wait till next day... What a big mistake was that!

The next day I try to log-in into my account, and I was send to a page that said:
"Sorry, the account you were headed to has been suspended due to strange activity"

You can see a screen shot of the page, the page that it supose to be my profile page, now is just a embarrasing suspension notice, at least for the next 7 days :-( ...



Apparently, the site was doing some administration work and tech person made the application send a bunch of automatic tweets by using the free and VIP accounts, which soon was notice by the Twitter spam police and they quickly stop the problem by suspending over 1500 member profiles. The profiles will stay there for week, and my profile was also included in the mix.

Here is what their blog had to said:
"Account suspensions? Lost followers?

Yesterday, the technical support for the affiliate system our site uses was making some changes to optimize the program for the high traffic we’ve been seeing recently. One of the technicians was editing one of the automatic process sequences, and mistakenly reset the wrong process cycle.

Our system sends autotweets to our free users once or twice a day. This false reset affected the autotweet cycle, changing it to run eight times a day. Twitter detected the abundance of updates and automatically identified it as spam – the result? Twitter distributed 7 day suspensions to each account sending the tweets. Approximately 1500 to 2000 accounts were suspended for seven days.

Those of you who received suspensions should not worry, they are only temporary. We are trying to contact the Twitter dev team to appeal the mass suspensions and we will have them lifted as soon as possible. The suspended accounts would explain the loss of followers – those who lost a drastic amount of followers will see them return within the next seven days.

All affected VIPs will be given a complementary 3 day VIP pass in light of the event. Once again, we apologize on behalf of that silly technician, and we hope to see you again in the future!

Enjoy your week, Brandon"


Just and case here is a picture with the message on their blog:



How they think that simple apology will fix anything. I'm loosing around 70 new follower per day while in "Jail", plus that's not counting the amount of unfollow's I'm already getting right now! Lucky I'm not one of the VIP or paid members, because that will make thing worst... Well, I hope everything goes to normal soon.

I want to apologize for the unwanted automated promotions that they sent through my profile. I should it check the service a little more, I hope the friend that was using it, already opted out to avoid problems.



The Good List Of Tools.

Here are some great tools you can use to manage, and find follower. (Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any claim made by any of the following services, they made the list just because may top sites give a good recommendation.):

Follow and Unfollow


#followfriday


Maps and Location

Popularity and Rank


Retweet


Spam


Groups



This is is just a short part of "The Ultimate List Of Twitter Tools" post, so visit the post to get a complete list of aapplications put together by The Social Media Guide Blog.

To get unlimited advice about "Ethical Twitter and Social Media Marketing" visit the IE Club. I should had listening to my friends at the Internet Entrepreneurs Club.. LOL!...


Recommended Resources.



Hopefully my account will be up and running good tweets and conversations in a short time, till then you can find me on Facebook or just leave me a quick comment on this blog and I will get back to you as soon as possible, thank to all my friend and tweends for your support.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant In Massachusetts.


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Avoid IWantFollowers.com Or Get Your Twitter Account Suspended Plus 40 Legit ToolsSocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

By Luis Galarza - Free Internet Marketing.

Your SEO Efforts Can Become More Effective If You Look At Linking The Way Top Search Engines Do!...



If you are an Internet marketing beginner you may not know what are the golden rules of SEO (Also check Andy Beal's SEO article ) or what link building have to do with promoting your website or blog online... Link building is not other than gathering incoming links to your site in other to increase search ranking and improve organic search results position. So, if those two online strategies aren't part of your marketing plan is time to add them on, don't you think?

And it doesn't matter what niche you are in. What's important is how many good back links are pointing to your site, the more quality back links you get, the better is your position on search results on Google, Yahoo, and Bing will get.



Tips!

Before you continue to the report about understanding linking the way Google, Yahoo or Bing do watch the next video that explain a little more about what's link building and also will give some great tips about how to generate quality ones, enjoy:

Link Building Tips Video - Online Marketing Strategies by ...


Hope you learn some good ways to generate link love for your blog or static website... For more tips or advice about this take a look at the next articles:


The Report!

The report shows that when it comes to linking, is more than just getting a huge quantity of them from every single web source you can find. And relevancy is actually question here... The problem is that your SEO efforts can get confuse for SPAM or black hat tricks, like web farms (sites full of links) that can have you banned from every top online engine. Instead use webrings, which are networks of sites linking to each other.

Here is an excerpt from the post:
"Well sheeeeit… it’s hard to say what constitutes ‘intent’ when it comes to various aspects of linking and search engines. It really isn't that straight forward and understanding 'query intent' tends to be the most researched area for search peeps.

And as far as patents/papers, I doubt there is really much out there specifically on intent beyond some papers such as; Recognizing Nepotistic Links on the Web Or Detecting Nepotistic Links by Language Model Disagreement and there is more in CJ’s post on detecting paid links – there are a whack of papers at the end of that one.

Ultimately though…

It’s all about the spam

Most of such valuations (intent) would be in the link spam world as this is where links are evaluated. From that point out, what is actually ‘intent’ is defined by the engines themselves. What I mean is that an algorithm can merely look for elements common to those manipulating the index via links, it is up to the engineers to decide what to do with pages/sites above a given threshold."


The report refers to specially to Google by analyzing their patent (Document scoring based on link based criteria) where the search giant explain about:
  1. Authority entities.
  2. Temporal factors.
  3. Anchor text anomalies.
  4. Document ranking.

But, the report goes beyond that and also point to other aspects like:
  1. Document relevance.
  2. Excessive reciprocals.
  3. TrustRank/Harmonic Rank.
  4. Page Segmentation.
  5. The human element.

Link spamming is also called Spamdexing, here is the definition by Wikipedia:
"Spamdexing (also known as search spam or search engine spam)[1] involves a number of methods, such as repeating unrelated phrases, to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine, in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system.[2][3] Some consider it to be a part of search engine optimization, though there are many search engine optimization methods that improve the quality and appearance of the content of web sites and serve content useful to many users.[4] Search engines use a variety of algorithms to determine relevancy ranking. Some of these include determining whether the search term appears in the META keywords tag, others whether the search term appears in the body text or URL of a web page. Many search engines check for instances of spamdexing and will remove suspect pages from their indexes. Also, people working for a search-engine organization can quickly block the results-listing from entire websites that use spamdexing, perhaps alerted by user complaints of false matches. The rise of spamdexing in the mid-1990s made the leading search engines of the time less useful."


To access the report go to "Understanding linking intent; the spam connection". There you will get full details about each of the factors I mention here.

To get unlimited advice about "white SEO strategies" visit the IE Club.


Recommended Resources.



TIP: Now to play it safe is better to stay away from using SPAM and black hat strategies like link farms. Just send press releases or submit useful content to article directories. Of course, don't forget to do a good market and keyword research. So, you can target the best phrases for your company or product.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant In Massachusetts.


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Understand Linking The Way Search Engine's Do To Improve Link BuildingSocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Success Quote

1. Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.

2. Work at something you enjoy and that's worthy of your time and talent.

3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

5. Be forgiving of yourself and others.

6. Be generous.

7. Have a grateful heart.

8. Persistence, persistence, persistence.

9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.

10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.

11. Commit yourself to constant improvement.

12. Commit yourself to quality.

13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationship with people you love and respect.

14. Be loyal.

15. Be honest.

16. Be a self-starter.

17. Be decisive even it it means you'll sometimes be wrong.

18. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life.

19. Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the ones you did.

20. Take good care of those you love.

21. Don't do anything that wouldn't make your Mom proud.


By H. Jackson Brown Jr.