We would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas .
We would like to thank all of you for being regular readers to this blog and helping us build a great community that is open to sharing of thoughts and comments. This blog would have not existed without your continuous support and contributions. I appreciate all your efforts and contributions to this site.
Today is going to be a very relaxed and a fun day meeting friends and family. I hope your day is fun and happy too.
Hope to see you around in 2010, we have tons of exciting stuff planned for this blog. 2010 is going to be one awesome ride for all of us.
I have been using Aweber since the launch of this blog. I must say that its one of the best investments I’ve made in my blog alongwith the Thesis Theme . If you have a blog and do not have a mailing list you are leaving tons of money on the table. No seriously, the money is in the list and there is no better alternative to build a mailing list with Aweber.
With the launch of the new web form generator Aweber just got a lot better and simpler. The new generator will allow you to create great looking opt-in forms and hover forms without any knowledge of HTML or any other code.
I am sure you have noticed the hover opt in form on this blog , I’ve done it with the help of Aweber’s form generator with a single click and without the knowledge of any HTML or coding.
Here is a video to show Aweber’s form generator it in action:
If making money from your blog is your objective then building a mailing list in your blog should be on top of your “to do” list.
I repeat the money is in the list, don’t lose even a second to sign up with Aweber and start building a list on your blog. You can opt in for a 30 Day trial at $ 1, if you are unsatisfied you can opt out anytime by sending them a mail.
Wordpress.org has launched the latest wordpress version 2.9, if you are running your blog on any other version I recommend you to upgrade to Wordpress 2.9, keeping your wordpress updated to the latest version is one of the best security measures of preventing your blog from being hacked.
Some of the new features include :
- A Trash Bin concept for comments and posts , you can undo any comment from the trash bin if you accidentally happen to delete it. It’s a good enhancement feature that has been included in the new version.
- Quick Edit has been included for comments, this feature help you to edit your users comments and upload it. I am not sure what the objective of this is and why should you have an option to edit comments ? Let us know if you have figured this out.
- Empty Spam : Another great feature to be included in this version. Unlike the earlier version you don’t have to delete spam comments page by page. One click of the Empty Spam tab will deleted all your spam comments, but I recommend you to check every page and then delete spam comments as a lot of times there are genuine comments that get included in spam comments.
If you are new to Wordpress, you can download the Wordpress handy guide installation process. If your blog is hosted on Blue Host its a very simple “One Click Installation” process to install wordpress.
Have you downloaded Wordpress 2.9 ? Please share with us the features that you like in the new version.
My blogger friend and fellow Torontonian Evan Carmichael has compiled a list of top 50 SEO blog posts of 2009 . The list consists of very resourceful blog posts from the top SEO blogs. Evan is an SEO Expert and runs a series of Mastermind groups for Entrepreneurs in Toronto. Evan also supports African Entrepreneurs in need of micro financing loans by running a very successful workshop called SEO for Africa once every two months.
The workshop is very affordable and is a sold out event. The proceeds from the workshop support entrepreneurs in Africa who are trying to build better lives for themselves by starting and growing their business. SEO for Africa is also a great event to network with fellow internet business owners, if you reside in Toronto or Greater Toronto Area ( GTA ) I recommend you to check it out.
Affiliates are arguably the most important thing when you launch a product – even if the product isn’t amazing, as long as you have plenty of affiliates, your project could still be a success. That’s just an example of the power of getting affiliates to promote, and indeed sell, your product.
However, although the power of using affiliates is unrivaled when it comes to sources of sales, if you don’t use the right tactics, you won’t attract affiliates, and in this scenario you won’t make any affiliate sales. This would quite simply be a disaster.
So, how can you encourage affiliates to sign up to your program and, more importantly, make some sales? I’ve listed a few techniques below that will hopefully help you out.
High Commission Rate
The first and most obvious thing you need to do is to set a reasonably high commission rate. If potential affiliates see that they could get amount by selling the product, they’re more likely to sign up. It’s just basic common sense really, but I’ll include it anyway. Commission rates of 30 % upwards is a great motivating factor for any affiliate to promote your products.
Limited Time Offers
If you’ve ever launched a product, one of the methods you may use to increase sales and brand exposure is a limited time offer, whereby people can get the product at a discounted price or with a bonus, but only for a certain time period. This is a really effective way of increasing sales, and it can also be applied to affiliates.
For example, the way to do this is to offer affiliates a larger commission, so long as they do something by a certain date.
Let’s use an example to illustrate this further…
You are planning on launching your product on the 1st February, and want to give affiliates a 30% commission. Here’s what you can say to potential affiliates:
• ‘If you sign up to the affiliate program before 15th February, you will earn 50% commission on all products you sell’
• ‘Any sales you make between the 1st of February and the 1st of March will come with a 50% commission’.
You can develop this point further, just as long as you put some sort of time limit on the offer, you should hopefully see an increase in affiliate sign ups and sales.
Run An Affiliate Contest
This is, in my opinion, one of the best ways. You can run a competition where affiliates can compete to win prizes. I saw a contest like this recently where the first person to make 500 sales won a holiday, and I’ve even seen prizes such as cars being given away! Whilst your contest doesn’t have to be quite as elaborate as this, they’re a great way of increasing affiliates’ productivity.
Create Some Awesome Graphics
No doubt when you visit blogs, you’ll see adverts. There are even some on this blog, and I have them on my site, too. A lot of the ads you will see are affiliate adverts, and you always seem to see the same ones over and over. This is because the company has provided affiliate with adverts that the affiliates will happily display on their website.
You need to design awesome adverts to give to your affiliates if you want a successful program, so if you’re not too hot on designing them yourself, it’s well worth spending the money to get cool graphics. It’s a small price to pay for a successful affiliate program!
This is a guest post by Simon Rogers, a teenager who blogs at Teenius.com You can subscribe to his feed, or follow him on Twitter. Contact us if you want to guest post on this blog.
