• Google can recognize an affiliate link when they see one. It’s a simple algorithm really, if Google crawls a hyper link that forwards to another hyper link, it can easily assume that the link is an affiliate link and it will either lower your Quality Score (if promoting through Google AdWords) or lower your PageRank (if promoting through SEO).
• People are getting smarter and they notice when they see *.*.clickbank.net…or if they see a hyper link with a number next to it, they’re getting sent to a website that is trying to sell them something.
• If you’re promoting your website through e-mail marketing, SPAM filters are getting smarter every day and if one affiliate screws up, it ruins it for everyone trying to use similar hyper links from the same domain.

Here are a few methods to solve this problem:

The META Refresh Method

This method basically instructs your web browser to automatically refresh the web page after a given time interval–in this case 0 seconds. Simply create a web page, something like “RegistryMechanic.html” and place this in the HEAD section of the web page page:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://www.amazingdesignsecrets.com" />

After you’ve created that page, you simply need to place a hyper link to “amazingdesignsecrets.html”. But WAIT, there is an extra step that most webmasters forget to do, you need to add rel=”nofollow” to your tag. Here is an example of how it should look:

<a href="amazingdesignsecrets.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Amazing Design Secrets</a>

The reason you need to add NOFOLLOW to your REL element is because Google will still craw your redirect and detect an affiliate link. You need to tell GOOGLEBOT to not craw that hyper link.

The Server Redirect Method

This method is a bit more advanced, but is probably the most effective in my opinion. To create a redirect on the server, simple create a dynamic web page in whatever language your server supports (ASP, PHP, etc.) and create the redirect in the code. Here is an example of a PHP redirect:

<?php
header( 'Location: http://www.amazingdesignsecrets.com' ) ;
?>

Here is an example of a ASP Redirect

<%
Response.Redirect "http://www.amazingdesignsecrets.com"
%>

Here is an example of a JSP redirect

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.amazingdesignsecrets.com" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>

Here is an example of a CGI/Perl Redirect

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect("http://www.amazingdesignsecrets.com");


The HTACCESS 301 Method

If you have an Apache server, you have the option to have a 301 redirect in your HTACCESS file. You need to edit your HTACCESS file and add the following:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^amazingdesignsecrets.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.amazingdesignsecrets.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

he first step to promoting a product online is to find an affiliate program for a “high gravity” product that pays out high commissions. As I mentioned in the last chapter, affiliates should not sign up for an affiliate program unless they are making at least $30 off of it. Since most programs involve digital products, it might be wise to not join programs that pay lower than 75% because of possible product returns (which result in lost commissions). To find the right affiliate program I recommend going to ClickBank and choosing a product in their marketplace to promote.

Once you find a product that has a high gravity rating, pays a high commission, and seems to be a high quality product, the best thing to do is contact the product developer. I like to explain that I’m an affiliate and want to promote his or her product and I usually ask for a free complimentary copy-and they usually give me a copy no questions asked. It also helps to tell them exactly what you are trying to do because they might have feedback that can help you. For example, when promoting Jamorama, I used Google AdWords to advertise my guitar lesson review. The great people at Rock Star Recipes were kind enough to tell me to exclude the entire county of the Philippines from advertising because traffic from that country usually results in several clicks but very little sales. I also learned from Jamorama that the only countries that actually generate conversions of 1% or better are USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Netherlands, New Zealand, France, Norway, Italy, Ireland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Chile, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Slovakia, Estonia, Iceland, Bahrain, Trinidad and Tobago, Qatar, Bermuda, Kazakhstan, Zambia, Antigua and Barbuda, and South Africa. This saved me hundreds of dollars in lost revenue just by contacting to product owner.

The next thing you need to do is figure out how you’re going to promote this product. Do you have a mailing list? Statistics show that a good mailing list will have the highest conversions out of any other media. Are you going to use Pay per Click advertising? If you are, I recommend creating a review website with an honest review of the product and place your affiliate link within the body of the review. This usually results in the best conversions when advertising throughout a review page. It is also important, however, to have many relevant articles on your website to prevent Google from flagging you as spam.

Another way to generate money as an affiliate is to create a web page where you collect e-mail addresses from people that are interested in the topic. Creating a page with a form and offering some kind of bonus for signing up for your list can have many benefits. First off, you gain a very valuable piece of information: the e-mail address of someone that is interested in a particular category of products. Now, you have the ability to market several products to a person over a specific period of time. I like to use GetResponse for this service because it allows me to collect e-mail addresses and do certain things with it.
Some affiliates find success by building web pages that advertise part of the sales copy for the product and offer a special bonus or rebate to customers who purchase the product via their affiliate link. Of course, you need to read the terms and conditions of your affiliate program before you use this concept. ClickBank, for example, does not allow its affiliates to offer rebates to their customers and neither do several other affiliate managers.

One method affiliate marketers use to sell their products is by writing very extensive and quality articles for customers to read. The concept is that you write content that people want to read, overtime Google rates you well in the search engines, and you use your articles to sell you product. This is a very effective way to sell products because the sales are done subliminally and everybody wins. You can also compliment your articles with Google AdSense, which allows you to have advertisers fund your website. Really good websites can generate thousands of dollars per month in AdSense revenue alone!

If becoming an affiliate marketer is something of interest to you, then I recommend signing up for Affilorama. I’ve been using it for years and absolutely love the product. It has helped me generate a lot of extra income from affiliate programs and I believe it’s a must for beginner affiliates!

The second form of generating income from your website is through referral programs. We call this “Cost Per Action” advertising. The way this usually works, is by acquiring a special link from your sponsor and you are paid a set amount for sending traffic to his or her website. These payments can be for sending a relevant visitor to the website, you can get paid when the visitor provides an e-mail address or a phone number, or any other way the visitor converts to a possible lead. This is one of the most profitable forms of advertising because you can get high payouts when the visitor performs specific tasks. For example, Discover Card has a referral program that pays the advertiser $50 every time the visitor fills out an application for the credit card. If you had a website devoted to economics, this would be an excellent way to make load of extra money from your website. Commission Junction is a great website that offers programs like these for you to promote. You’ll learn a lot more about this in my full course.

The third form of generating income from your website, which is the one that is most profitable for most of my websites, if by joining affiliate programs. Some products will actually payout commission for sales that are referred by you. These commissions are generally anywhere from 1% to 75% and are a great way to make money from the content of your website. ClickBank is an excellent merchant for joining affiliate programs and promoting them on your website.

In my course, I teach you to do each of these in depth. Whether your just starting out or if you’ve got a successful website already, my course provides the tools to be successful.