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check them out and see if they fit! Add the acceptable ones to your list of
POSSIBLE PARTNERS for each keyword.
And you can use this Search It! link-finder technique for all of your POSSIBLE
PARTNERS for all of your keywords!
4.2. Reduce Risk by Diversifying
One of the major attractions of becoming an affiliate is the small amount of risk
involved. As an affiliate, you have little or no...
" product development expenses
" advertising costs
" inventory to maintain
" overhead expenses (salaries, physical location, etc.)
In other words, affiliates do not have millions at stake.
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Affiliate Masters Course
But you do have one big risk...
If a merchant or backend provider goes out of business, it takes you with it. Let s
talk briefly about how to minimize this risk...
After you review the affiliate directories and backend providers, you should have
a good selection of programs. How many programs should you choose? How
do you know which ones are solid?
You don t, really. Yes, you can weed out the dogs by doing the basic research
outlined below. But most of us just don t have the ability or time to thoroughly
analyze a company, its financials, and its business model& and then predict
success or failure.
So your best bet is to spread your business among as many programs as
possible that fit with your Site Concept. But there are some important qualifiers
to this policy...
1) If you represent 10 programs, don t put them all on the same Keyword-
Focused Content Page. Work in only the few that are tightly relevant to the
content of each page.
2) Pick the best-of-breed from each category of merchant. For example, if you
plan on representing a Net marketing company, SiteSell would be the obvious
choice (ahem!).
If you plan unusually heavy support for a given category of product, you might
want to represent the best two merchants. For example, suppose you foresee
hundreds of book links on your site. It might be a good idea to choose the best 2
online bookstores -- if Bookstore A and Bookstore B fit with your concept and
both seem to be stable companies, then use these two. No more, though...
3) Don t choose too many programs. Tracking each program takes time, so 10
programs is probably a good balance. If any one of them dies, you don t lose too
much.
4) Your best results will come from focusing on a smaller group of quality
programs (from within the 10). Their products must...
" be excellent
" be complementary with, even enhance, each other
" fit your concept
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Affiliate Masters Course
and...
" be from a rock-solid company. Since you will give these companies more
attention than the others, you must feel very comfortable with their business
prospects.
Here s the bottom line...
Don t give too much emphasis to any single program, unless you have some
special reason to feel unusually comfortable with it.
Things happen. So protect yourself by choosing a variety of affiliate partners.
Of course, you can also reduce your risk by weeding out the dogs through some
basic research...
4.2.1. Prune by Eliminating
High-Risk Programs
Find the good programs and eliminate the dogs by considering the following plus
signs, minus signs, and red flags. Let s start with the plus signs, signified by +
(which means good things to look for ). Here they are, in the approximate order
of importance...
+ High quality product or service -- Remember, it s your reputation that is on
the line (and online!). Don t recommend products that UNDERdeliver.
+ Merchant has a good site that sells effectively.
+ Ability for affiliate to link straight to individual products, rather than just to
the home page. (If the visitor has to find the product that you recommend, your
Conversion Rate plummets.)
+ Type of payment model... Pay-per-sale and pay-per-lead are good. This is
true performance marketing. If your referred visitor delivers the desired
response, you get paid. What about pay-per-click? See red flags below.
+ Affiliate Support...
" Accurate, reliable, real-time, online accounting, preferably with some kind of
ability to audit by spot-checking
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Affiliate Masters Course
" Detailed traffic and linking stats
" Notification by e-mail when a sale is made
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