What Is An "Affiliate Program"?
Author: ©Charlie Page - Directory of Ezines

You have probably heard the term "affiliate program" many times. People talk about them, advertise them, and promote them.

Every marketer and their pet hamster (including me) have recommended you start your online career by being an "affiliate".

But has anyone actually defined an affiliate program for you? Do you understand what being an affiliate is all about?

Whether you’re a newbie or just a little overwhelmed by all the information floating around online, I’d like to help you understand what affiliate programs are and what they can do for you.

An affiliate program (sometimes called an associate program) is basically defined as an arrangement in which an online merchant (such as Amazon.com) pays you a commission to send them traffic.

The term "traffic" simply means visitors.

So, you sign up to be an affiliate of a website and you send visitors to that site. When those visitors take a specific action (most commonly – when they buy something) you get paid.

Simple!

Every affiliate program out there will provide you with what is called an "affiliate link". This is a special link that identifies you (the affiliate) as the source of traffic.

More about affiliate links in an upcoming article.

Each time someone uses your link or website to click onto the merchant’s website and buys something, you are paid a certain percentage of that purchase.

But how does the site know that YOU sent that visitor? Most sites use a technology called "cookies". This simply means that a small file is placed on the visitor’s computer identifying you as the source of the referral.

That way the company can know for sure that you should be paid the commission when the visitor buys something.

Most major affiliate programs, including Clickbank, use cookies to identify which affiliate sent which visitor.

There are at least three parties involved in any affiliate transaction:
--The company who sells the product (or vendor as Clickbank calls them)
--The affiliate who sends the traffic (that’s you!)
--The person who visits the site by clicking your affiliate link (the visitor)

Affiliate programs do not bring good profits without some form of effort and organization on your part.

To make money with affiliate programs you will need to learn how to "drive" traffic. Driving traffic simply means sending visitors to a website you are promoting using paid advertising or free marketing methods such as article marketing or social media like Twitter.

Affiliate marketing can be very profitable if you learn the system and promote it the right way. To maximize their profits, most affiliates choose more than one to promote.

There is usually nothing complicated about signing up for an affiliate program. Most programs are free to join.

But there is a downside here that you must avoid.

Since most affiliate programs are free to join, there is a temptation to join many at one time thinking you will be able to promote them all. This can lead to confusion.

My advice is to find a product you believe in and promote it with all your heart.

Become an expert at promoting product X and you will learn how to promote any product. Then you can move on to promoting other products easily.

You see, the success is in the process and in the products you choose to promote.

Once you sign up for a program, you are usually free to place links on your website and in other places.

Affiliates are paid according to a legal arrangement agreed to upon sign-up. Affiliate commissions are based on the number of people the affiliate sends to the merchant’s site, or the number of their referrals who make a purchase or take some other type of action.

There are three basic structures for how affiliates are paid:
Pay Per Sale: The most common arrangement. When someone you send to the business’ website buys something, you earn a certain percentage or designated dollar amount.
Pay Per Visit: Some companies pay you based on the number of people your link sends to their website, whether they make a purchase or not.
Per Lead: You are paid when someone uses your affiliate link to visit the company’s website and opts in, entering some required information (like an email address) the business can use as a sales lead.

Generally speaking, if your affiliate link on your website or other location brings their business traffic or money, the merchant will pay you accordingly.

As an affiliate, you help bring in the customer and the company does everything else: order processing, collecting payment, shipping, etc.

For you, promoting an affiliate program or programs almost adds up to free money. Just look at the benefits you get when promoting as an affiliate.

As an affiliate you never have to …
--Create a product
--Provide customer service
--Have a website of your own
--Provide a download page

As an affiliate you simply promote and get paid. It is simply the easiest way to earn money online.

The company wins too! For businesses, offering an affiliate program is not only an excellent way to sell products online, but also serves as a powerful and cost- effective marketing strategy.

Why? Because you (the affiliate) solve their number one problem – getting enough traffic to their website!

You get paid, and the company gets you to promote for them. A classic win-win!

Now that you know what an affiliate program it’s time to find the right program(s) for you. And that is the subject of my next article!

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Using Site Maps in WordPress for Higher Search Engine Rankings
Author: ©Philip Light

Using Site Maps in WordPress for Higher Search Engine Rankings It's pretty common knowledge that using Site Maps are an important part of getting your website or blog ranked highly in the Search Engines. They help the Search Engines find and index all of your content, they give you an opportunity to create keyword-laden internal links, and they also help your real-world visitors find what they are looking for.

There is some confusion however about the topic - mostly because there are actually two very different types of Site Maps (or Sitemaps) that should be utilized on every website.

The good news for WordPress users is that there are a couple of plugins that make it very easy for you to take advantage of both types of Site Maps. Let's take a look at both types of Site Maps and how to implement them using WordPress.

Onsite Site Maps

The first type of Site Map is what most people are more familiar with. This Site Map is simply a page on your site that has a link to every other page on your site. This is helpful to search engines as they follow links in order to find all of your content so having all of your content listed in one place makes it easier for them to find all of your pages. This type of Site Map also helps your visitors find the content they are looking for.

XML Sitemaps

Sometimes referred to as 'Sitemaps' instead of 'Site Maps', this type of Sitemap is similar in that it is a list of all the pages on your site. However, instead of publishing this as a page on your website, you actually submit this type of Sitemap directly to the major search engines. This not only makes sure they know of all your pages, but also gives you an opportunity to tell them which pages are most important and how often your pages change.

What's more, using the Sitemap systems of the major search engines, you also get a ton of information about your site 'straight from the horse's mouth'. These systems will let you know if they are having any problems crawling your site, what terms your pages are ranking for, and much, much more. Be sure to check out Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Yahoo Site Explorer.

WordPress Plugins

As is often the case, WordPress makes it very easy to implement both of these types of Site Maps via a couple relatively simple plugins. Both of these plugins automate much of the process freeing up your time to focus on other areas of your website. For instance, they both update the Site Maps automatically when you add new pages or posts. You just need to set-up the plugins and then the system will handle everything from there!

The plugin I use for my onsite Site Maps is called 'Dagon Design Sitemap Generator Plus'. This handy plugin gives you a number of options for your Site Map such as whether to show pages or posts or both, how you want them ordered, if there are any pages you don't want included, and if you want to use a multiple-page Site Map for larger sites.

Once you have installed and configured the plugin, you simply take the 'shortcode' they provide, create a new page in your WordPress called 'Site Map' and paste the shortcode into the content area. The system will then replace that shortcode with your actual Site Map when visitors click on that page. With this plugin, your Site Map will always be up to date as you add or delete new pages on your site.

For XML Sitemaps I use the 'Google XML Sitemaps' plugin, which actually works also with Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com. This plugin will automatically build the XML Sitemap for your entire site AND publish it directly to the search engines once you set it up. This plugin also offers several settings to customize how the plugin operates based on your particular website and preferences.

There you go, install and set-up these plugins and you will have an automated system to make sure that the search engines and your visitors will be able to find all of your content. Getting your site ranked high in the search engines is a lot of work, but this is one simple step you can take that can certainly strengthen your efforts.

Best of luck!