Several new free affiliate classess have been added on the Affiliate Guild and a couple of free softwares to help you improve your affiliate knowledge and affiliate functionality.

Free Affiliate Classes on Affiliate Guild

As an Affiliate Guild Member, you will have free access to all Free Classes offered by the Affiliate Guild. Membership into the Affiliate Guild is 100% Free. It's a Win-Win for all affiliates and newbie affiliates.

Affiliate Guild offers you Free online classes for both newbies and more advanced affiliates, to teach you how to maximize your internet profits through Affiliate Marketing. Classes are packed with all the information you need.

Free Affiliate Software on Affiliate Guild

To get access to this software, all you need to do is join the Affiliate Guild. By joining the Affiliate Guild you will have access to the Free Online Classes. They have listed each software as its own class … just sign-up for the class and they will email you the access code. Joining the Affiliate Guild will enroll you into the opt-in Affiliate Guild Newsletter, so use an email address that will accept Affiliate Guild's emails to you.

The Lexington Law affiliates program is going to offer a free training for their affiliates … don't miss out ….

About 30% of Internet commerce is driven by affiliate marketers.
But 90% of marketing affiliates make barely enough in commissions to pay their water bill.

WHY?

It’s not their fault. Anyone can put together a group of affiliates. But few companies take the time and effort to create a powerful cadre of affiliate marketers and provide them the specific, proven action steps that drive more business.

At Lexington Law/Progrexion, we don’t think our affiliate marketing is successful unless the program produces a healthy revenue stream for you. And we’re going to show you exactly how to do that.

On Thursday June 28th at 2:00 EST you can attend a F*REE training webinar, and learn from “super affiliate” Russell Brunson of DotComSecrets, Inc.and the Lexington Law team the closely guarded secrets for raking in huge affiliate checks.

Russell took $20 and a simple idea and created DotComSecrets, Inc, a multi-million dollar online company driven by affiliate marketing. He normally charges $1000 an hour to train the top affiliates in the world…BUT simply by registering for this Lexington Law Firm/Progrexion webinar, you can learn his affiliate tactics absolutely F*REE.

Give us 1 hour – we’ll give you the affiliate marketing secrets that will take your affiliate program to the next level, better your cash flow and boost your bottom line.

REGISTER NOW! If this link does not work copy and paste this address in your browser http://www.dotcomsecrets.com/affiliatetraining.htm

To your success,

The Lexington Law Affiliate
Management Team

P.S. Webinar slots are limited.

I met Marc Chase in a affilaite focused forum. He's an Affiliate Manager trying to fire up a new affiliate program for MyCreditGroup.

Marc's got some strikes against him, as he's got a spanking new affiliate program in a niche that's flooded and really hard to rank in.

Marc's Affiliate Program is in the Finance niche with a focus on Credit Repair, Debt Settlement and Mortgages. It's one of the toughest to break into, and most expensive to participate in.

I know this niche very well as I used to own a business that generated leads for Merchants as large as Bank of America. I used to earn upwards of $50 per lead. That's per lead, not per sale. Money was good way back then, but not anymore if you're new to the game.

So, when I saw Marc's post announcing his offering to the affiliates … I saw some really good things and I saw a few things that could be better.

Marc's post read something like this…

We've put a lot of effort into building a flawless reputation before launching our affiliate program.
We put just as much effort into creating support for our affiliates. 

Some Features:
- Multi Tiered: $50.00 per 5% second tier
- $1000.00 bonus per 100 sign ups
- Additional bonuses of 500.00 for second conversion
- Huge industry and we are hands down the most trusted.

We're even working on health benefits (lots of details of course)

The affiliate page can be found here:
The Best Credit Repair Affiliate Program - My Credit Group

Feel free to research our company thoroughly and you'll see the effort we've put into ethics and integrity.

If you have any questions, or suggestions we'd love to hear from you.

Thank you in advance
Marc Chase

• They're listed with Dunn and Bradstreet.
• They have a flawless seven year old BBB record, which in that niche is unheard of.
• They are registered with the Attorney General and Secretary of State.
• They offer the affiliate a lot of incentives.
• They offer the affiliate revenue potential for the client's many possible trasactions.
• Their payout for sales seems generous.
• They offer a second tier opportunity.
• They don't compete with the affiliates.
• They are very responsive to their affiliates.

What I didn't see caused me to ask Marc a few questions and offer some suggestions:

• I wanted to see a short form for affiliates to put onto their websites to generate sales easier.
• I wanted to see a 365 day cookie set because in this niche clients take a long time to sell to.
• I wanted to see a first-in cookie so that affiliates who really work it can benefit and not have to worry about cookie theft.
• I wanted to know what states they could service, because this niche has lots of legal limitations.
• I wanted to know who owned the company.

Marc was prompt to respond to all my questions, and lightning quick to supply all the elements I suggested. He also gave me some more insights into his company and their ethics:

Debt Settlement. Its rather lengthy so I'll paint some broad strokes
1) Greed - average fee is 14% we charge 8%. It still makes a ton of money. I dont understand 14%.

2) Because we have a credit repair mentality, credit scores are first things we think of. So, while client is saving their "settlement" money, we keep the debts tied up with validation, method of validation, FCBA requests etc. What this does (not always) is prevents them from marking the accounts late while they are saving. Goal being to get them debt free and preserving their credit.

3) Greed again: Settlement companies get paid on the total amount of debt settled. Many debts that arent even necessary to settle are included because its more commissions. We work on repair first (where applicable) if we can get something removed, then its less the client has to pay. Again, still a ton of money.

4) We always attempt to pay for deletions (credit repair mentaility). Collection agents usually just care about money and will delete the tradeline entirely as long as they get paid.

Again, settlement companies don't do credit repair, so those things aren't their concern. Since we want everybody to eventually turn to a mortgage, it is in our best interest to perfect their score no matter what service we're providing.

I am impressed with company's business model, and after chatting with Marc, I'm also impressed with their attention to details and customer service for their affiliates.

I decided to join their affiliate program and if you have finance sites that focus on CPS more than CPM/CPA, this would be a good affiliate program for you too … very ethical todate.

Every now and again, I get wind of a good promotional that's either fairly priced or absolutely free.

Today I got a phone call from my friend Ed who's going to be offering all newbie affiliates a totally free training for thirty days. Since I'm all about training and especially the free stuff like I have at the Affiliate Guild, I wanted to blog about this right away.

The training is called the 30 Day Challenge, and here's the skinny, right from his homepage:

"In a nutshell… The Thirty Day Challenge is about making your first $10 online. For a full 30 days we are going to be showing you exactly how to start your own Internet business and generate your first income online without spending a dime.

"That's right, this is going to cost zip, diddly, nothing, nada, ziltch. The entire training program is free, and you won't have to spend a thing to get your business started and begin making money. No credit card required."

Actually, I signed up for it too, and I'm not a newbie as you know. So, there's no hard and fast rule that it's just for newbies, but it is designed to teach the basics from what I understand. I'm really looking forward to this training. It will be interesting to see how it compares to James Martell's Affiliate Marketing Bootcamp training.

The training starts August 1st! So, don't delay in reserving your spot. I think space is limited, but I didn't ask by how many. I do know the training is going to use a lot of videos, so that's good because it means it's more flexiblity with your time schedule.

So, if you want the free training go to Ed's website, sign up, get into his forums and read his blog. Reserve your spot in his free class before it fills up!

30 Day Challenge - see you there!

BECOME A MEMBER OF THE AFFILIATE GUILD TODAY!
Affiliate Guild is a self-help learning resource for people who want to learn to be affiliate, are already affiliates, and want to learn to be super affiliates. The website offers a wide variety of help-tools and is a great resource to keep open on your desktop as you work on your affiliate programs.

Are you interested in becoming an Affiliate Guild Member?
Affiliate Guild members can enjoy courses taught in the Affiliate Guild online school classes.
Affiliate Guild members are the only ones legally allowed to use the Affiliate Guild logo with a link back to the Affiliate Guild indicating they are working within professional guidelines as an affiliate.
Membership is FREE for all affiliates!
Affiliate Guild members also enjoy our exclsuive Affiliate Guild Newsletter.

Let�s start with an important fact. Though you can earn from affiliate marketing even without the benefit of having your own website, it is still a much better option that you get one. A website is the anchor of your work at home business. It will be easier to promote your business and products or affiliate products if you have your own pages in cyber space.

We have previously discussed the basics of creating your own website and optimizing the same for the search engines.

In this article, we�re going to tackle some initial steps you should take in securing an enrollment to an affiliate program and in ensuring that it will be a profitable enterprise. Study these steps carefully.

* Choose the right affiliate program as covered in last weeks article.

* Enroll for the said program. Keep in mind that before you can be a part of this work at home business, you must first opt-in, or verify your application, through your email.

* Once enrolled, you will be given access to a website where you must log in. Do not forget your login details.

* You will see the list of the affiliate merchant�s products inside. You will be given the option to choose a product for which a campaign will be launched. Once a product is chosen, you will be furnished an affiliate link. Do not lose this affiliate link!

With your affiliate link at hand, it�s time to move to the next level!

Your affiliate link is what will tell the affiliate program�s system that a purchaser was referred by you. Your pre-sells that end up becoming successful sales are actually coursed through your affiliate links, thus informing the affiliate program that commissions are due to you.

It is quite evident then that affiliate marketing as a work at home business is all about persuading a potential customer to at least check out the affiliate merchant�s products through your affiliate link. The reason why affiliate marketing is called, well, marketing is because you need some promotional strategies to induce a person to become a purchaser.

We will discuss these marketing strategies in the next article.

The success of an enrollment with an affiliate program as a work at home business depends on the amount of commitment and effort you invest in the same. Being an affiliate, you must remember, is an online job, but a job nonetheless. You cannot just sit down and let this home business earn for you, at least, not initially.

Eventually however, you should be able to automate most of the process by installing some tools for a self-sufficient system of your own. We will cover this thoroughly in subsequent articles.

About the Author:
Mal Keenan can show you step-by step how to set up and run a successful online home business. Learn the 7 essential strategies to internet marketing success. To receive your free 7 day mini-course visit: http://www.malkeenan.com

Heads up Amazon affiliates and cell phone affiliates, you might want to take a look at this one…  

The Associates Team has teamed up with the Amazon Cell Phone Team to create an exciting new offer for you to earn additional referral fees. Beginning May 1, 2007, when you refer a cell phone with a service plan, you will earn an extra $15 bonus on each referral! Why market Amazon Cell Phones and Service? Amazon offers the hottest phones, 30-day returns, an easy comparison shopping experience, and some of the most competitive cell phone pricing on the Web.

Learn more through your Amazon affiliates area. 

The Affiliate Guild has recently posted a great affiliate help list tips of 25 things that new and struggling affiliates trying to make a go of affiliate marketing should take a look at and give careful consideration to.

The Good Advice for New Affiliates post was inspired by Linda Buquet's super affiliate contest going on at 5 star affiliate programs.

Good Advice for New Affiliates
from the Affiliate Guild

25 Affiliate Tips To Success
1. Too much time building websites will bog you down. Make easy to maintain sites.

2. SEO does matter if you want targeted traffic.

3. Get a newsletter email opt-in on every page of every website you own.

4. Either get a forum or get a blog going. (Need one built?)

5. Write about your affiliate programs (article-repository.com). Tell everyone!

6. Focus on conversion not payout. Commissions are important though.

7. Get really, really niche.

8. Find affiliate programs that will be around awhile.

9. Find a search engine friendly cloaking script for your links.

10. There is more to affiliate life than Google! Diversify!

11. Learn about your affiliate programs and speak intellegently about them.

12. If you don't see what you want to represent, go get it. Consider your own affiliate network.

13. Make friends with Affiliate Managers … and if you have a lot of traffic ask for a bigger percentage on payout.

14. Work with reputable leadership (affiliate guild)

15. Buy from the affiliate program if you want to know how they work. We do it.

16. Monetize your websites.

17. If you have enough traffic sell ad space. If you have good SEO ranking, charge more for ads.

18. Ask for the sale. Most affiliate program banners don't close sales, you must do it.

19. You must work 8-10+ hours daily to be a successful super affiliate.

20. Keep it really simple … accomplish your goals with focused resources.

21. Find affiliate programs that offer a wide variety of advertising opportunities from banners to datafeeds.

22. Find affiliate programs that require strong marketing ethics and follow them, WIN-WIN.

23. Find affiliate programs that payout on schedule everytime. You're in control here!

24. Look for affiliate programs with affiliate tracking for phone sales you generate.

25. Look for affiliate programs with solid servers and software that works 100% of the time. Other affiliates write about the bad ones, so be aware and read the affiliate forums and blogs.

Posted by Bobbie Grennier on August 10, 2006 05:53 PM | Permalink

One of my sincerest hopes in blogging here is to bring new ideas to light and one of those ideas that I'm most excited about in the affiliate space is seeing affiliates move beyond Google.

You know, a few years back Google had us all convinced that we would never get an rank in their search engine if we all didn't put Google ads on our websites. What a load fly dung that was! One had nothing to do with the other.

But what did happen was that Google successfully took over the Web, and we helped them do it. Remember when Google was the search engine that webmasters endorsed? What were we thinking?!!

So, now we're seeing new income streams for affiliates.

Life beyond Google includes NetTraction, Adgenta, CrispAds, Text Link Ads, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, DoubleClickTribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, Bidvertiser, Fastclick Value Click and OneMonkey, MSN Adcenter and YPN from Yahoo.

I'd really encourage you to check these advertisers out and see how they can help your affiliate future.

Article Marketing for Affiliates

This video from DiamondSEO does a nice job of summing up the two methods of article marketing by affiliate marketing affiliates. Can you see the difference in where to publish your articles and why?