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Cloaking your affiliate link basically means hiding the raw affiliate code you get from the affiliate network and instead displaying a more attractive link like http://www.richardpargeter.com/recommends/aproduct.php
Why would you want to do this?
For a couple of reasons:-
1. It looks better.
A normal affiliate link can look something like this:-
http://34035cphs8mcd498ykrm4v3×7t.hop.clickbank.net/
…urggh! pretty ugly don’t you think
A cloaked affiliate link looks like this:-
http://www.richardpargeter.com/recommends/product … much easier on the eye!
2. Unscrupulous people can’t steal your commissions (as easily)
Believe it or not there are people hiding in the shadows of the great world wide web that are prepared to steal your commissions.
How?
Well if you have a naked affiliate link without cloaking it’s fairly easy for those in the know to realise it is an affiliate link. They can then go and sign up with the merchant themselves get their own affiliate link and purchase the product through their own link, in effect giving themselves a discount and robbing you of your commission for directing them to the merchant in the first place.
Don’t get too hung up on this but just be aware that it does happen.
3. A naked affiliate link looks dodgy!
Some people will see the source of the link and think that the code looks untrustworthy and may even be put off from clicking on the link. If you’ve got a nice looking link like the example above your visitors are more likely to click the link not knowing that it is in fact an affiliate link.
The process of hiding your affiliate link really is very simple and involves just three steps.
Step 1. Copy your affiliate code. If you haven’t got your affiliate code I tell you how to do this in my previous post on how to add your affiliate codes to your website
Step 2. Create the Redirect Script
Open up a text editor like Notepad and type the following code:-
<?php header(Location:'YOUR-AFFILIATE-LINK-GOES-HERE');?>
Replace the YOUR-AFFILIATE-LINK-GOES-HERE with the actual code you got from the merchant or affiliate network.
Save this file something like specialoffer.php and save it in a new folder called ‘recommends’
Remember to save as .PHP otherwise it won’t work.
Step 3. Upload to your server
The final step is to upload the ‘recommends’ folder with the specialoffer.php file (or whatever you’ve decide to call it) inside, to the root directory of your domain server using an FTP program like Filezilla (See my resources page)
The file structure should look like http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/recommends/specialoffer.php
From now on when you are promoting your affiliate product you should use this new CLOAKED affiliate url.
And what happens is when someone clicks on http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/recommends/specialoffer.php they will be redirected to your affiliate offer without your affiliate code being visible.
Have you found this post useful? Please leave a comment below…
Topics: Affiliate Marketing, Beginners Help | No Comments »
I received a question from somebody the other day who was just starting out in affiliate marketing and was getting a bit confused of how to put their affiliate links on their website. So I thought I would share the information with everybody out there. In this example I’ll be using Clickbank but the rules apply to all networks, okay here goes:-
Step 1: Grab your affiliate code. Once you’ve found a product on ClickBank by searching the Marketplace, you need to click on the Create Hoplink link Step 2: Enter Your ClickBank ID You’ll be presented with a pop up window where you’ll need to enter your ClickBank account username. You can enter a tracking code if you wish (I’ll talk about this in a later post) Step 3: Copy your Affiliate Link Click the Create button and your affiliate link will be created (ClickBank likes to call them hoplinks but they’re the same thing)
In the image above the highlighted code is the raw link code that you should copy and paste into a text file or spreadsheet so you can use it later.
If you like you can copy the second line of code and you will have a ready made link that says Click Here! like so. (This is an actual working affiliate link so you can see the results…the product is good too)
Step 4: Adjust the text link
The actual html code that creates the link looks like this:-
<a href="http://a73911fnmbjf64copdlbqa00og.hop.clickbank.net/" target="_top">Click Here!</a>
So if you wanted to change the link so that it reads as something else you just need to delete the “Click Here!” and type in whatever text you want.
Step 5: Copy & Paste
Once you’ve got your code all that is left to do is copy it and paste it into your website, making sure the source code view is active in your HTML editor.
That’s it. That’s all there is to including your affiliate link on your web page, in fact this is the code you’d use on any website that you wanted to promote the product on.
Important note: If you go back to Step 3 above and hover your mouse pointer over the Click Here! link you’ll notice that your full affiliate link is displayed in the status bar of your browser. To be more professional you need to consider cloaking your link so that instead it reads something like www.yoursitename.com/recommends/the product This looks so much better and hides any important information that could identify you as the affiliate. Watch out for my next post where I’ll show you exactly how you can cloak your links professionally.
I hope you’ve found this post useful, if you have let me know by leaving a comment below.
Topics: Affiliate Marketing, Beginners Help | 3 Comments »
One of the easiest ways to start making money on the internet, in my opinion, is by affiliate marketing. Now when I say easy, it is by no means a get rich quick scheme. If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is then keep reading because I’m about to tell you.
In it’s simplest definition affiliate marketing is promoting someone else’s products in return for a commission.
First off you need to sign up at an affiliate network which is basically a big marketplace where you can find products to promote.
Clickbank and Commission Junction (CJ) are affiliate networks, there are many more but when you’re just starting out these will be the 2 big players you’ll hear people talking about the most.
Clickbank specialises in digital products and CJ deal with both digital and physical items.
Then you find a product to promote, I’ll be talking about this in later posts but just a word of warning if you get this wrong from the start you won’t have much chance of making any money before you even start.
Once you’ve picked your product you’ll be given an affiliate code. This is a unique link that you can place on your website to promote the product.
An affiliate code looks something like this – http://62739ftlq8r87t7fxzo-j5s8u5.hop.clickbank.net/
So lets say you have a blog and you include this code in one of your posts. When a visitor to your blog clicks the link they are redirected to the merchants site. At the same time a tiny file is placed on their computer called a cookie and this tells the merchant that you sent that visitor to them. If the visitor then purchases the product you’re promoting you earn a commission which is paid to you through the affiliate network.
Therefore the more people you send to the merchants site the more chance there is of you earning commissions.
In my opinion affiliate marketing is the easiest entry in making money online because you don’t need a product of your own and you need very little cash to start. Stay tuned to my blog over the next couple of weeks because I’ll be going in to detail on how you can start to profit from affiliate marketing.
Did you find this post interesting? Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below
Topics: Affiliate Marketing, Beginners Help | 1 Comment »
As an affiliate marketer it is essential that you do your niche market research before you enter any niche and spend time generating traffic by whatever means you choose.
If you enter an unprofitable niche your chance of success is already decreased.
In this series of articles I’m going to share with you my affiliate strategies of how to find niche markets. In this first one I will use Amazon. I’m going to take the step by step approach because I think this will be easier to follow for the internet marketing newbie.
Amazon.com is probably one of the biggest if not the biggest retailer online, but it is also a fantastic resource for our niche research online.
Go to http://www.Amazon.com/bestsellers On the resulting page you’ll get the best selling items on Amazon sorted by department. You’ll see that this list is updated hourly, so you know that you’re getting the latest information in almost realtime.
As you can see from the image above the Apple ipod touch has spent more than 80 days in the top 100 for electronics so we can assume that this would be a good niche to explore.
Scrolling down further we can see the Flip UltraHD Camcorder has spent 197 days in the top 100 so this would also be a good market to look into.
By moving over to the left of screen we can see all the categories. This list alone can be excellent for brainstorming niches. If we click on the Books category we are then taken to the top 100 best sellers and we can then see which products are the most popular and also which products are moving up or down the chart.
In the image above you can see that the book The Help has spent 280 days in the top 100 and is also rising up the charts. Whereas, the Diary of a Wimpy kid has moved down the chart. This could be for 2 reasons that it has become less popular or the books above it have knocked it down. This would be something you would need to consider when choosing your niche.
You should also notice that there is now a list of categories within the book category on the left hand side of the screen and you can even drill down further within those categories. You can treat each category as a niche and the categories within them as sub niches.
On Amazon.com you can also check out the Movers & Shakers. These are the products that have risen up the charts sharply over the last 24 hours and can indicate a new trend. Go to www.amazon.com/movers-and-shakers
Once again you can select your category and drill down further.
One word of warning following the movers and shakers could just be a short term trend and you may find that going in to this niche will only provide short term profits. I would always advise to sacrifice short term profits for long term wealth.
For example I have many niche sites for Amazon that earn me a modest income throughout the year, nothing that I can retire from but generally a steady income. Now with Amazon sites in particular there is always a spike in sales come November and December for the Christmas period, because people are more willing to spend their money and they have a deadline to spend it by… unless they want to upset little Johnny come Christmas day.
Anyway, if I wanted I could surf this wave trying to maximise the cash on the short term because I know come January the sales will drop again. And there lies the problem, I could spend 2 months squeezing the most money out of my Amazon sites for the short term or I could concentrate on building a business that will bring in rewards all year round. So I would advise when you’re looking to find a niche market to enter go for one that is evergreen and has consistent sales all year round you’re business and bank manager will thank you for it.
I hope you can see how powerful Amazon is for finding niche markets. In the next article we’ll be looking at another fantastic way to find niche markets.
If you’re struggling with affiliate marketing and need a proven blueprint to follow you should really check this out
Did you find this helpful? Please leave a comment below
Topics: Affiliate Marketing, Beginners Help, Niche Finding Help | 3 Comments »
I’ve been affiliate marketing for some time now mainly with Amazon and a few smaller networks, but it’s only been recently that I’ve started to promote ClickBank products.
After dabbling for a couple of weeks I received my first cheque this morning.
Now I’m not going to be able to retire just yet the payment’s only for $246.73, but what it proves is this stuff works. I’ve had my days where I’ve thought making money online is not as easy as the big gurus make out and to some extent it’s not.
You have to put a lot of time and effort in, whether that’s building websites, squeeze pages or generating traffic and it’s definitely not a get rich quick scheme.
For me my first clickbank cheque signifies a starting point and proof that with hard work and dedication to the cause, you can get to see results and rewards pretty quickly.
So if you think making money online is not possible, think again you’re probably going wrong somewhere…I know I have in the past.
Now, how do I pay a US dollar cheque into a UK bank account?….
I’d love to hear your experiences please leave a comment below
Topics: Beginners Help | 1 Comment »
It’s been a while since I posted to the blog as I’ve been busy trying a few new things with Pay Per Click (PPC) and Pay Per View (PPV).
I’ve had more success with PPC so that’s something I’m going to explore over the next few weeks and months… I really want to become a success at it because IMHO it’s the best way to get a huge amount of traffic fast!
I’m not going to rush it because I want to avoid losing my shirt and my underwear for that matter at the hands of Google I’ll keep that story for another post.
I’ve dabbled with PPC before with very limited success not really knowing what I was doing, so I bought a few Adwords books to answer my questions but the problem with printed material or digital come to that is it’s very difficult to keep up with the Google changes.
I needed some questions answered fast, really an assessment of whether I was going down the right track. So where did I go?
The Warrior Forum!
If you don’t know already the Warrior Forum is one of the greatest sources of Internet Marketing information online and it’s all for FREE!
I’d been a member for a while but hadn’t really used it, I’d dip my toe in now and again but I never really went for a swim.
With my PPC questions ready I posted them in a new thread and within minutes I had many replies giving me advice about where I was going right and wrong. I picked up some little gems that I’m sure some of the big gurus out there would charge many dollars for… but I got them for free because it seems at the Warrior Forum everybody likes to help.
Now obviously like anything you have to use your own judgement on who to listen to because there are some people over there from ‘the grumpy club’… you know the ones who tell everybody that internet marketing doesn’t work and the make money online stuff is all a big scam. My advice is read their comments and then forget about them, only listen to the people who give you good sound advice. Now, granted you may see the advice as positive or negative but if they have proof to back up their claims it’s still good advice and down to you which one you go with… just don’t join the grumpy club blaming other people if things don’t turn out as expected the buck lies with you…END OF RANT!
Since becoming an active member of the Warrior Forum I’ve learned loads of useful information that I could have probably paid for… but why put my hand in my pocket when I can get most of my questions answered for free.
Please Note: I am in no way affiliated to the Warrior Forum, I don’t earn any cash from recommending it, I just do because I wish someone had told me about it earlier on in my internet marketing endeavours
I’d love to hear what you have to say, please leave a comment below:-
Topics: Beginners Help, Marketing Tips | No Comments »
Well it’s now been a week since I’ve been back from London after going to my first Entrepreneur Bootcamp.
Two info packed days at the O2 Arena hosted by Andrew Reynolds.
If you haven’t been to the O2 before… it’s a massive a great venue although the catering on the first day was a lot to be desired. I went with my Dad and we stood in line at lunch for about 45 minutes and still didn’t get anywhere near the front before we had to get back in the arena to see the next speaker… so I went the day on a Snickers bar and a packet of mini chedders!
Not that I’m complaining at all, the information I gained was fantastic. There were many speakers and I particularly enjoyed Andrew Reynolds, Simon Coulson and Joel Comm
I made pages of notes and have been reviewing them over the last few days and I can say that 2 days was a turning point in my business and for me personally.
You’ll probably know only too well that it’s easy in life to become side tracked. I’m no different.
I’ve gone from one thing to another chasing the money but now more than ever I’m more focused and ready for the challenge of taking my life and my business to the next level.
I’ve learnt that to achieve my goals I have to believe my goals and start living like I’ve achieved them before I have.
Sounds weird, but I heard the same thing time and time again from experts in their field who are worth multi-millions of dollars, who’ve been there and done it on a massive scale. They all said that to change your life you have to change your mindset and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
At the moment I’m making plans to take my business up a notch, I’m setting myself goals that at this moment in time seem impossible and I don’t really know how I’m going to achieve them. What I do know is that I’ll get there and I’ll get there thinking positively!
What are your dreams and aspirations? I’d love to hear them so please leave a comment below.
Topics: Richards Ramblings | No Comments »
I’ve just launched my first clickbank product. It’s called Pocket Money Profit and it shows you how I made over $1000 in my first month online. This is a great strategy to earn some pocket money for those little luxuries. Check out the video below then head over to http://www.PocketMoneyProfit.com to find out more.
Topics: Beginners Help | No Comments »
Before you even contemplate starting your own Internet Marketing business there is one thing that you need to do first that will be the foundation to your future success. You need to go out and find a hungry market AND you need to do this BEFORE you’ve even got a product.
Whatever you do don’t spend hours and loads of cash on developing a product if you don’t know who you’re going to sell it to.
This is the biggest mistake that many ‘future’ internet businesses make. And I don’t want you to be one of those.
You need to find a group of people who have a problem or what some call an itch.
And this itch is so great that this group of people will pay good money to have that itch scratched.
You need to find a group that are hungry for information and have a strong desire for a solution to their problem… and when you do you’ll find it a whole lot easier to make money than if you’d already got a product that you were trying to fit to a market.
Internet Marketing doesn’t work like that.
So how do you go about finding a hungry crowd?
My advice would be to start off with something you’re already interested in. If you have some knowledge of a subject at the start then you’ll find it a lot easier to give advice and solutions. Plus you might be talking or blogging about this subject for a long time so you don’t want to pick something that’s going to bore you stupid in a month or two.
Been there done that
So always, always always… (do you get how important this is?) find a hungry group of people BEFORE you spend any time or money on creating or buying a product.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’d like to share them with me then please leave a comment below.
Topics: Beginners Help, Marketing Tips | 2 Comments »
Hi everyone and welcome to my new blog.
You might be wondering who Richard Pargeter is… well since 2000 I was working as a professional artist selling my paintings worldwide making a decent living.
Then at the start of 2008 things started to slow down for me and I was beginning to feel TOTALLY burnt out by the whole painting pictures for a living thing.
After all I was the only person who could do the work.. if I was ill or on holiday I wouldn’t get paid… and to be honest I started to feel like a production line churning out the work.
On July 5th 2008 I decided I was going to make a break and I QUIT… pretty scary for me but I knew it was the right thing to do.
Since then I’ve been working full time on developing my Internet Business where I’ve just started to see the rewards of 12 months of searching for answers… I’ve read a vast amount of books, training programs, dvd’s, paid for monthly subscriptions. Built website after website trying different techniques.
And 1 year on… the fog from the information overload is starting to clear… I’ve FINALLY found a system that works!
Now you won’t get any hype from the INFORMATION I’m going to share with you… I’m going to tell you like it is, without the smoke and mirrors that you’ll get from some of the so-called gurus. In fact I’ll even tell you the negative sides too and hopefully you’ll be able to learn from where I went wrong and not make the same mistakes as I did.
I don’t want you to be put off by what I’m saying, after all I’m supposed to be giving you a warm welcome to my blog… but I’ll be honest, it’s not going to be easy and you’ll have to work pretty hard, but let me tell you we’ll have some great fun getting there.
Make sure you fill in your name and email in the form at the top of the page and you’ll be the first to receive updates.
I look forward to coaching you to build your Internet Business and start making money online as quickly as possible.
Make sure you check back regularly, I’ve got some great stuff lined up for you and wouldn’t want you to miss anything, okay?
Speak soon,