Google decided to put a lot more weight on Social Media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. They feel that a great indicator of how relevant a website is should in part be based on how many people on the internet, especially on the social media sites follow, and interact with that site. In other words the more followers, and engagement you have with people on Facebook and Twitter for example, the more relevant you must be.

So it is important to have a large engagement in these networks. There are many things that you can do to help build your brand on these networks.

1. Create relevant and important updates on Facebook:

- Create SEO friendly updates, with Keywords  being used in the update, as well as including the link to your site, that is directly related to your topic. Don’t do more than 3 updates a week, it comes off more spammy.

2. Twitter – Tweets should include good catchy information. include link, message, and hashtags. Links should be shortened using something like www.bitly.com, because twitter only allows 140 characters.

What is an Online Affiliate?

There are 2 types of affiliates
-Conversion based affiliates
-Traffic based affiliates

A traffic based affiliate is like Google adsense in which you put ads on your website, webpage or blog. Then if a person clicks on the ad you may make 10 or 15 cents on the click. So with a traffic based affiliate all you have to do is lead people from one place to another place to get paid.

A conversion based affiliate is where you can sign up for Amazon’s affiliate program (which is free) and get access to all their products. You select what product you want to put on your website then they give you code for the product. The code is place on the website and in turn becomes the product. Now when a
person click on the product it takes them to the Amazon product page. Now if the person buys the product from Amazon you get a percentage of the commission.

What are the benefits of an affiliate program.
- Most if not all affiliate programs are free to sign up for
- Much easier to acquire then an wholesaler or drop shipper
- The process is automated the orders are fulfilled by the affiliate program not you

Requirements to setup an Affiliate
- You must a have working website, webpage, and/or blog

Creating an account with Cj.com
- Go to http://cj.com
- Click on get started
- Click on Publisher then the Get Started Now button
- Then click on I do not have a CJ Publisher account and wish to sign up then click submit
- Once you form is filled out then you can apply for affiliates.

Applying for Affiliates in cj.com
- Login to cj.com
- Click on get links
- Select the category that best fits what you are selling or you can do a search as well.
- Click on the Affiliate you want to apply for and at the bottom of the page click on the Apply to
Program button.

Creating an account with Clickbank.com
- Go to https://accounts.clickbank.com/public/#/signup/form/
- Fill out the information required on this page
- Click on Submit Account Registration

Applying for Affiliates in clickbank.com
- Login to clickbank.com
- Click on Marketplace
- Search for the affiliate program you want to work with
- Click on Promote to work with the desired affiliate program

Creating an account with linkshare.com
- Go to http://www.linkshare.com
- In the bottom right hand corner click on the Publishers Join Now button
- Fill out the form and once filled out then you can apply for affiliates.

Applying for Affiliates in linkshare.com
- Login to linkshare.com
- Click on Programs
- Select the category that best fits what you are selling or you can do a search as well.
- To the right of the affiliate is an Apply button in which you push to apply for the affiliate.

One major thing to keep in mind is the affiliate could take several of days before they accept you.

Assignments
- Make sure to create an account with cj.com and linkshare.com
- Make sure to sign up for at least 5 affiliates with each

-Power of Blogging

-Different Ways to Monitize Your Blog

Power Of Blogging

Some key things to think about when blogging is 1. Blog on what you know about. You will find it much easier to be motivated to blog when you have interests yourself in what you blog on. Having no other knowledge on a topic, will make it hard later down the road to have much to blog on.  It will become important to make a list of 40 or 50 different topics to blog on. This will help down the road on times where you might struggle on what to blog on. You can go back through your blog topics and write on one of those.

Blogs are great ways to to get noticed quick. Since so much content gets created so quickly on blogs search engines love to see what is the newest things being talked about, and will latch onto a blog rather quickly. A key thing to understand is you should start writing many blog posts and publishing these posts before you start monitizing – get content and get traffic. Search engines will catch on quick to you if you start out creating content and then all the sudden your site is dropping tons of affiliate links etc.

Understand your audience

1. People shopping or looking to buy something

2. Research information

3. Come online to be entertained.

Making Money on aBlog

- Banner Advertising – Actually allowing others to come to you and advertise on your site. 3rd party advertising www.buysellads.com, takes percentage. Or you can allow people through your blog to advertise on the site.

- Affiliate Marketing – place links, text links, product links,  Some Great sources are: Amazon.com, CJ.com, Linkshare.com, Shareasale.com

- Building a Mailing List -  Create a form to capture email address, market to those folks, free report, subscribe to RSS, pop up email capture form, mailchimp.com aweber.com, constantcontact.com

- Google Adsense – Giving permission for google to run ads to products or services right on your site. They will be niche specific, because google will see what your content is about and run specific related ads to that content

- Self Promotion and Consultations – Promote your own services if you have an expertise in a field you blog on

- Paid Blog Posts Reviews – Get paid to review companies products and promote them on your site.

- Blog Flipping – Create a high traffic, high revenue building site, then sell it for a profit. Good site for this is:  www.flippa.com

What are Amazon Affiliates
Amazon Affiliates are what is know as a conversion based affiliate. Once signed up you have access to all their products, you select what product to put on your site. Once you have selected the product you are given code for the product. You put the product on your site. When a customer clicks on the product you are taken to Amazon then if they buy the product from Amazon you get a percentage of the commission.

Requirements to using an Amazon Affiliate
-Main thing is you need to have a website web page or blog with content.

Benefits to Amazon Affiliates
-Much easier to acquire then drop shipper.
-Can earn up to 8% commission
-All automated don’t need to do any fulfillment
-Person doesn’t have to buy product right away to get credit

How Cookie life works with an Amazon affiliate
- The cookie life for an Amazon affiliate is 24 hours

Starting to work with Amazon Affiliates
-Go to https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
-If you don’t have an account you can Join now for Free!
-Once you have created your account and how given you web site profile.

Working with Links and Banners
1)Off of the dashboard page of the site click on Links and Banners.
2)Click on Add Product Links Now
3)Do a search for the product you want to add to your site.
4)To select the product you want to work with click on Get Link
5)You are given the option of 3 different types of products affiliates: a) Text and Image (most commonly use and easiest to work with) b) Text Only c) Image only (most difficult to work wit).

Follow the following instructions as to how to get this code and put it on your site.

http://blog.prosperlearning.com/ecommerce/?p=1102

Assignments
-Create an Amazon Affiliate Account
-Add at least 10 products to your web page, blog or web site.

- Text/Email
This is the most basic type of affiliate link you work with, it is simple text link for the specific affiliate program.

- Banner/images
This is where you have an image of the store or special with the affiliate program, you can also have rotating images here, a rotating image is multiple image that rotate one after another.

- Individual Products
This is the most specific type of affiliate link, that actual grabs a specific product in which you can put on your website. This is the best type of affiliate to work with if you promoting multiple products on your site.

- How to get affiliate code with cj.com
1) Login to http://www.cj.com
2) Click on Get Links
3) Click on a link that says By Relationship
4) Click on the link that says View Products next to the affiliates
5) Then do a search for the product you want to add to your site.
6) To the far right of the product click on Get HTML
7) Choose which format you want to work with for the product. I recommend the image and text, then you copy the code.

- How to get affiliate code with linkshae.com
1) Login to http://www.linkshare.com
2) Click on Links and a drop down menu appears then click on get links
3) Then click on the advertiser or affiliate you want to work with
4) Off of this page click on Individual Products
5) Search for the product you want to work with once you found the product to the right of the product click on the Get Link button
6) A pop up window appears with the code and then you copy the code

- How to add affiliate code to Magellan Commerce
1) Login into your account with Magellan Commerce
2) Click on My Web site
3) Click on the page you want to add the code to
4) In the description area, click on the source button, paste in the code and save the page

- How to add affiliate code to WordPress
1) Login to your WordPress account
2) In the upper right hand corner click on Posts if you are adding code to a blog post. Or click on pages if you are adding the code to a page.
3) Click on the post or page you want to add the code to
4) In the description area, click on the source button, paste in the code and save the page

This is how you get the code on the site.

Assignments
- Make sure to put at least 5 affiliates on you site from both of the major affiliate programs.

What is an Online Affiliate?

There are 2 types of affiliates
-Conversion based affiliates
-Traffic based affiliates

A traffic based affiliate is like Google adsense in which you put ads on your website, webpage or blog. Then if a person clicks on the ad you may make 10 or

15 cents on the click. So with a traffic based affiliate all you have to do is lead people from one place to another place to get paid.

A conversion based affiliate is where you can sign up for Amazon’s affiliate program (which is free) and get access to all their products. You select what

product you want to put on your website then they give you code for the product. The code is place on the website and in turn becomes the product. Now when a

person click on the product it takes them to the Amazon product page. Now if the person buys the product from Amazon you get a percentage of the commission.

What are the benefits of an affiliate program.
- Most if not all affiliate programs are free to sign up for
- Much easier to acquire then an wholesaler or drop shipper
- The process is automated the orders are fulfilled by the affiliate program not you

Requirements to setup an Affiliate
- You must a have working website, webpage, and/or blog

Creating an account with Cj.com
- Go to http://cj.com
- Click on get started
- Click on Publisher then the Get Started Now button
- Then click on I do not have a CJ Publisher account and wish to sign up then click submit

- Once you form is filled out then you can apply for affiliates.

Applying for Affiliates in cj.com
- Login to cj.com
- Click on get links
- Select the category that best fits what you are selling or you can do a search as well.
- Click on the Affiliate you want to apply for and at the bottom of the page click on the Apply to
Program button.

Creating an account with linkshare.com
- Go to http://www.linkshare.com
- In the bottom right hand corner click on the Publishers Join Now button
- Fill out the form and once filled out then you can apply for affiliates.

Applying for Affiliates in linkshare.com
- Login to linkshare.com
- Click on Programs
- Select the category that best fits what you are selling or you can do a search as well.
- To the right of the affiliate is an Apply button in which you push to apply for the affiliate.

One major thing to keep in mind is the affiliate could take several of days before they accept you.

Assignments
- Make sure to create an account with cj.com and linkshare.com
- Make sure to sign up for at least 5 affiliates with each

An Amazon store is an entire online store or e-commerce store which you construct from your Amazon Associates account to your website. There are many benefits to having an Amazon store on your site, below is a list of such benefits.

1. An Amazon store is free to setup
2. You can add hundreds of products to your website within minutes
3. You can integrate it within your current site to make it look as though it is part of your website

Creating an Amazon Store

The first thing you need to do in order to create an Amazon store is to create an Amazon Associates account you can do this for free by clicking here. Once the account is created you are now ready to create an Amazon Store.

Now that you are in your Associates account on the left sidebar navigation click on astore, then click on add an astore. The first page you come to is the page you need to setup to add your products, the products are setup using categories.

Step 1) Hiding the Category Navigation

The purpose of checking off the check box to hide the category navigation is to make the Amazon store blend in with your current website as much as possible. Once you have done all of this you want to click on the continue button to setup the Color for the Amazon store.

Step 2) To setup a Top Level Category or Parent Category

Click on the Add Category button at the top of the page, once clicked a new default name will appear for the page something like Category 1, you can rename this page to whatever you choose.

To setup a subcategory

Select the existing category you want the subcategory to go under and click on the Add Category button.

Step 3) Adding Product to Your Categories

You can add products to your selected page using one of three different methods from the drop down menu.

a) Adding individual products. Click on add individual products button from the drop down list and select up to 540 products for Amazon’s inventory. Please note you can only have up to 540 product per category page but you create multiple category pages for an unlimited number of hand-picked products your can add to your Amazon store. (This is the method most people use)

b) Adding products by Amazon Category/Subcategory. What you are doing here is selecting product by an Amazon category. The best seller product with be display first and as the best seller change this will automatically change with your category page.

c) Adding products using the Listmania list. The Listmania list is a list of products you find interesting. Basically what you are doing is creating your own list of products to put into a category page. When you do this you have to have the product id for the product from the Amazon category.

Step 4) Select and Customize Theme

The goal here is to have your background and text color match the background and text of the website. Also you want to make sure the Show Store Head check box is not checked so that it blends in better for the site. This the main layout I would go with: For area A, B, C make sure in the text fields you have FFFFFF for areas E and F use 000000


Step 5) Sidebar Widgets

For this page you want to have the right sidebar selected then un-check all of the check boxes that are currently checked on this page. The purpose of doing this is to have it blend in with your website, once done click on the Finish and Get Link Button.

Step 6) Get Store Link

You have done everything you need to create the Amazon Store now you need to get the code for the store. To create the code choose the option of Embed my store using an inline frame. Now that you have copied the code you login to your web builder and paste the code into the code section of the web page, if you post the code in the editor section of the web page then the page will have errors.

What are Affiliates
There are two types of affiliates when working online.
1) Traffic Based, where you have ads on your site and a person click on the add and you make a percentage of the commission.
2) Conversation Based, like signing up with Amazon affiliate program. Once signed up you have access to all their products, you select what product to put on your site. Once you have selected the product you are given code for the product. You put the product on your site. When a customer clicks on the product you are taken to Amazon then if they buy the product from Amazon you get a percentage of the commission.

Requirements to using an Affiliate
-Main thing is you need to have a website web page or blog with content.

Benefits to Affiliates
-Much easier to acquire then drop shipper.
-Can earn up to 50% commission
-All automated don’t need to do any fulfillment

Starting to work with Amazon Affiliates
-Go to https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
-If you don’t have an account you can Join now for Free!
-Once you have created your account and how given you web site profile.

Working with Links and Banners
1)Off of the dashboard page of the site click on Links and Banners.
2)Click on Add Product Links Now
3)Do a search for the product you want to add to your site.
4)To select the product you want to work with click on Get Link
5)You are given the option of 3 different types of products affiliates: a) Text and Image (most commonly use and easiest to work with) b) Text Only c) Image only (most difficult to work wit).

Follow the following instructions as to how to get this code and put it on your site.
http://blog.prosperlearning.com/ecommerce/?p=1102

Assignments
-Create an Amazon Affiliate Account
-Add at least 10 products to your web page, blog or web site.

Step 1 Login to your Amazon Affiliate Account
Go to Amazon.com and scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Join Associates”. Then you are taken to a page in which you can login to your Amazon Affiliate account. If you don’t have an Amazon affiliate account you can create one by clicking on the blue “Join now for FREE!” button.

Step 2 Click on the Links and Banner Button
Once you have logged into your Amazon affiliates account click on the blue “Links and Banners” button.

Step 3 Add individual affiliate products
From this page you want to click on the “Add Products Links” link from the Products Links section of the page.

Step 4 Search for the Product You want to add
From this page you have a drop down menu in which you can select the category in which your product can be found and then type in the keyword phrase of the product you want to search for. Then hit the “Go” button. A listing of the products come up then you click on the “Get Link” button for the product you want to add to your web site.


Step 5 Customize and Get HTML page
-Steps for adding the text and image link (most commonly used method)

1. Select the text image link
2. Customize the link by deselecting the show checkbox
3. Get the HTML code for this product link. Copy the HTML code provide in step 3.

-Steps for adding the text link

1. Select Text Link
2. Get the HTML code for this product link. Copy the HTML code provide in step 3.

-Steps for adding the image link

1. Select the Image link
2. Right click with your mouse over the image and choose “copy shortcut”. This will copy the address of the image.

3. You want to paste the copied code in the the following spot shown below.

4. Once the new code has been pasted, it will look like the following below, then you copy the code and paste the code into the source area of the web page on your web site that you want the code to be placed and save your changes.

1. What are your hobbies?
2. What do you do when you have free time?
3. What is something you’ve always wanted to do, or become good at?
4. What are some of your talents?
5. What things would others say you’re good at?
6. If you could quit your day job, what would you spend the rest of your days doing?

Answering these questions will help you generate a list of ideas you can build your business around.

There are two main reasons that you need to have an interest in what you sell:  Transparency

If you don’t like or understand your product, your indifference might show through to those who visit your site. Any salesperson knows that it is extremely difficult to sell something you don’t understand or believe in. Choosing to sell something you have an interest in will shine through in your business, and often times you’ll be more likely to work hard, and do the things that will be needed to obtain the success you desire.

Information

The second reason, and most important, is that of providing information. When it comes to online marketing, information is your greatest asset, and it is what will genuinely set you apart from your competitors. Your ability to provide persuasive information to your consumers will be directly related to your experience, level of interest, and passion for your products and/or services

Screening Potential Suppliers

When you talk with potential suppliers for the products you want to offer on your website, you will need to run the supplier through a screening process. But first, you need to understand the different ways you can fulfill orders for your products. Below are a few of the most common product fulfillment methods:

Drop Shipping

Drop Shippers are simply suppliers that are willing to send the products directly to your customers for you. You, the seller, are still responsible for marketing the item, collecting payment, and sending the order to the supplier, or dropshipper. The dropshipper then processes the order, shipping it directly to your customer for you. Dropshipping has it’s benefits and drawbacks:

• Benefits:
  • Low Risk – you don’t have to spend a lot of money purchasing products up front. You never have to buy anything from the supplier until AFTER you have been paid by the customer.
  • Less Work – The fact that the supplier is shipping the items for you means that you no longer need to worry about packaging the items, buying packing materials, or going to the post office.
  • Freedom – Dropshipping allows you freedom from being tied to your inventory. All you need to process your orders is a computer and an internet connection. I processed orders on a dropship website of mine when on vacation in Brazil. I had my laptop, and an internet connection, which is all I needed to run my business.
• Drawbacks:
  • Price: The biggest drawback of using a dropshipper is that the dropshipper is one more middle man you have to go through. As such, the price you pay is going to be higher than if you were to purchase your products directly from a wholesaler or manufacturer.

Key questions to ask suppliers:

• Do you wholesale? YES
• Do you Dropship? YES
• Do you have a minimum order? NO

If the suppliers answer these questions correctly, they are likely a dropshipper that you can work well with. The next step is to ask them what you need to do in order to sell their products. Each supplier has a different process for getting established with them. If you ask them how to get established to sell their products, they will tell you what the next steps are. Take the steps required and get set up with them. Keep in mind that getting set up with them does NOT mean you have to use them. But, it DOES allow you to get a price sheet and catalog of products to see what opportunities the supplier offers.

Finding Drop Shippers

There are three main ways to find drop shipped products, which include:

• Drop Shipper Directories – Drop shipper directories are data bases build by companies who professional seek out and locate drop shippers. The put their findings into a large database, and sell memberships to the database via a website. Drop shipper directories put you in DIRECT contact with potential suppliers, which gives you the option to negotiate price, and work closely with the suppliers. Here are some of the better drop ship directories I’ve found:
• Product Directories – Product directories, unlike drop ship directories, give you access to products, but not to the suppliers themselves. Product directories also charge membership fees to belong to the directory. The benefits of this are that you have one centralized location to place orders, so it’s very convenient. However, one drawback is that because you don’t have access to suppliers directly, you can’t negotiate price, and therefore products offered on product directories are often more difficult to make a profit on. Here are some of the better product directories:
• Manual Research - Another way to find drop shippers is to search for them manually. While you can do this research for free online, it is often very time consuming, and may take weeks or months to find a drop shipper. However, when you do find drop shippers for your products, chances are you’ll be able to offer better products, with better pricing. There are some tools you can use to find manufacturers and dropshippers online, but it will be up to you to ask them the screening questions mentioned previously.

Wholesalers

Wholesalers are typically suppliers that sell in bulk at reduced prices. Wholesalers are much easier to find than dropshippers are, however you are usually required to buy in bulk. This can be difficult for someone just starting out because you may not know which products will be the most popular. Many people have purchased products in bulk, and gotten saddled with a truckload of products they can’t sell. For those just getting started, dropshippers offers a faster, more risk-free way to get your feet wet. Once you are familiar with which products you sell the most of, and how much volume you sell, you could look into buying in bulk via a wholesaler.

Affiliates

Offering affiliate products on your site is somewhat like working as an outside salesperson, except that you’re doing the sales online. The difference between affiliate marketing and drop shipping is that with affiliates you simply redirecting your customers to another merchant’s website. Affiliate marketing allows you a few different ways to get paid.

Affiliate Marketing is a revenue sharing venture between a website owner and an online merchant. The website owner will place advertisements on his websites to either help sell the merchant’s products or to send potential customers to the merchant’s website, all in exchange for a share of the profits.

There are three ways to earn money through affiliate marketing:

Pay Per Click – Every time a potential customer leaves the affiliate website by “clicking” on the link leading to the merchant’s website, a certain amount of money is deposited in the affiliate’s account. This amount can be pennies or dollars depending on the product and amount of the commission.

Pay Per Sale – Every time a sale is made as a result of advertising on the affiliate’s website, a percentage, or commission, is deposited into the affiliate’s account.

Pay Per Lead – Every time a potential client registers at the merchant’s website as a result of the advertisement on the affiliate’s account, a previously determined amount is deposited into the affiliate’s account.

For many website owners, this is a great way to earn some extra money without actually having to “do” anything. All it involves is placing an ad on the affiliate’s website. There’s no selling or promotion of any kind. The affiliate can just sit back and wait for the profits to roll in.

It’s also beneficial to the merchant. By placing affiliate marketing advertising on websites all over the Internet, he has free advertising and doesn’t need to do much selling on his own. The more websites a merchant is affiliated with, the more exposure his products get, and all he has to do is allow ads for his products to appear on someone else’s website.

It’s important to choose wisely. In some cases, an ad can be placed on an affiliate’s website for months before a potential customer “clicks” or purchases something. If the commission is only pennies, this can lead to a frustrating relationship. Both the affiliate and the merchant are well advised to ensure the relationship will be mutually beneficial.

Finding affiliates to work with is pretty simple by using one of the three main affiliate networks listed below (in order of best to worst in my opinion):

• Commission Junction – http://www.cj.com
• Click Bank – http://www.clickbank.com
• Link Share – http://www.linkshare.com

by Stacey Barrus