Introduction
Many clients come to us for
website hosting at AeroHOST, expecting
to do business on the Internet by
simply putting up a home page on one
of our hosting servers, with the
expectation that a simple strategy of
'Internet presence' is all that is
required to start making money on the
'net. This may be true if you already
have an established business and you
are just complementing your services
with a website, but if you're a
merchant starting basically from
scratch, you'll need to do some
marketing to build up your
traffic.
Once you have a website, the
very real job of attracting visitors
to your site begins. Unless you have
a top ranking position in the major
search engines, your site will be
doomed to obscurity amongst the
millions of other sites out there. If
someone searches for 'chrome widgets'
and your site is listed in the 84th
position, it's unlikely that a
potential visitor will ever see your
home page.
Submitting your site to the
search engines is a critical part of
marketing on the net, and we cover
the basics in our search
engine tips article. But, unless
you are willing to pay for placement,
these days the search engines are
very slow at indexing sites - what
used to take 24 hours now takes weeks
and/or months. Furthermore, the paid
placement system does NOT guarantee
results and you may be paying for
something that has little or no
benefit to you, because the fees
are charged whether or not you make a
sale.

This article will deal with
some important points about an
alternative marketing method -
affiliate (or associate)
programs. Affiliate programs,
such as the one above, allow other
webmasters to link to your site and
collect a commission if one of their
referrals purchases a product or
service from you. Using 'cookie'
technology, the visitor can be
tracked to the original referring
affiliate, even if the visitor
actually makes the purchase at a
later date. These programs can cost
little to set up (with no ongoing
fees), if you choose the right
one, and you can structure it to
only pay your affiliates a fee
when they make a
sale.
Affiliate Program
Types
As a merchant, there are two
basic types of programs to choose
from, network sytems and
private systems. Network
systems, such as Linkshare, have all
the software installed on a central
server, and you typically pay a
substantial setup fee, often along
with ongoing monthly fees and
commissions on your sales. It is true
that they provide you with an
affiliate membership and handle
commission payouts, but affiliates
can be reached by other methods (see
below), and the process of sending
funds to your affiliates can be
easily automated. There are a few
distinct disadvantages to the network
system:
 |
Affiliates do
not go with you if
you decide to change your
system. |
 |
Affiliates are
constantly bombarded with
offers from other
competing
companies, often causing
them to lose focus on
your
product |
 |
The network may
increase their rates
at any
time |
 |
The network fees
are typically quite high,
from a small business
point of view, leaving
you less money to
motivate your affiliate
team. |
 |
The network
domain (not your
domain) is used in
the linking code that
your affiliates use, and
thus your 'link
popularity' is not
increased - an
important factor in
search engine ranking.
Having a hundred
affiliate websites linked
to your domain can
dramatically increase
your search engine
ranking! |
Your own private system, on
the other hand, gives you much more
control with none of the
disadvantages above. You can purchase
your software and pay a
one-time license fee, install
it on your website, and enjoy all
the benefits a successful
affiliate program can reap. You'll
have all the administrative reporting
available at a glance, and you'll
have direct contact with your
affiliates so that you can help
them make more money by listening
to their feedback and providing
them with what they need from
you.
After spending years working
with affiliate programs, we have
scoured the net for a top notch,
affordable program that will pay off
for you. We found the answer with
Affiliate Wiz, a data driven
system that is installed for
you, easy to use for both
you and your
affiliates, and powerful in
its reporting capabilities. It
also has the option to configure a
multi-tier system that allows your
affiliates to make money through
sub-affiliates. It was
designed from the ground up to
integrate with our Windows hosting
servers; for more information, please
click on the banner below
...

Bonne Chance!
Adrian Biffen
Systems Administrator
AeroHOST Web Systems
http://aerohost.biz/
|