Understanding the Keyword Buying Cycle

In order to find the right keywords you must first understand what I call the Keyword Buying Cycle. The Keyword Buying Cycle identifies the different types of keywords people use as they go through the process of researching and making a purchase online. There are three phases in the Keyword Buying Cycle:

Browse
Compare
Buy

There are specific sets of keywords associated with each phase. Being able to identify these sets of keywords and matching them up with the right offer, at the right time, is what successful affiliates do best. When making an online purchase, a shopper may start searching with general

keywords. As the shopper becomesmore educated about a particular product or service they will begin using more specific keywords to find what they’re looking for. Some online shoppers may know exactly what they’re looking for, and immediately begin searching with specific keywords.

To better understand the Keyword Buying Cycle, I will use real keyword examples throughout this section(3), also as usual you can get some tool´s to get it from Tool´s Blog, but is my disere that you know the system before going throught this.

Keywords - The Foundation of Your Success

In late 2005 Pew/Internet, one of the most respected names in online research, published a report about search engine usage. Their report concluded that on an average day, nearly 60 million people use search engines. Search is now the second most popular online activity, just behind e-mail.

Search engines have transformed the way people buy products and services both online and offline. Search engines represent a huge opportunity for affiliate marketers. In order to leverage the power of search engines, affiliates must first understand the importance of keywords. Put simply, keywords are the words and phrases people use to find what they’re looking for in the search engines. Keywords are the foundation of every successful affiliate marketing campaign.

Before I register a domain name or build a website I spend a lot of quality time doing keyword research. This keyword research helps me to better understand the products and services I’m promoting, and helps me to plan my website and marketing strategy.
It’s not only important to find as many keywords as possible, but it’s also critical that you focus on the right keywords.

One of the biggest factors that have contributed to my success as an affiliate is keyword research. The more (good) keywords you have in your list, the more opportunities you have to drive targeted traffic to your website, which will lead to more commissions.

This section will show you how to build and manage a highly-targeted and comprehensive keyword list.

Resources-Tools to Measure Keyword/Market Demand:

Tools to Measure Keyword/Market Demand:

Use these free web-based tools to evaluate the demand for a particular market or keyword.

Yahoo Keyword Selector Tool - www.inventory.overture.com
Yahoo View Bids Tool - www.uv.bidtool.overture.com
Google AdWords: Keyword Tool - www.adwords.google.com
WordTracker - www.wordtracker.com (free trial)

Affiliate Networks:

Consider joining one or more of these affiliate networks to find merchants.
Commission Junction - www.cj.com
Linkshare - www.linkshare.com
Shareasale.com - www.shareasale.com
ClickBank - www.clickbank.com
Performics - www.performics.com
One Network (Digital River) - www.onenetwork.digitalriver.com
PartnerWeekly - www.partnerweekly.com
LinkConnector - www.linkconnector.com
DirectLeads - www.directleads.com
ClixGalore - www.clixgalore.com
MaxBounty - www.maxbounty.com
DarkBlue - www.darkblue.com

You can get a small descrition of each one at Money Tool´s Blogger

Start with a High Level Overview

I strongly recommend evaluating the overall market conditions of the products and services you are looking to promote. Keep your ears and eyes open to current news and events related to your category. See how some of the top merchants in your category are performing. Find out what industry experts are saying.

At this point you are just trying to gauge the overall health of the category you are interested in. You don’t have to be a stock market analyst to perform this type of research. The only tool that you need is a good search engine.

Example:

The overall market for dial-up internet service is shrinking in the US. More people are switching to broadband because it’s faster, more reliable, and more convenient than dial-up. I’m sure this information didn’t come as a big surprise to you. This information is widely available in the search engines and other media outlets.
You may still be able to make money by promoting dial-up internet service providers, but the overall demand is shifting to broadband. As an affiliate, which trend would you rather follow?

Measure the Demand

One of the best ways to determine the demand for a category is by doing some research using the Keyword Selector Tool. This tool is provided free, courtesy of Yahoo! Search Marketing. Just type any keyword into this tool, and you can quickly determine how many searches are done each month for a particular keyword on Yahoo.
To begin, I recommend coming up with a short list of keywords related to the category that you’re interested in.

Here are some examples of keywords you can research:

Generic terms and phrases used to describe your category

Product or service names
Company or brand names

Once you have a short list of keywords, enter them into the Keyword Selector Tool. Take time to record the keywords and the number of searches into a spreadsheet or even a scratch piece of paper. This will allow you to add up the total number of searches for the keywords that you have searched for.

Digital Camera Exercise:

Let’s say that you’re interested in digital photography. You aren’t really an expert, but 6 months ago you spent a lot of time researching and planning your own digital camera purchase. Maybe you went to a few review or shopping comparison websites. Maybe you went down to your local electronics store and chatted with the Salesman. In any case, you probably know a little more than the average person does about buying a digital camera.
As you were researching your digital camera purchase, you stumbled upon several different camera brands. You probably learned a little bit about the various features and benefits of digital cameras too. Now, let’s come up with a quick list of potential keywords we could use to evaluate the demand for digital cameras.

What are some popular digital camera brands?

• Canon
• Casio
• Fuji
• Kodak
• Nikon
• Sony

What are some of the features or benefits you were looking for when you bought your camera?

• 5 megapixel cameras
• SLR cameras
• Sleek and slim cameras
• Professional digital cameras

Were there any camera accessories that you purchased?

• Photo printer
• Photo paper
• Camera memory cards
• Spare camera batteries

As you can see, it doesn’t take much effort to come up with a simple keyword list. Now you can enter some of these keywords into the Keyword Selector Tool. We will start by searching for one of the brand name keywords: “Canon Digital Camera”.

Here is a screenshot of the results:
At Keyword Selector Tool as you can see, there is a lot of interest in Canon Digital Cameras. In fact, this graphic only shows keywords where the search volume is higher than 1,000 searches. If you add up all the searches that contain the keyword “Canon Digital Cameras” for November 2005 you get 151,937! That’s an impressive number considering that the Keyword Selector Tool does not include search volume from Google and other top search engines. You could easily double, or even triple
that number if you were to include search volume from other search engines.

Now let’s try searching for digital cameras by type. Let’s use the keyword “slr camera”.

At Keyword Selector Tool again, this is only a partial screenshot. If you add up the total search volume for November 2005 for the keyword ‘slr camera’ there were approximately 43,600 searches done on Yahoo.

Finally, let’s do a search for digital camera accessories. For this last example, we will use the keyword “photo paper”.

Here are the results:

At Keyword Selector Tool Screenshot - During November 2005, there were a total of 26,201 searches for keywords that contained “photo paper” on Yahoo.

Conclusions about Measuring Demand

The above examples only give a small sampling of the total search volume for keywords related to digital cameras. All we did was take one digital camera brand, one camera type, and one accessory, and we were able to generate a keyword list with over 200,000 monthly searches. Keep in mind that this search volume only represents one search engine. Could you imagine how high the monthly search volume would be if I included all digital camera brands, types, and accessories across all search engines? I guarantee the number of searches would have totaled several million per month.
Not every category has this kind of search volume. In fact, digital cameras happen to be a very popular item for search. You may find that the product or service you want to promote has only 1,000 total searches in a given month.
Don’t overlook these opportunities. I make a lot of money in several categories that have less than a 1,000 monthly searches.

As an affiliate, I’m interested in any category that has at least 100 monthly searches. Anything less than that is probably too obscure.

Check out the Competition

After you have determined that there is adequate demand for your category, it’s time to evaluate the competition. There are two methods that I use to evaluate the competition.

Method 1 - Check the Competition in Paid Search Listings

One of the best ways to check out the competition is to review the paid search listings in the top search engines (Google,Yahoo, and MSN). Paid search listings appear at the top and the right side of the search results page. They’re generally marked “Sponsored Results”.
To check out the competition in the paid search listings, take the keyword list that you used to evaluate the demand for your category and enter these same keywords into the respective search engines.

Yahoo Paid Search Example:

Yahoo offers one of the most helpful tools for evaluating the competition. Yahoo has developed the View Bids Tool, which allows you to see the bid (price per click), and the position for all of the advertisers for a keyword.

Let’s use the keyword “slr camera” from our previous example.

At Yahoo View Bids Tool To keep this page short, I only displayed the top 3 advertisers bidding on this keyword. There were actually a total of 29 advertisers bidding on this keyword. Their bids ranged from $0.10 cents to $0.44 cents per click. As you can tell this is a somewhat competitive keyword.

The bids aren’t especially high because it’s a generic keyword, but there are a lot of competitors.
If you do a more specific search, you will find that there are less competitors.

Now do a search for “EOS Rebel T2”.

This is a specific camera that is made by Canon.

At Yahoo View Bids Tool
In this example there are only 10 competitors, and their bids range from $0.10 cents to $0.54 cents. This is a more specific keyword, so it doesn’t get as much search volume as “slr camera”, but it is a better keyword because it’s more specific. I will go more into details about keywords in Section 3.
After performing a few searches, you will begin to understand who some of the competitors are, what they are bidding,and some of the strategies they are using to promote their websites.

Method 2 - Check the Competition in the Natural Search Listings

In addition to evaluating the competition through the paid search listings, it’s also a good idea to see which competitors are showing up in the natural search listings. Advertisers cannot pay to be at the top of the natural search listings.
Natural search listings are determined by the search engine’s own algorithms. Natural search listings appear in the main body of the search results page.
Don’t be alarmed, but there are going to be A LOT more results showing up in the natural search listings than paid search listings. This is because the search engines are going to display every web page that mentions the keyword that you have typed in, including blogs, forums, classifieds and other non-commercial results. Most of these websites will not be competing directly with you, so don’t be intimidated by the number of results returned.

Google Natural Search Example:

To determine how many pages are showing up in the natural search listings, all you need to do is type your keywords into the search box of your favorite search engine. If your keyword contains more than one word, you should place the entire keyword in quotes(“”). See the Google example below:

This example shows nearly 6.9 million results being returned for the keyword “slr camera”. This is a very competitive keyword in the natural search listings. Clearly there is a lot of interest in “slr camera”. Now let’s do a search for the keyword “EOS Rebel T2”, which is the Canon SLR camera we used in our previous
example:This example shows only 182,000 results. That’s only 9% of the results that were displayed for the more generic keyword “slr camera”. Just as I had pointed out earlier in the paid search example, there is less competition for morespecific keywords.

What You Need to Look for When Sizing-Up the Competition in Natural Search:

How many results are returned for each keyword?
Which keywords display the most results?
Which keywords display the least results?
Do you see any competitors that are consistently showing up for your keywords?
What types of competitors are showing up for your keyword searches?

Are they manufactures, resellers, or affiliates?

At this point you are just trying to get a feel for the competition. Don’t be intimidated when you do a search for one of your keywords and it returns 182,000 results in the natural search listings. This DOES NOT mean there are 182,000 competitors jockeying for top position in the search engines. It just means the keyword is mentioned in that many places on the web.

•Advanced Tip:

Another way to determine how many competitors you have, is to search for your keyword with Google’s allintitle operator (allintitle:”keyword”). The allintitle operator will tell you how many web pages use your keywords in their page’s title tag. The title tag is commonly used to optimize a web page for a particular keyword. For example, let’s do a search for EOS Rebel T2 using the allintitle operator. This search returns only 995 results. This number more closely represents the number of competitors you may have.

Market Research Summary

Before you get too far into your project, it’s important to do some initial research. Think about some of the consequences of skipping any one of these steps...

What could happen if you don’t do a high-level overview?

The product or service you want to promote could be on its way to becoming obsolete. Would you invest time and money into building a website that promoted film cameras? Sure there’s still demand, but even Kodak, who invented the film camera, is moving away from film.

What could happen if you don’t measure the demand for your category?

Your category focus could be too narrow. You may think everyone is as passionate about “unicycle hockey” as you are, only to find out there’s not enough money in the sport to pay your monthly web hosting bill.

What could happen if you don’t check out the competition?

You could invest time and money into a website that will never be profitable. If your website is focused on keywords that are too expensive or too competitive, you will never be successful. You can make money in any category online; you just have to focus on the right keywords within that category.

Where to Find Merchants with Affiliate Programs

After you have carefully researched your category, it’s time to start finding potential merchants to promote. This section is dedicated to helping you find the best merchants within your category.
After you have found a list of potential merchants for your website, you will want to carefully evaluate each of their offers. As an affiliate, you want to send your valuable traffic to the merchant with the best conversion and commission rates. Your job as an affiliate, is to pre-sell the customer on a particular product or service. If your merchants can’t close the sale, then all of your work is for nothing. Before I start promoting any merchant, I carefully consider all of the criteria outlined in this section. Once you’re up and running with a merchant, you will want to continually monitor their performance.

There are three ways to find merchants with affiliate programs:

Join an affiliate network
Search online for affiliate programs
Go directly to a merchant’s website

1. Join an Affiliate Network

Perhaps the easiest way to find merchants is by joining an affiliate network.
An affiliate network is a trusted third party company that handles all of the transactions between affiliates and merchants. In addition to handling all of the transactions, affiliate networks provide detailed reporting, and handle payments between merchants and affiliates.

There are many advantages to partnering with an affiliate network:

A trusted third party tracks all of the transactions.
You get one consolidated payment, rather than individual checks from each merchant.
Consolidated reporting allows you to run numbers on all of your merchants in one place.
A single place to find and review merchants offers.
Some networks allow you to compare merchants performance side by side. This takes some of the guesswork out of finding good merchants. It’s 100% free!
There are dozens of affiliate networks out there. The two biggest networks are Commission Junction, and LinkShare. These two networks attract some of the biggest and best online merchants. Some of Commission Junction’s merchants include Yahoo, eBay, Home Depot, and Citi Group, and thousands more. Some of LinkShare’s merchants include Wal-Mart, Dell, Avon, and Apple.

More Affiliate Networks to Consider:

Share a Sale - The favorite network of many affiliates. They provide all of the enhanced functionality and reliability of the big networks. The only drawback is that they don’t have a lot of big name merchants.

ClickBank - If you are into promoting “info products”, or software, ClickBank has thousands of merchants.

Performics - They feature a lot of high-end retailers like Eddie Bauer, Bose, and Kohls.
Go to tools section you get the resources to see more affiliate networks.

2. Search Online for Affiliate Programs

Another great way to find merchants with affiliate programs is to simply search for them using your favorite search engine. When I’m looking for prospective merchants to promote on my website, I search for terms like: “{Merchant } Affiliate
Program”, "WeBmasters" or “{Category} Affiliate Programs”. {Merchant} represents a specific merchant, and {Category} represents a specific category. By searching for merchants this way, you may have your eyes opened to some opportunities you never even knew existed.
The main advantage of using a search engine to find affiliate programs is that you’re able to find merchants who run inhouse or self-managed affiliate programs. I’ll discuss the pros and cons of these self-managed affiliate programs later on in this chapter.

3. Go Directly to an Merchant’s Website

One of the most straightforward ways to find out if a particular merchant has an affiliate program, is to visit their website. Most merchants with an affiliate program place a link in the footer of their website. Look for a link titled “Affiliates” or “Partners”. If you’re unable to find a link to their affiliate program in the website footer, checkout their sitemap. In most cases, if a merchant has an affiliate program, you will be able to find it in one of these places.

If you’re not able to find a link to their affiliate program anywhere on their website, you can try using their contact form to inquire about their affiliate program. Some companies don’t like to advertise that they have an affiliate program. For example, Chase Bank, which has a credit card affiliate program does not disclose anywhere on their website that they have an affiliate program. This is because Chase’s affiliate program is by invitation only. This is the only invite-only program I have ever seen. Most of the time when you can’t find a link it’s because the merchant either overlooked it, or forgot to put links to their affiliate program on their website.

Selecting the Best Merchants to Promote

Now that you know where to find merchants, you need to understand how to select the best merchants. There are several factors to consider when selecting merchants for your website. By using the guidelines outlined in this section you will know what to look for when sizing up merchants.

If You Were a Customer

The first thing I do when evaluating a merchant’s affiliate program is put myself in the shoes of their customer. If you were a prospective customer would you buy products or services from this merchant?

Some things you may consider as a potential customer:

• Are they a reputable company?
  
• Do they have good pricing?
  
• Do they have a good selection?
  
• What is their return policy?
  
• Is their website easy to use?
  
• Is their website secure?
  
• What makes them stand out from their competitors?
  

Before I consider promoting a particular merchant, I visit their website and use it like a customer would. In many cases, I’ll even buy something from the merchant so that I can evaluate their shopping cart and checkout processes.

Real Life Example:

In early 2005 I had considered promoting a skin care company. Before I invested time and effort into promoting them, I decided to checkout their website. Everything looked good initially. The site was easy to use, their offer was compelling, and the site was secure. I decided to take it a step further and actually order some of their anti-wrinkle cream. As I was checking out there was a big red message on their checkout page that read: “We do not currently accept Visa”.

I was blown away! How could any website not accept Visa as a form of payment? Visa is the most popular and widely used credit card in the world. Why would I bother promoting a company that doesn’t accept Visa?

As you can see, putting yourself in the shoes of the customer can help you eliminate problematic merchants up-front. Think of what may have happened if I had started promoting this merchant without first doing this important research.

Tip:

I highly recommend doing a test purchase with your prospective merchants. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to perform a successful test, and the information is invaluable. If you’re not planning on keeping the merchandise that you buy, I suggest you buy something ultra-cheap that can easily be returned or cancelled*. I didn’t need the wrinkle cream that I attempted to purchase, but I had nothing to lose because it was a free sample. I only had to pay a small charge
for shipping.

* Make sure you’re aware of the Merchants return or cancellation policies.

Does it make Sense for Your Website Visitors?

Does the merchant offer products and services that your website visitors would be interested in? Are the merchant’s products and services relevant to your website? The more relevant your merchant’s offerings are to your content, the more likely your visitors will be to click through and buy.

Sales and Reporting Considerations

It’s important to understand how a merchant will be tracking sales. Do they use a trusted third-party affiliate network like Commission Junction? Do they use industry-standard affiliate tracking software like My Affiliate Program? Do they have their own internal tracking solution?

What Kind of Reporting Do They Offer?

As an affiliate, it’s critical to know detailed information about each of your merchants. Different merchants may provide different statistics. If the merchant belongs to an affiliate network or uses industry-standard affiliate tracking software,the reporting capabilities will be fairly consistent. The more detailed reporting a merchant provides, the more information you will have to make decisions about your campaigns. As an affiliate, I would rather have too much information than not enough.
It’s also important that the reports are updated frequently. The faster you have information, the faster you will be able to take action. Some merchants offer real-time reporting, which is very helpful. Some Merchants will batch their transactions daily, while others may batch their transactions weekly.

Real Life Example:

One of the challenges of promoting credit cards is the delayed reporting. Most credit card companies compensate their affiliates based on approved credit card applications. This can take anywhere from 1-6 weeks depending on the credit card offer. Imagine if you were spending money on a pay per click campaign only to find out 6 weeks later that you have been losing money the entire time! Here are some of the most important statistics I look for in my reports:

• How many clicks did I send to the merchant?
• What time and date did the visitor make a purchase?
• What items did they purchase?
• How much commission did I earn?

Payment Considerations

Almost as important as HOW MUCH you get paid is WHEN you get paid. If your merchant runs their affiliate program through an affiliate network, like Commission Junction, you will be compensated when the affiliate network sends out payments. Most affiliate networks send out payments monthly.

These payments generally include all of the prior month’stransactions. For example, if you made 10 sales in January for a merchant, you would receive your commissions the following month (February). This allows merchants to verify all of the transactions before a payment is issued. This is necessary because in some cases a sale may be reversed because of a fraudulent or problematic order.

If your merchant runs an independent affiliate program, you will be compensated on their time-table. Some merchants may pay their affiliates every 2 weeks, while others pay them once a quarter (Amazon.com). Generally speaking, most independent merchants compensate their affiliates on a monthly basis similar to the affiliate networks.

Many international affiliates (outside of the US and Canada) may experience additional payment delays. If you are an international affiliate, check with your merchant or affiliate network for more details about your payment schedule. In most cases the delay is minimal.

How Do You Get Paid?

Most merchants and affiliate networks will send you a commission check. Many merchants now offer direct deposit. This is my preferred method of payment. You tend to get your payment faster and it’s more reliable than the postal service.
Plus, I hate trying to track down checks every month; it’s nice to know the money is in the bank!

Do They Offer Custom Payouts for Top Affiliates?

Merchants will often reward their top affiliates by offering them better payouts and commission rates. Look for merchants that offer bonuses and increased commissions for top performers. Some merchants will publish their custom rates in their program terms, while other merchants have unpublished commission rates. If you don’t see anything published in the merchant’s program terms, you will want to call or e-mail the Affiliate Manager to find out if they have unpublished payouts for top affiliates.

Tip:
It’s worth talking to your merchants about custom rates. Some of the Merchants I promote pay me double their published

What Kind of Marketing Material Do They Offer?

Good merchants know how important it is to provide their affiliates with good marketing material. Some merchants only offer standard banners and text links. This type of marketing collateral is generally not effective. Banners no longer work because of banner blindness. Banners are mostly ignored by users who are just looking for good content.

Examples of good marketing material:

Electronic product catalogs (datafeed) - With a good electronic product catalog, an affiliate can market specific products and services for a merchant. Product catalogs should include pictures, good descriptions, and specific URL’s that point to destination pages on the merchant’s website.

Affiliate links with custom destination pages - The worst place to send a visitor from your affiliate website is to a merchant’s home page. Home pages are not optimized for sales conversions. Good merchants will provide their affiliates with deep links that point to specific areas of their website optimized for sales conversions.

Content links or web pages - Many merchants will provide their affiliates with content for their website. This is an easy and fast way to start promoting a merchant. You may find that by customizing the content for your visitors, you will have more success. Plus, if several affiliate partners are using the same exact content, it will be hard to make your offer stand out from the crowd.

Keyword lists - Some merchants will provide a recommended list of keywords for their affiliate partners. Sometimes the keyword lists are general and sometimes they’re very specific and comprehensive.

Websites - A few merchants are now providing their affiliates with entire websites. If the merchant provides a website, all you have to do is register a domain name, and point it to your affiliate website. In some cases the merchant may even provide you with a unique domain name. All you have to do is drive traffic to the website. You don’t have to worry about hosting or updating the website because it’s all handled by the merchant.

What Products or Service to Promote?

The easiest way to make money in affiliate marketing is by promoting products and services that interest you. You can make money in categories that you know nothing about, but it’s always easiest to get started by promoting things you have an interest in.

For example, when I started in affiliate marketing I promoted online dating services. Before I began working as an affiliate, I owned and operated an online dating site. Because I was interested in online dating, and had a little experience running my own dating site, it was easy for me to promote other dating services. My previous experiences in onlinedating helped me to understand who the customers were, and what they were looking for.

No matter what your interests are, I can assure you that there is an affiliate program that caters to your interests. I went out to lunch with a friend of mine one time, and he asked me what he should promote. I asked him what he liked doing in his spare time. He mentioned that he was really into playing video games. I suggested that he could create a gamingwebsite with video game reviews, and strategies for his favorite games. He could feature advertisers that sell video games like Amazon.com, and WalMart.com on his website.

Action Item:

If you have not yet decided what you are going to promote, take a few minutes to write down some ideas. Think aboutthe following questions:

1-What are your hobbies?
2-What are you passionate about?
3-Do you use a particular product or service that you are always raving about to your family and friends?
4-Do you have any special training or experience?

Real Life Example:

You don’t have to be an expert in your category. Simply having an interest or a desire to learn more about something is enough. For example, I didn’t know anything about Voice over Internet (VOIP) a few months ago, but I was interested in learning more. So I spent a few hours checking out different Voice over Internet providers, comparing features, andtrying to understand the benefits of using Voice over Internet instead of a traditional phone line. I even took it one step further and decided to try it out for myself. By becoming a Voice over Internet customer, I reallystarted to understand what all the buzz was about. It was then very easy for me to create a website and start promoting merchants in this category.

It’s not necessary to buy or use every product or service you want to promote. If that were the case, I would have dozens of credit cards in my wallet. However, it is important that you understand the key benefits of each product so you are able to accurately and effectively market the product.

Finding Products and Services to Promote

It’s impossible for me to overemphasize the importance of finding and selecting good merchants. As an affiliate your jobis to presell a merchant’s products or services. No matter how good your marketing is, the merchant still has to close the deal.

I’ve met several experienced affiliate marketers who seem to be doing everything right, but are unable to be profitable when promoting certain merchants.

In addition to selecting the best merchants for your website, you need to make sure that you are promoting themerchant’s best converting products and services. There’s no substitute for experience when it comes to selecting the best products or services to promote, but using some due diligence may help you filter out some poor converting products in advance.

How Does an Affiliate Earn Money?

There are four basic actions in which affiliates are paid when they send their visitors to a merchant’s website.

The visitor buys something from the advertiser (Pay per Sale).
The visitor completes a lead form (Pay per Lead).
The visitor downloads, installs, or uses some product or service (Pay per Action).
The visitor clicks on a link and visits the merchant’s website (Pay per Click).

Below are detailed explanations of each action:

Pay Per Sale:

Pay per Sale is the most common type of affiliate program on the web. With Pay per Sale you refer visitors to a merchant that sells products or services. You earn a commission when that visitor buys something from the merchant. In most cases you earn a percentage of the sale, but in some instances you may be given a flat dollar amount.
Most merchants that sell products online pay their affiliates a percentage of sales. Merchants that fall into this category include, Home Depot, REI, Dell Computers, and most big e-tailers on the Internet.
Most of the merchants that pay their affiliates a flat dollar amount sell services. Merchants who sell web hosting, online dating, and other online services tend to compensate their affiliates with a flat dollar amount, rather than a percentage
of the sale.

Advantages of Earning a Percentage of Sales

You can earn a ton of cash on big ticket items.(Example: You refer a customer who buys a $2,500 computer).You can earn a ton of cash when your visitors buys multiple items at once.(Example: You refer a customer who buys a pair of shoes, matching purse and jacket). Some merchants will pay their affiliates commissions on repeat purchases.

Disadvantages of Earning a Percentage of Sales

Your visitor may by a small ticket item. (Example: The customer you referred buys a pair of socks, and never returns to purchase anything else). Your visitor may return the merchandise, which could result in your commission being reversed. (Example: The shirt your visitor bought last week just doesn’t fit right. They return it, and your commission is reversed).

Pay Per Lead:

Pay Per Lead merchants are some of the most desirable merchants to promote. With Pay Per Lead you are compensated when your visitor completes an online lead form. Popular Pay Per Lead programs include merchants in the insurance, mortgage, and service businesses.
Merchants will only pay affiliates for qualified and legitimate leads. For example, if you send a California insurance company a lead from New York where the company cannot provide insurance, that is an unqualified lead, and chances are you will not be compensated for it. Another no-brainer is that merchants won’t pay their affiliates for leads with fake or incomplete data. A lead without a phone number or e-mail address is no good to a merchant.
Conversion rates on Pay Per Lead programs tend to be higher than Pay Per Sale programs because the visitor isn’t buying anything, they’re simply completing an online form. It’s much easier to get visitors to fill out a form than to buy something online. However, the payout for a lead may be less than the payout for a good Pay per Sale program.

Advantages of Pay Per Lead Programs

The conversion rate for Pay Per Lead programs can be better than Pay Per Sale.You can earn big commissions in industries like mortgage loans and insurance.

Disadvantages of Pay Per Lead Programs

The commissions can be less than Pay Per Sale programs.Some of the leads you send from your website may not be qualified.

Pay Per Action:

Pay Per Action programs pay their affiliates when their visitors download, install, or use some product or service. Many of the merchants in this space are software companies or web service companies that want customers to try their products or services.
A good example of a Pay Per Action affiliate program is Yahoo!. They compensate their affiliates when their visitors download and install their Instant Messenger application, Search toolbar, or Music Jukebox software.

Advantages of Pay Per Action Programs

Your visitors don’t have to buy anything. In most cases they just have to try some software or web service.

Disadvantages of Pay Per Action Programs

A visitor you refer may not meet the minimum software or hardware requirements to install the software.

Pay Per Click:

Pay Per Click affiliate programs are almost non-existent now. Once a good idea, too many affiliates defrauded merchants by clicking on their own affiliate links, or by creating “click-bots” (software applications) that would automatically click on their links. The cost and time involved with monitoring the fraud had become cost-prohibitive for many merchants.

Advantages of Pay Per Click Programs

• Good conversion rates - The user simply clicks a link and visits the merchant’s website.
• If you have a lot of traffic, you could make a lot of money.
Disadvantages of Pay Per Click Programs
• Merchants that offer this type of affiliate program are few and far between.
• The payout per click can be very small.

An Important Note About Pay Per Click Programs

While many advertisers with affiliate programs are moving away from this payout model, there are some popular contextual advertising networks such as Google AdSense, and the Yahoo Publisher Network that are thriving under the Pay Per Click model. Contextual Ad networks are outside the scope of this blog, and will not be covered in detail. So if you need go to the Tool´s for Making Money and get it all.

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing? What’s in it for me? I’m glad you asked. Here is a summary of just a few of the benefits you can experience as an affiliate:

Flexibility - Business on your terms

Perhaps the #1 benefit for affiliates is flexibility. I haven’t had to punch a clock, report to a boss, or sit in rush-hour traffic since I quit my day job and became a full-time affiliate. I take vacations whenever I want. I never miss my kid’s school or sporting events. And I’ve never been happier!

Money - The only limit on your earning potential is you

Almost as nice as the flexibility, is the money. I don’t consider it easy money; I’ve worked hard for every dollar I’ve earned. However, I’m in control of what I make! When you own an affiliate business you’re in the driver’s seat. If you need to make more money, you just spend more time working on your affiliate business.
The nice thing about earning money from an affiliate business is that it can be residual. Wait! What do I mean by residual? It means that my websites make money even when I’m not working on them. This frees me up to build more

money-making websites, which also earn residual income.

As you can see this has a multiplying effect. In the last 2 years I have developed over 100 websites that have helped me to earn a substantial monthly income. For the most part, these websites are self-sustaining. If I take a week off and go on vacation my affiliate websites are still making money.
My affiliate websites are not 100% maintenance free. However, I only have to spend a minimal amount of time each month maintaining them. This maintenance is mostly just reviewing reports and trying to determine ways to earn more money.

Low Start-Up Costs - You don’t have to mortgage your house to launch an affiliate business

The costs associated with starting up a typical brick and mortar business range from tens of thousands of dollars, to millions of dollars. This presents a huge obstacle for most aspiring entrepreneurs. Even starting your own e-commerce website can be expensive and difficult.
You can launch a quality affiliate website that can start generating instant cash for just a few hundred dollars, even if you have little or no experience developing websites.

No Employees - Unless you count yourself

One of the biggest challenges facing business owners today is finding and managing good employees. Employees can cost a business a lot of money. When you add up the cost of an employee’s salary, benefits, and other entitlements, it can add up quickly! There are also hidden costs associated with having employees. Consider the costs of unemployment if you have to lay off an employee. Consider the liability if an employee gets hurt on the job. What if an employee sues you for wrongful termination? What if an employee goes to work for one of your competitors?

As you can see it can be quite a burden to have employees working for your business. With an affiliate business you can run the business without hired help. Not only does this save you a lot of money, but it also eliminates risks associated with having employees on your payroll.

No Inventory - All you need is a computer and an Internet connection

No need for an inventory when you have an affiliate business. The only “goods” you’re selling is information. You’re delivering that information over the Internet, so there’s no need to deliver anything either. That’s the beauty of having an information business or becoming an infopreneur.

No Customer Service - Let someone else worry about it

Nearly every business has customers and therefore must provide customer service. An affiliate business is unique because you don’t necessarily have customers, but rather website visitors. You are merely referring these website visitors to online merchants who sell products and services. These merchants handle any customer service issues that may arise.

Unlimited Products and Services to Promote - The possibilities are endless

Online merchants range from Fortune 500 companies like Wal-Mart, to small businesses like BackCountry.com, and everything in between. The selection of products and services that you can promote with your affiliate websites are unlimited!

Market to a Global Audience - They don’t call it the World Wide Web for nothing

The number of potential customers you can reach through your affiliate business keeps growing every day. Millions of new users a month from all over the world are accessing the web. This means that the marketplace is growing too. The bigger the marketplace gets, the more opportunities you will have to make money online.

What ever do you think you will do , you are a seller, of products, news, informations..but you are a seller and don´t forget you are one in millions trying to seel.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work

When a visitor comes to your website and clicks on one of your merchant’s links, a tracking cookie is set on the visitor’s computer. A cookie, in Internet terms, is nothing more than a small text file that is placed on a user’s computer when they visit a website. This cookie tells a merchant that a visitor was referred by your website. When that visitor makes a purchase, or completes some other action on a merchant’s website, the merchant gives you a commission. That’s it!
You don’t have to fulfill any products, handle customer service issues, or do anything else. All you’re doing is referring visitors from your website to a merchant’s website.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

In simple terms, affiliate marketing is where you refer visitors from your website to a merchant’s website. A merchant is any individual or company that sells products or services online. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, eBay, and Yahoo are all examples of merchants with affiliate programs. These companies pay their affiliates to promote their products and services online. Merchants with affiliate programs range in size from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies.
You earn commissions when the visitors you refer complete some type of action on a merchant’s website. For example,you may earn a commission if the visitor you refer makes a purchase, completes a lead form, or downloads some software.

Affiliate Marketing

In this section you will learn the basics of affiliate marketing. You will learn what it is, how it works, and most importantly,how you can make money as an affiliate.
If you are brand new to affiliate marketing, or just getting started, I recommend that you take time to read this section so that you can build a strong foundation for further learning.
If you are already comfortable with the basics of affiliate marketing, you can skip ahead to Section 2.

Tool´s for making money

Tool´s to make you money:

1- As you must no there are several tool´s that realy pay, for the begginers my advise is to start width advtesires programs like google adsense. You have a lot of paying programs like adbrite, clicksor, and so on..but need already traffic to have results, and need that you have already a Blog or site well prepered. So my advised is that you start width the google adsense.´

2- At the second step, we should join a webmaster program, like commision junction,share a sail, Performics...this are suppliers off affliates programs where you can pick up what you want to sell. Over these programs you have ppc, plead and psell. Ppc, it´s a paying for click, like google adesense, but in these case you chose the link you want and it´s a permanent one, not like google that is dynamic.

3-Keywords

How to start

How to start making money by blogging, that is the question!!

For start u must have the ideia what you will speak about, you should get the field you like and understand. If you start blogging about only about a huge heading, like celebrity´s and don´t know nothing about it, only you read, you are working for a zommbie blog, so FORGET IT!!!

First off all you must explain all your ideias in a simple English, width a short text and an clear message.

These blog is made in several diferent section´s and Tems. To start we have the Affiliate Programs, that gives you the general all ideia for what you have to make to do a BLOG MAKING MONEY. These will be publish almost weekly to full fill your knowledge about it. It´s also provide not only of the text but also the tool´s, almost plug-and -play to start since the beggining to use it.

After we publish these General Ideia, we step-by-step will work in the lonely tems, souch as How to produce a different Layout? How to attrack more Traffic to your Blog ? how....and so on, at these point we will not only provide to you all the knowledge and Tool´s but also some sites/blogs that explain´s everthing that must be explain.

The tool´s are disposal at http://www2tools.blogspot.com in a condesate board, for not losing time looking for it in the web. It also have always a small descrition off the tool. Since these is very dynamic, it will be always reveue and incresase width good tool´s that some off them I use also.