Archive for: October 2005

When you build an affiliate website it’s always a good idea to have your contact information on the site, at least an email address. This builds trust and confidence in you.

But, if you place your email on the web, spam harvrsters will find it and you will soon be deluged with spam.

So, what can you do? Well, the easiest way to avoid this is to write your email in such a way that it is still readable by humans but not the bots.

You can space yor email like this: paul @ affiliatemarketingspecialist.com or you can insert text that humans need to remove, like this: paul[REMOVE]@affiliatemarketingspecialist.com. Some peole like to include a written summary for the visitor on why the email is like this and what they need to do to use it, but I haven’t found that to be necessary.

Another trick you can use is to turn your email address into a .gif or .jpeg file as the bots cannot read images.

Either of these ideas will allow you to keep your email visible for your human visitors but will greatly reduce the amount of spam you get at that email address.

Recently I was ripprd off of several months worth of recurring affiliate commissions. I had been promoting a particular web hosting company for over 3 years without any problems, but earlier this year they stopped sending my checks.

I emailed them several times and always was assured that they were only having temporary mixups but would issue my check soon.

This went on for some time. Last week, I learned from a friend of mine that the owner of the company had emailed him in reply to his own questions about not getting paid and was told that the affiliate program had been closed “awhile” ago and that no money was owed. In fact, the owner actually took down the affiliate stats page so that we were no longer even able to check our past sales.

Long story short, I will never see the money owed to me and the lesson is that one always has to be careful about who you are promoting. That’s why I like affiliate networks such as ClickBank, Linkshare, and Commission Junction. Networks like these make it much less likely that you will have problems getting paid or ever being ripped off.

I found this article and wanted to share it with you as it talks about an often ignored aspect of affiliate marketing success: the attitudes necessary for success.

The idea of being mere passengers on a ship meant to sail to the farthest points does not appeal to people who like to put their destiny into their own hands. They have the desire of maneuvering the ships themselves, of being able to be the ones to take it anywhere they want to. Being aboard a ship on its way to a particularly great destination is something each and every one of them dreams of, and the knowledge that they have the capacity to steer it themselves is what makes them actually want to.

Perhaps this is the reason why more and more people are succumbing to one of the most popular businesses around – affiliate marketing. It is because in this business, there are no bosses to order the employees around. There are no deadlines to meet and no clutter of work do to. One only needs to be equipped with the tools needed to succeed in a business such as this, and he is bound to get what his heart ultimately desires.

Just what are the things needed to be able to succeed in affiliate marketing? What must one have within himself to be able to do well in this industry? There is a lot of competition involved in affiliate marketing, and to be able to rise above the norm, one must be equipped with just the right stuff necessary to propel him forward. There are five things one must ultimately possess if he wants to achieve the glory he is yearning for in this business, and these five things are a must for him to possess to be able to stand out among the rest.

The very first quality one must possess if he wants to try his hand in affiliate marketing is the willingness to learn and be trained. Treading through unfamiliar territory is scary stuff if one is not properly equipped, and he might get lost amidst a jungle of the unknown. Learning the tricks of the trade is also an important aspect of the game, and one’s willingness to know it all will give him far better advantages in the business than he could ever imagine.

The second quality one must possess is the willingness to invest time and effort even if direct results do not seem at all apparent. Although several months may pass without good news, it is important for one who has his foot in the industry to hold on and wait. It is this quality which would save him from giving up after investing a lot of himself in the business.

The third quality one must possess is self-determination. If one wants to conquer the affiliate marketing world, he must have the ability to push himself ahead. Never having to say die is a quality each and every affiliate marketer should possess, and the ability to motivate oneself into scaling greater heights is an ability which would actually take an affiliate marketer there.

The fourth quality one must possess is discipline. If one knows how to teach himself to work everyday with all the energy he can muster, then he is close to achieving what he has set his heart to having in the first place.

The fifth and last quality one must possess is optimism. Negative attitudes and hearsay should not discourage an affiliate marketer from pursuing what he has to in order to make life better for himself and for everyone concerned. Neither should anyone influence his attitude toward the business, because once in it, it is a must for him to be the captain of his ship and the master of his soul.

The ingredients to success in a business such as affiliate marketing are diverse and manifold, but the most important thing one needs to be able to make it big lies in himself alone. It is he who has the capacity to do everything to be able to realize his prospects, and the desire which fuels his heart in doing so is the gasoline which should keep the engine going.

Affiliate marketing is all about putting one’s fate into his own hands. The right attitude is the key to being able to steer one’s ship into that part of the ocean where a certain kind of serenity can be found, one that permeates the atmosphere as the ship sails calmly on.