5 Star Affiliate Programs

FEATURED AFFILIATE MARKETING PROGRAMS

Empyre Media If you are looking for top payouts, the best exclusive offers, personal attention to your unique needs and unparalleled affiliate support - then you need to be working with Empyre Media! From set-up, to pay per click, to affiliate training and support - Empyre Media provides customized service that is unparalleled by any other affiliate network in the industry. More Info - Join Now!

AffiliateWire - The New Breed of Affiliate Network

This high-paying network is quickly becoming the platform of choice for savvy affiliates. AffiliateWire offers hot-selling digital products from reputable merchants, 75%+ average commission rates, 3%+ conversion rates, twice-monthly payouts and provides support by expert affiliate managers. More Info

Earn More Affiliate Revenue the CPAway

Looking for a high integrity affiliate network that can help you maximize your revenue? CPAway was founded by a group of online performance-based marketers and is trusted by many partners to provide them with the offers, support and tracking they need to be successful. Top payouts and 1000+ campaigns. Join Us Today

5 Star Affiliate Programs Feature:

• High integrity marketing principles, guaranteed on-time payments
• High affiliate commission, long cookies and great conversion rates
• Free affiliates datafeeds and some have storefront builder tools
• Affiliate-centered, pro-active management available
  
  

The "Know Nothing, Do Nothing" Scam

his scam *really* infuriates us. It's probably the most common Internet scam which is aimed at entrepreneurs and professionals who want to use the Internet to promote their products and services. It leads to major disappointments, and it drains huge profits from thousands of businesses.

Let's look at a few examples. We've heard many unscrupulous promoters promise that:

"You don't have to know anything about the Internet or computers."

"You don't have to even use the Internet to make money on it."

"You don't even need to use a computer!"

"You can just put up a Web page, do nothing, and cash huge checks--there is no work required!"

We hope you realize how ridiculous these promises are. In fact, we investigated a number of these claims, and each of them has turned out to be misleading (at best), and most often, an outright scam.

You see, these promises violate one the most important rules of Internet marketing: to understand Internet culture. If you've never used the Internet--and don't feel like you need to learn about it--you will not be successful promoting your products or services on the Internet. In fact, you may as well save your money: you'd just be throwing it away if you approach Internet marketing from this perspective.

Here's why: The Internet culture is *very* powerful.

Understanding it will help you be successful, whereas failing to understand it will most likely lead to abysmal failure and PR nightmares. You have to speak the language of your market. There is no other medium where understanding the culture and the rules is as important.

Further, the Internet is not merely a new tool for marketing like the fax machine was several years ago. The Internet presents new and special challenges to entrepreneurs because it is substantially different from other advertising channels. For example, other advertising channels are all unidirectional, whereas the Internet is interactive.

This has very important implications for your marketing success.

Our experience is that many of the promises about Internet marketing today are based on what we call the "Aladdin's Lamp Theory of Internet Marketing." You know, you make three wishes, rub the lamp, and then you expect them to instantly come true.

For example, since there are millions of users on the Internet, you can just create a Web site, rub the lamp, and you'll be rich!

(That's the topic for another issue of Internet ScamBusters!)

Needless to say, this doesn't work.

Yet, we're not against the *appropriate* use of the Internet to promote high quality products and services. In fact, we do this as part of our own business. We just take exception to wrong advice, misleading advertising, and of course, scams and swindles.

So, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Please don't let the scam artists dupe you.

Besides, learning and exploring the Internet, and getting to know the people on it, is a lot of fun! :-)

How To Make Easy Money On The Internet

 very one of the money-making programs I  recommend is FREE to join, and I will NEVER ask you for money.  The only thing you may want to purchase (not from me) is web hosting, so that you have complete control over the advertising on your web pages.  (but this is not necessary)

     How do you make money on the internet?  You represent different companies, and websites and promote their products, programs and/or services from your web site, or e-mail. This will make you an "affiliate". You choose what type of cash generating promotion(s) you want to use by copying and pasting short snippets of HTML code to your website pages or email. Many affiliate programs allow you to "give away" products and services, and YOU STILL MAKE MONEY. As an aside, those who do run into those short-term cashflow difficulties are now able to approach lenders like wonga in order to secure a payday loan to keep the business afloat - not a problem since that paycheck is never far off anyhow if you take my advice. Other affiliate programs give you a percentage of sales of products (from their inventory, you earn just by referring!), while some cash generating programs pay you just to send them visitor traffic to their website! (EASY, EASY, EASY!)

How to get started making money WITH a website:

     All you have to do is make a website about anything. (I even have a step-by-step free website building tutorial!) Think of you favorite hobby or what you know the most about. Try to fill 4 to 5 web pages of text rich content. (You do not have to sell anything, the best money-making websites are purely informational!) That is all there is to it, the affiliate programs take care of the rest. Google Adsense, for example, will read the content of your web site and place revenue generating ads that blend right in with your site's topic. So join all the free affiliate programs in the left column, and experiment with the right combination of ads and free offers to put on your website. NEW!! How to make money giving away FREE websites! CLICK HERE.

How to get started making money WITHOUT a website:

 The first thing I did was get quality business cards - you can now get 500 color customizable business cards for $10 with free shipping. CLICK HERE to get that deal. Put your business cards everywhere you can leave them - that way you can start promoting your affiliate programs and earn money right away. You can also set up free networking pages (easy) with FaceBook, Twitter and many of the other social networking sites.

Another great way to start making money without a website is to find (Google search) forums and message boards that are related to the products and services you are promoting. By joining the group and posting useful information to the board, you will be able to sneak in a few product promotions.

You can also do a search for websites that are related to your product or service and see if they have a guestbook. Make a nice entry in the guestbook and in the place where they ask for your website, enter your affiliate link.

You can also use your email address to promote your products or services. You may not want to just exploit your friends and straight out try to sell them stuff, but you can create a signature or tag line that will be at the end of the email so you will not be seen as a "hard salesman", your recipients can click the links if they want to. You can even disguise the link to look like it was put there by the email provider..

Make Money Right Away!

There are a few locations where you can take surveys or express your opinion and get paid! I would recommend InboxDollars and Permission Research.

I will tell you right up front the worst part of making money on the internet is TIME.  Search engines index and list every one of the billion or so websites on the internet, and being listed is a crucial part of your earning potential. So you need to stop dreaming and get going!  Be patient, YOU WILL MAKE MONEY! And the greatest advantage is, you make money with your own home based business. Work when you want and from where you want!  Experience the freedom of flexible hours by being your own boss in your own home business. I do not claim you will make a million as if you won the deal or no deal jackpot, but there are a million websites making money on the internet... Why not yours'?

Best 5 Affiliate program in the net

Find the best affiliate programs and make money online with affiliate marketing!

A stop here will give you all the information you need to start making money online. Please also check out our affiliate networks and most popular affiliate programs.

AffiliateBOT.com Affiliate Network $90CPA

HostRocket.com Hosting $150CPA

ShareAsale.com Affiliate Network $50CPA

Medstore Health 29%CPO

Market Health Health $20CPA

CJ.COM

Commission Junction (sometimes known as CJ) is an affiliate marketing company, much like Clickbank and Linkshare. Whereas Clickbank is unique in that it only deals with digitally-delivered products and services, Commission Junction offers affiliate programs for physical products and services.

COMMISSION JUNCTION: WHAT IS CJ? WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Commission Junction supports publishers engaging in search marketing and believes it is another way you can extend your reach beyond your own marketing efforts. Although you may be concerned publishers are creating more competition in the search engines, many advertisers have shown with their results that the benefits outweigh the costs, especially considering that publishers engaged in search marketing on behalf of advertisers are assuming the cost of purchasing the keywords. Publishers also test and refine their campaigns with specific advertiser offers and creative at their own expense. There are a couple of ways you can leverage these publishers to ensure that you are taking advantage of the additional advertising they can provide through the search engines, while still managing your brand representation."

The parent company of CJ is ValueClick, which is a publicly-traded online marketing company. CJ is one of the bigger, more well-known affiliate marketing networks around.

Commission Junction serves as a meeting point that joins advertisers (product/service vendors) with publishers (webmasters/marketers/affiliates). Affiliate marketing is the arrangement where an affiliate refers people to the advertiser, or product vendor. If the affiliate’s referral makes a purchase, the affiliate marketing company (CJ in this case) tracks this transaction. CJ would then pay the affiliate their commission, pay the vendor, and take a small fee for itself.

This is an example of what a third-party, like Commission Junction, does.

If you’re a product vendor who would like to have affiliates promoting your product, Commission Junction has a lot of affiliates. Though we don’t have the exact figures, it’s safe to say that CJ is probably one of the biggest networks, in terms of numbers of affiliates. This is good, because you have a larger pool of affiliates who can potentially promote your product or service for you.

Why are so many affiliates attracted to Commission Junction? One reason is because of the product/service providers it attracts. Lexmark, Newsweek, and Reebok are among the hundreds of product vendors that run programs affiliated with Commission Junction.

While CJ has a lot of affiliates, you’ll probably find that it’s only a handful of affiliates who actually bring you the majority of your sales. It’s the old 80/20 rule, where 20% of affiliates may contribute to 80% of the sales. In fact, it might even be only 5%, or even a single super-affiliate who does this for you.

Before opening an affiliate program, you’ll want to make things as easy as possible for your affiliates. Give them banners, articles, content, demo software, and everything they need to help sell your product. This advice applies to affiliate marketing as a whole.

Commission Junction

The Top 10 List of the Best Affiliate Networks

First, if you're new to affiliate marketing, some preliminary explanations may prove helpful in your quest for becoming a part-time or full-time affiliate marketer.  

preliminary explanations may prove helpful in your quest for becoming a part-time or full-time affiliate marketer. 

What is Affiliate Marketing? 

Affiliate marketing is quite simple to explain: you promote and market a product or company in return for a commission if a sale or lead is made from your marketing efforts. With online affiliate marketing you simply place your affiliate ID embedded links on your web pages and if a customer clicks 

your link and proceeds to that designated company's site and makes a purchase or signs up for a service, you earn a commission. 

Affiliate marketing, if done right, can prove to be a very lucrative venture. Commissions can run anywhere from a few pennies to thousands of dollars for just one click or sale. Professional marketers develop affiliate relationships with hundreds of companies and build sites to promote these companies and products. 

Needless to say, the advent of the Internet has been a golden opportunity for affiliate marketers to really expand their promotions and marketing. As more as more customers choose to buy online, advertising and purchases keep increasing at a maddening pace. 

To accommodate all this online ecommerce we have seen the birth of large affiliate networks, operated by large corporations. Make no mistake, affiliate marketing is big business, accounting for billions in sales and commissions. 

What is an Affiliate Network? 

An affiliate network is a third party facilitator which brings affiliates and companies together. It connects Advertisers (companies with products or services to sell) together with Publishers (those who display and promote these products or services) so they can do business. The affiliate network does all the tracking, accounting and payment of commissions. 

The following Top 10 list of the best Affiliate Networks is compiled by an actual full-time affiliate marketer who has worked these programs for over five years. This list is subjective and based on first-hand experience. It should be seen in this light and every marketer probably will have a different list or have these in a different picking order depending on the type and nature of their marketing. 

But this list of the 10 Best Affiliate Networks will give you a general rundown on these affiliate networks and how they operate. 

1. Commission Junction (www.cj.com) 

Now owned by ValueClick, Commission Junction was one of the first affiliate networks. It is also one of the most important with many of the Top Fortune 500 companies listed here. 

CJ is an international network with excellent stats and tracking (some of the best you will find), along with regular monthly payments makes this the obvious first choice for anyone wishing to try affiliate marketing. 

For those new or old at affiliate marketing, CJ also holds regular seminars and training sessions. 

Most merchants offer pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale, one of the best features is the performance bonuses and incentives. As most experienced marketers will know, selling 50k to 100k each month for merchants will bring in the big incentives or bonuses. 

Commissions run as high as 50% but most are in 3% to 15% range. You have the option of direct deposit for your payments. One major plus, CJ will tell you which merchants 

and ads are earning the most revenue for affiliates so you can easily choose which merchants are worth promoting. 

2. ClickBank (www.clickbank.com) 

ClickBank is another professional affiliate network with 

excellent stats and tracking. Easy to use and pays every two weeks. 

ClickBank is slightly different from the other networks in that it deals mainly with digital download products. The commissions from ClickBank are usually much higher than the other networks, around 40% to 50% or more. 

ClickBank has over 10,000 products but keep in mind, info-marketing products will have stiff competition from all the savvy and well established Internet marketers promoting these same products. Consider youself warned! 

The most successful marketing tactic here is to first dominate your targeted niche with your blogs and sites, then find affiliate products to match your content or niche subject matter, whether it be gardening equipment, gaming laptops or Mediterranean cruises!. 

3. LinkShare (www.linkshare.com) 

LinkShare is another excellent affiliate network. It is one of the oldest affiliate networks on the web. LinkShare was recently acquired by the Japanese Portal Rakuten, with a price tag of $425 million. 

Very good stats and reporting with their Synergy Analytics system. Many Top Fortune 500 companies are presented here so you will no trouble finding products and services to romote. 

LinkShare pays commissions as they receive them from merchants - monthly checks. 

4. Affiliate Window (www.affiliatewindow.com) 

Affiliate Window is an UK based affiliate network which offers top brand companies and good commission rates. Pays once a month and has excellent stats. 

Savvy affiliate marketers know promoting in other countries can be much easier than promoting in the American market place. Mainly because these other countries haven't become saturated with online marketers, little competition means more sales. 

5. Amazon (www.amazon.com) 

Amazon is another excellent affiliate network to join if you want to sell products from your site or blog. Amazon has excellent stats and the links are very easy to create and place on your web pages. 

You also have the option of creating your own store with Amazon aStores. Amazon also now has context link ads and Widgets! 

Commission rates are somewhat lower than the other networks but making sales thru Amazon is much, much easier. You will make more sales mainly because Amazon is a well known and trusted online company. Amazon now pays monthly. 

6. Shareasale (www.shareasale.com) 

Shareasale is yet another easy system to work with good stats and simple to create links. With 1,700+ merchants to choose from, Shareasale is another good affiliate network to promote. 

The control panel is easy to use and the reporting is very good. Usually pays the month following your sales. 

7. Google (www.google.com/adsense/) 

Many won't think of Google as an Affiliate network but it does run affiliate products thru its Adsense program. Very few products but like everything from Google it is professionally run and top caliber all the way. 

Please note, top marketers know affiliate links/products on their content pages will return 10 times what Google Adsense will give them. However, these marketers will also know using Google Adsense on less targeted pages throughout your sites or blogs will give you a healthy return. 

Besides receiving that monthly check from a multi-billion dollar company like Google will put a smile on your face every time. 

8. LinkConnector (www.linkconnector.com) 

LinkConnector is a relatively new affiliate network which launched in 2004. It has Pay Per Click, Pay Per Sale and Pay Per Lead. Good stats and reporting. Worth checking out for their different types of new affiliate technology such as Direct Linking which passes pagerank along to the merchant's site. 

9. CPA Empire (www.cpaempire.com) 

Great CPA (Cost Per Action) network especially if you do a lot of email marketing and promotions. Geared towards acquiring leads and sign-ups but does offer other merchants as well. Good stats and reporting. 

10. Independents 

Individual affiliate deals with different companies which may or may not be listed with the major networks above. Your independent affiliate deals will be some of your most lucrative since you can sometimes work out separate private commission rates and bonuses. Aim for residual income here. Don't ignore this aspect of affiliate marketing as it will pay the highest dividends. 

Keep in mind, all the above affiliate networks are iddlemen, 

they come between you and the merchant you're promoting. For affiliates with a proven track record, who have shown they can deliver the customers and sales, a private deal cutting out the middleman/fees can prove very beneficial for both parties. If you're fortunate enough to become known as a super affiliate, these private deals will become more common and more profitable. 

Professional affiliate marketers use all of the above networks to create multiple income streams from their marketing efforts. In the process, they build a healthy monthly income for themselves and their families. There is no reason why you can't do the same. 

How to Make Money From Your Website

Making Money From Advertising

Now that you've created a website, how do you make money from it? There are at least two ways in which sites can make money:

Making Money From Advertising

If you look at many websites, you will probably notice that there are banner advertisements displayed on most pages. If you are a newcomer to the scene, you might think that you must either be a company or that your site must be famous before you can get advertisers, just as it is the case in hardcopy publications.

In reality, anyone with a website can get advertisers. While it is true that if your site is well-known, you may get companies contacting you to offer to advertise on your site, you can get advertising revenue even if you are just starting out and your site is relatively unknown.

The way to do this is to join as an "affiliate" of various sites, either directly, or through an affiliate network. An affiliate network is simply an intermediary where you can select from a variety of advertisers.

Payment Schemes

Before joining any program, you should probably be aware of the different payment schemes available.

Pay Per Impression (CPM)

Here, you are paid according to the number of times the advertiser's banner is displayed on your site. The amount you earn is typically calculated based on the number of thousand impressions of the banner (impressions = number of times the banner is displayed), often abbreviated CPM (cost per thousand, with the M being the Latin numeral for thousand). That is, $5 CPM means that you get paid $5 for 1,000 displays of the banner. In general, the amount paid is usually small, but it is easy to earn since everytime a visitor loads the page, you earn. This is known as a "high conversion rate". Needless to say, this method will allow you to automatically earn more if your site attracts a lot of visitors.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

When you are paid per click, you are only paid when visitors click the advertiser's banner on your site. The amount paid is usually higher than the pay per impression scheme. Whether you get a high conversion rate here depends on the banner (whether it attracts people to click it), although in general, it has a higher conversion rate than the pay per sale method. A high traffic site will probably enjoy a higher click rate than a lower traffic site, although you will probably get better results if your banners are carefully selected to suit the target audience of your site.

Pay Per Sale or Lead

While you will probably get the highest payment rates with this method, it has the lowest conversion rate of the three schemes. You will only earn if your visitors click through the banner and either purchase an item from the advertiser or take some other prescribed action (eg, sign up for a service). Like the Pay Per Click method, you get much better results if you carefully select your advertisers to suit the target audience of your site.

In general, to avoid wasting resources in issuing cheques for very small amounts, advertisers will usually accrue the amount owing to you until it reaches a certain level (such as $25) before they pay you.

Where to Find Affiliate Programs

You can find a list of affiliate programs and affiliate networks on thefreecountry.com's Affiliate Program page at http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/affiliate.shtml

To join an affiliate network or program, simply go to the site and complete their online application form. Some programs will give you instant approval while others require a human to check out your application before it is approved. Once it is approved, you'll be given some HTML code which you can cut and paste into your web page. Note that some affiliate networks and programs will not accept you unless you have your own domain name. If you are planning to earn from your site, you should seriously consider registering your own domain name.

How To Choose An Affiliate Program

How should you choose an affiliate program? My suggestion is not to choose a program according to the payment scheme, but rather according to the kind of people who are likely to visit your website. For example, if you are targeting parents on your site, links to affiliates with educational software, books and the like may generate more revenue than banners that link to web hosting companies. The most important rule of choosing an affiliate program is to know your target audience.

Another point to consider is whether you really want to join every single affiliate program that comes your way. Some studies suggest that sites that make the most money from affiliate programs are affiliates of only a small handful of programs. Furthermore, concentrating your advertisements from one network may allow you to be paid faster. If you advertise for hundreds of different affiliate networks on your site, you may end up earning only (say) a few dollars per month from each network. If your advertiser's minimum payment amount is higher than what you can earn each month, it may take you a long time before you accrue enough to be paid.

On the other hand, that formula does not necessarily hold true for every site (or every page on your site, for that matter). For example, if your site has a particular theme, and an affiliate network only supports one or two suitable advertisers, you might want to sign up for a few affiliate networks so as to get a greater number of relevant advertisers. After all, advertisements that are relevant to your audience are more likely to be taken up than general advertisements. (What's the point of putting banners from only one affiliate if nobody is going to click them?)

Automated Context-Sensitive Advertising

One of the latest trends in website sponsorship is to sign up with an advertising network like Google AdSense The advertising network automatically checks your web page and determines the most relevant advertisement for the page. As a result, without much additional effort from you, you get advertisements targeted at the interests of your visitors. As mentioned earlier, targeted ads tend to result in better performance and returns.

Rizzo Tees Signs Up 250th affiliate In Its Shareasale Online Affiliate Marketing Program

Rizzo Tees, an online retailer of funny t shirts, has just signed up its 250th affiliate through its Shareasale online affiliate marketing program, The program was established in early 2009, and has seen steady growth, said Chris Reimer, Founder of Rizzo Tees.

"Affiliates started signing up right away, and we’ve received positive feedback about the program. Affiliates earn 15% of every sale they make, and we offer 90-day cookie tracking, which is unparalleled in the tee world. That means if you send Rizzo Tees some traffic, and the visitor buys from me within 90 days, you'll get 15% of the sale. We also offer Tier II commissions, where you can get paid 2% for sales made by affiliates under you. And Shareasale makes affiliate marketing very easy for both the merchant and the affiliate."

A full set of coupon codes, text link ads, and banner ad images are available on Rizzo Tees’ affiliate site, which can be found at http://www.rizzotees.com/affiliates.php. Bloggers, coupon and shopping websites, site administrators, and anyone with a website can easily sign up to be a Shareasale affiliate at Shareasale.com, or through the Affiliates link on the RizzoTees.com website. RizzoTees.com is very simply laid out and ideal for affiliate marketing.

Mr. Reimer said his goal is to get to 1,000 affiliates. "We offer our affiliates a great deal, so I’m hopeful we’ll get there in 2010."

how to bring more traffic to your website.

You've had a website for your business for years now.  Perhaps you hired a high end design agency to create an online brochure that rivals a work of art. Perhaps you partnered with a local shop to build you a set of Internet tools to help your business run more smoothly. Perhaps you even hired a local freelancer to work under your in-house marketing department.

You've probably already thought seriously about web traffic: how to increase website traffic, how to get more targeted web traffic, how to learn more about your customers and potential customers by doing a website traffic analysis, how to get more of your visitors to become buyers or clients.

Over the next several sections, we discuss in detail the many aspects of measuring, increasing, and focusing your web traffic: analyzing your existing traffic, identifying your best visitors, converting them to customers.

At the bottom of each section are links which you can follow to dig deeper into a concept. Use the site search engine in the upper right hand corner of every page to search for the answer to that specific question that has been bugging you.

Web Traffic 101

You've had a website for your business for years now.  Perhaps you hired a high end design agency to create an online brochure that rivals a work of art. Perhaps you partnered with a local shop to build you a set of Internet tools to help your business run more smoothly. Perhaps you even hired a local freelancer to work under your in-house marketing department.

You've probably already thought seriously about web traffic: how to increase website traffic, how to get more targeted web traffic, how to learn more about your customers and potential customers by doing a website traffic analysis, how to get more of your visitors to become buyers or clients.

Over the next several sections, we discuss in detail the many aspects of measuring, increasing, and focusing your web traffic: analyzing your existing traffic, identifying your best visitors, converting them to customers.

At the bottom of each section are links which you can follow to dig deeper into a concept. Use the site search engine in the upper right hand corner of every page to search for the answer to that specific question that has been bugging you.

If you can't find the answer to your specific question, use our contact form to send it to us. We maintain an extensive Internet Marketing FAQ, and we would love to add your question to our list.

Site Visitors, A Misnomer

When most people think of site visitors, they think of people - people seeking information, people filling out forms, people shopping, hopefully buying, people returning to buy more.

Though most think of individual people when they think of site visitors, technically speaking, websites are not actually visited, even in an electronic form. In a sense, there is no such thing as a site visitor. Instead of saying a person visits a site, it is correct to say that a person's user agent requests files which are retrieved from a website and rendered at the person's personal computer, thus creating the website traffic. The traffic is your site being sent to the person's computer after being invited by a user agent.

In a sense, your website is the visitor. Your website visits the people you have been thinking of as visitors.

User Agents, Not Site Visitors

User agents are basically different types of software that request files from your web server. A road is likely to be used by an automobile driven by a person on his or her way to work, by a cyclist out for exercise, by a person walking across the street, by a semi truck hauling goods, and even by the occassional opposum or deer crossing the street. Just like roads get used by lots of things for many different reasons, your website gets used by lots of things for many different reasons. The most common user agents requesting your website are web browsersoperated by a person, but your site is most likely used by other agents, such as crawlers, robots or spiders.

The World Wide Web Consortium states that "User agents include HTML browsers and other types of software that retrieve and render Web content." They further state that a user agent is "Any software that retrieves and renders Web content for users. This may include Web browsers, media players, plug-ins, and other programs -- including assistive technologies -- that help in retrieving and rendering Web content."

Crawlers, Robots, or Spiders

Many terms are used to label the software programs used to index websites. Most refer to them as web crawlers, web robots, webbots, or spiders. Web crawlers, robots, and spiders are used by many companies to retrieve information about your website. They are often automated and are programmed to simply follow hyperlinks throughout the web. Search engines are the most well known users of spiders, but others use them as well. All in all, crawlers, robots and spiders make up a significant number of the "website visitors" for a well established site.

The Google robot, known as Googlebot, will visit a well established site several times a day to check for updates. Of all the spiders who traverse the sites for which we have web log access, Googlebot is by far the most active, on average around twice as active as the Yahoo! crawler and six times more active than the new msnbot spider. On their website, Google refers to Googlebot as "Google's web crawler" and as "Google's web-crawling robot."

Another common web crawler is the ia_archiver, which crawls sites in order to create and maintain a complete historical backup copy of the web, located at Archive.org, and also is used to provide screenshot thumbnail images for Alexa.com, which uses the Google search engine.

Crawlers, robots, or spiders are also used by companies which offer link checking or link validation services, and by companies which harvest company contact information or email addresses for sale.

More Information on Crawlers, Robots, or Spiders

The Web Robots Pages

Search Engine IP Addresses 

Lists IP addresses of search engine spiders. Can be searched by IP address. Also links to resources on spiders.

Increase Traffic to Your Website

When we talk about increasing website traffic, we're really talking about several different things, including increasing hits, increasing pageviews, increasing sessions, and increasing unique visitors. For some sites, increasing pageviews will be the immediate goal because the concern is that the vast majority of visitors view only one page of the site, then leave. For others the immediate goal will be to increase the number of unique and return visitors.

Because there are multiple metrics available to webmasters when reporting traffic, a great deal of confusion surrounds the whole affair. Many webmasters refer to website hits when they report their traffic. While many people have asked about increasing hits, website hits are not a very good measure of the success of a site.

First, let's take a hypothetical tour of the process of measuring website traffic. Imagine Hypothetical Jim visiting the home page of a new website he learned about on Google.com. Hypothetical Jim visits the home page, then visits the "About Us" page, which he bookmarks. Later, Hypothetical Stu visits the home page, then leaves the site. Later that evening, Hypothetical Jim returns to the "About Us" page using his bookmark, and clicks on the link to the "Contact Us" page. After looking over the page, he leaves the site.

From the text description above, you can determine that: (1) the site has had 2 unique visitors, Hypothetical Jim and Hypothetical Stu; (2) the site has had three unique visitor sessions (two for Jim and one for Stu); and (3) the site has had 5 pageviews (4 by Jim and 1 by Stu). You may wonder wether to count Hypothetical Jim's second visit to the "About Us" page as a second pageview. Count it.

What you cannot determine from the description above is the number of website hits. A hit is measured every time a specific unique file (HTML files, image files, script files, frames, etc.) is downloaded. In other words, many people refer to the total number of HTTP Requests a user makes as the number of hits the site receives. Since a single web page can be made up of any number of unique files (hundreds even), measuring hits is often meaningless in measuring the success of a website.

In this hypothetical example, the homepage consists of 24 files, so web analysis software will count 24 hits every time a visitor downloads the home page. There are 21 total images, 1 script, and one CSS file (plus the index html file itself). The "About Us" page consists of 14 files, so web analysis software will count 14 hits. There are 11 images, 1 script, and one CSS file (plus the about html file itself). The same goes for the "Contact Us" page.

As you can see, website hits do not consistently correlate with unique visitors, sessions, or pageviews. The only reason to look at hits is to measure the number of HTTP requests that a browser has to make in order to view your page. Generally speaking, the larger the hit count, the slower the download. For that reason, it is best to reduce the number of hits/page until the download speed is optimized.

Savvy media buyers ignore webmasters who claim to have thousands of hits. They measure pageviews, user sessions, and unique and return visitors.

Visit our Free Webmaster Tools page to get our Free Website Hit Counter.

Increase Site Visitors

A-Z Tips to Increase Site Visitors

We said A-Z and we meant it. Here are 26 sure-fire ways to increase web traffic and site visitors to your website. Use some or all of them, and let us know which ones worked best for you.

Optimize your site (SEO). 

Win on the search engines when people search for keyword phrases related to your products or services. 

Get your site listed in directories. 

Submit your site to all the major web directories. This will generate traffic directly from the directories themselves and will also help to improve your link popularity. That helps you win on Google!

Get listed in search engines. 

Submit your site to all the major search engines.

Get links to your site. 

Get people with complimentary sites to link to yours. You offer rental kayaks on the beach. Ask the local restaurant owners to link to you, and offer to link to them. Ask the local tour guides, the real estate agents, the night clubs, and everyone else. Links lead to clicks onto your website and help to improve your search engine rankings.

Buy ads linking to your site. 

Buy sponsored links on other websites. That means more people visiting your site, and many sites offer a pay for performance model.

Buy banner ads. 

Buy banner ads on other websites. It helps to build brand recognition.

Participate in a banner exchange program. 

It won't cost you anything, and will lead to a few extra visitors. Plus, you're spreading your brand all over the place.

Participate in a WebRing. 

Connect your site with other sites in your niche.

Pay for clicks to your site. 

Pay for clicks or inclusion on the search engines so that people will see your site in the sponsored links section of the search results when they search for keyword phrases related to your products or services.

Set up an affiliate marketing program. 

With affiliate marketing, you can either pay per click, pay per lead generated, pay per sale, or pay per customer acquired.

Use smart public relations (PR). 

Get news coverage of your business and your site. Approach online and traditional media. This will often lead to others placing links pointing to your website, which leads to more clicks and also to improved search engine rankings.

Use E-mail marketing. 

Ugly, but effective for the cost. Blast out your special offers, but be nice about it.

Use off-line marketing. 

Promote your site. Put your url on all your license plates. Paint it on your car. Buy newspaper and yellow pages ads with your url. Put up flyers and stickers. Sponsor a little league team. Do anything and everything to spread the word about your website around your city.

Run regular promotions. 

Stage regular giveaways and spread the word about it.

Get published. 

Write articles for publication on other websites. The author profile will link to your site. The article will show that you're an expert.

Publish yourself. 

Write articles for your own site regularly. This will help you to win on the search engines and gives your visitors a reason to come back over and over.

Ask for reviews. 

Ask for reviews of your self-published articles on other webmasters' websites. Ask for reviews of your website, your products, your software, your services. These will usually include links to your articles.

Write briefs. 

Write daily or weekly news briefs focusing in on your industry or specialty area. This keeps your site "fresh" in the eyes of the major search engines and helps you to spread a wide net when fishing for top search engine positions.

Create a newsletter. 

Ask your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, and encourage them to send it along to people they know. Send a newsletter regularly with teasers or lead-ins to your in-depth new articles or with special offers and the latest products.

Post in chat rooms. 

Become active in bulletin boards and chat rooms focusing on your industry. Leave inciteful comments, and people will click on your profile, then visit your site.

Give away free stuff. 

Offer something people want at your site. Give them a reason to come back and get more. Offer free downloads and update them regularly. Offer coupons or discounts. Content content content.

Give awards for excellent sites in your niche. 

This builds more links back to your site and establishes you as a credible reviewer, an expert in your space.

Run a contest and promote it. 

Photo contests, essay contests, goofy contests, random drawings, anything. Example: Messiest Garage in America contest on OfftheFloor.com.

Join your local business organizations. 

Chambers of Commerce and other organizations will often add your site to their member directory. That's an added advantage over the obvious business-building and networking opportunities.

Create an RSS feed. 

Give people another way to interact with your content.

Be accessible. 

Build your site so that it is accessible to all browsers and to PocketPC and Palm Pilot users. Don't forget, people with disabilities buy things too. Make your site Section 508 complaint. Your competition probably hasn't. 

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3 Easy Steps To Increase Affiliate Marketing Traffic

No doubt if you’re reading this page you’re either looking to start an affiliate marketing business, or you’re already into online marketing and you’re searching for some extra tips on increasing your business. It’s no secret that for any affiliate marketer to be successful they need to drive a lot of targeted traffic to their particular offer. But what does an aspiring affiliate marketer need to do to generate targeted traffic to their offer?

Well there is really no big “secret’ to generating targeted traffic for your affiliate business, but you do have to acquire a little marketing knowledge and apply it diligently to your business. With this in mind lets take a look at 3 easy steps to increase your traffic:

1) SEO

If you’re an established webmaster you’ll already be familiar with the term SEO. If not, you need to familiarize yourself with the term right away. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, and is a strategy used by Internet marketers globally. The goal of SEO is to increase your websites ranking within search engines. Done correctly, SEO will have a dramatic impact on your site bringing in scores new targeted prospects for your particular offer.

Search Engine Optimization encompasses a number of different methods, which could take hours upon hours of writing to expound on them all. Therefore I’m only going to briefly outline three of the essential methods.

Firstly and most importantly is Content. Content is what search engines pick up on quickly, not to mention the fact that surfers demand good free content from the web these days, overlook this and chances are surfers will overlook your site. So if you have a website/blog (and you should have) see to it that you’re updating content on a regular basis, especially if you have a blog.

The second method is the use of keywords. These are simply words or phrases surfers type into their browsers to find information on the web. A webmaster must lace their content with keywords so that search engines can match your content with what surfers are looking for. For example, lets say you’re looking for dog supplements so you type in the keyword phrase “dog supplements” and up pops several hundred (usually multiple thousands) listings of websites that have something to do with dog supplements. Now the trick here is to have your site’s content  laced with the keyword phrase dog supplements. If you have done this you can expect Google, over time, to index that page and start sending you visitors.

Thirdly is back links. Now back links are where other sites have linked to your site/blog and are usually, but not always, one way.  I’m not going to go into detail here about back linking, however, it’s sufficient to know that back links are an integral method of SEO. Whenever you do a search and Google brings you the first page of listings, you can bet that the sites holding positions 1 through 10 would have several thousand back links. Please visit this link for some expert advice on back linking.

2)  Article Submission.

There is some debate over the effectiveness of submitting articles to generate traffic, nevertheless, it is still practiced by many veteran marketers with varying degrees of success. Therefore, this method should not be overlooked. In practice you write an article of your choice and submit it to several article directories. Article directories are websites designed to host thousands, even millions of articles. In exchange for providing your article free of charge, article directories will allow you to insert a link at the end of your article which should point back to a page on your site containing the information about the particular product you’re selling. If done correctly, article submission will result in gaining some additional traffic to your site.

When it comes to article submission you should make sure you submit at least 3-5 articles per month, the more the better. Also make sure your articles are relevant to what your trying to sell. One last tip on article submission, if you’re planning to submit each article to more than one article directory, make sure you do a slightly different version of each. If you don’t Google may penalize you for duplicate content and this could adversely affect your sites ranking.

3) Blogging

Over the past few years the popularity of blogging has increased by leaps and bounds. In addition to personal blogs, an ever increasing number of businesses are relying on blogging as a method to increase their website traffic, you can too. Every point I’ve made above can be easily applied to a blog. Some marketers, like myself, prefer to have a blog as their main site, and still others choose to link it to their website. Either way works well. As for me I prefer the ease of having just a blog, in fact my blog is the center of my entire marketing business.

Posting to your blog on a regular basis is going to attract Google like bees are attracted to honey. Because Google loves content rich articles blogs tend to do better than static websites. Google seems to like regular up-dated blog posts and will crawl and index you blog just as fast as you can make each new post. I highly recommend having your own blog as the choice method of generating traffic. However, you should note that it does take several months for Google to start sending you a significant amount of traffic, but it will come.

So then, the 3 easiest methods for increasing affiliate marketing traffic are:

1) SEO

2) Article submission

3) Blogging

Each method is unique in it’s own right and as an individual marketer you must decide which, if any, you want to utilize for your traffic building strategy. As for me, I’ve used article submission in the past, but tend to favor blogging  now. I may go back to article submission at a later date but for now my blogging is keeping me busy enough.

To your success