Affiliate Marketing - And the Learning Curve

When you put up your first website – you have to admit that you are pretty green to the ways of the Internet World. You think that once your website is up, and you have put your links in place, you will be in the money. I, and I am sure many, would love that to be true. Just think how many Super Affiliates we would have. I will give you a small sampling of what to truly expect. The Begin of the Begin You will be excited at first, and you will have a sense of pride in your accomplishment. Granted, it is no small feat to getting a website up and online. But this is just the beginning of your Internet Marketing experience. Once you have your website up, you should be asking yourself -- where do I begin, or, what do I do now? If you are short of cash, which, in most cases people in the beginning are -- you can begin by: 1. Writing articles 2. Optimizing your site for the search engines 3. Putting Adsense on your site All this takes time and work. But, when you first begin, you do have time to optimize, to write articles, and to put adsense ads on your site. Why? It has been said that for the next six months or nine months, Google, and possibly, the other search engines, may put you in the Sandbox. Some say the Sandbox exists, some says it does not. Whatever it is called, you will see a degree of dormancy in your site. My own thinking is that there may be a pre-set time of six months before you see a rise in your unique clicks – I know I did. I feel that there may be several reasons for this: 1. It's a great way to protect the Internet community against unscrupulous sites – I figure that these sites have a lifespan of six months before people give them the boot. It only takes one person to feel the blunt of a scam, before talk in the online forums begins.

2. Websites go up and go down daily. The search engines are looking at saving themselves time and money. If you are still on line after six months or nine months, you're paying your dues, and they may figure you are serious about maintaining a business online.

What Do I Do During That Six or Nine Month Period

First, and foremost – since I have supplied you with this information – do not get frustrated and throw in the towel. Granted, at first the only clicks you may see is your own, but that will change.

Second, start positioning yourself, so when your dormancy with the search engines ends, you have the quality content, and the quality products to begin to fly. That means, writing articles, getting your name out to the masses, and learning to utilize Adsense.
And when you have spare change, try your hand at advertising on Adwords.

In the beginning your learning curve is just out of the starting gate – take this time to read, buy appropriate ebooks, experiment and research. All are important to moving your learning curve to the expert level.

To conclude, a website is just a small part, but an important part, of becoming an Affiliate Marketer. The other important elements, is persistence, hard work, and marketing. And finally, if you still have the passion after the initial exhilaration of becoming an online entrepreneur wanes – then you'll make it.

Getting the most out of Manual Traffic Exchanges

Manual traffic exchanges are a dime a dozen, or are they? I have met some people who say traffic exchanges really work, and some who feel that they are a waste of time. There is a science to using manual traffic exchanges, you need to do your homework.

There are many manual traffic exchanges that depend on bells and whistles to attract members, they have games to play, bonus credits for answering questions while surfing, (some of the questions are to discourage cheating and failure to answer them correctly can result in the suspension of you account). But first you need to know your target audience, most people who use traffic exchanges (manual and auto) are not looking to join your program or buy your product, they are looking for the same thing you are. How to get more traffic to my web page, they are looking for information. Information is what sells on traffic exchanges, information on how to get more traffic to their web pages.

So how does this help you if you are not selling information? The answer is splash pages. Use splash pages to collect leads, then develop a personel relationship with them and introduce them to your product or service.
Next you need to find the best traffic exchanges for you. Different people have success with different traffic exchanges even when they promote the same page. Why, this depends on a number of things. What time you surf, how often you surf etc.

So join a few traffic exchanges to surf, you will need a tabbed browser such as Firefox or Crazy Browser. Firefox is highly recommended because of the extra virus protection it provides, but some have had issues with it so if Firefox won't work for you try Crazy Browser.

Set your traffic exchanges up in groups according to their timer, timers run
anywhere from 10 to 60 seconds. The closer the timers the smoother your surfing will be. Try to surf no more than 5-8 traffic exchanges at a time 10 at the most and keep a look out for the same pages, many pages have the members name or even a photo on them. If you see the same page over and over one of two things are happening, one the member has put his/her page in the exchange more than once which is encouraged by some traffic exchanges or most likely you really are seeing the same page over and over.

In this case you don't want to waste your hard earned credits in this
traffic exchange. If in doubt see if the traffic exchange has a built-in hit ratio, this tells you what percentage your page(s) is being viewed by unique members each day. Some owners only care about the quanity of clicks and not the quaility of those clicks.

Set a certain time to surf, twice a day if possible and the amount of time you can alot to surfing each day. Surf each exchange about an hour each day, for instance if you have three hours to surf each day divide your traffic exchanges into three groups. Whatever time you can alot to surfing divide it up evenly.

You also have to track your pages to see which ones are working and which ones you need to change. If a page works in some exchanges and not in others, simply change the ones that are not working or remove them from the traffic echange that is isn't working in, always have an extra splash page ready to try in your traffic exchanges. And remember that the bigger the
exchange the more people see your page, but that don't always mean that it is the best exchange, I have got more signups from some of the smaller exchanges than the biggest ones.

So if you want more bang for your click, don't settle for bells and whistles, do your "Due Diligence" and select the best traffic exchange to suit your needs.